The cars are already traveling to Bahrain by cargo plane. The belongings from the garage went by boat weeks ago. Formula 1 gets underway with the pre-season tests (February 23-25) and the first Grand Prix of the year (March 5) and all the teams aspire to the same thing: to improve. Some more than others. In the case of Aston Martin, that gassy goal forces to change the 7th place in constructors for a top-5 in addition to adding points with great regularity, fighting for the occasional podium and having details of a large team, at the level of Alonso.
“I am very demanding in everything I do, I expect a lot from the people I work with because I give one hundred percent, I expect the same. From the first day at Aston Martin I felt exactly that”, Fernando himself told AS during the presentation of the AMR23, a car that has caught the attention of rivals judging by the comments this medium has received. The presence of the Spaniard at the Silverstone factory during the winter weeks has revitalized the staff, the top managers of the firm in Formula 1 convey.
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Dan Fallows, expressly signed technical director of Red Bull: “Fernando is immensely motivated and he pushes us because he wants to do really well. Before the presentation he spent four hours in the simulator, in addition to everything he already had to do that day”. Mike Krack, ‘main team’, speaks along the same lines, who does not accept the reputation of a complicated personality in the garage: “He is a fast, experienced, honest and transparent driver. I follow? It’s only the first few days, but we really like his demanding attitude because he pushes us. He is the only way to progress on the grid. If the car is not where we want it, there will be difficult conversations, but we will have to be prepared, because we do not hide and You cannot hide in front of Fernando Alonso. We are open and transparent, I don’t expect problems”.
“Fernando has told us that we must keep our feet on the ground”
According to Tom McCullough, director of performance, the star signing of Alonso is also an incentive for the personnel who work at the Silverstone plant. Tom. “Fernando drags, he is absolutely focused. He’s efficient when he talks, when he describes the car, when he describes the steering wheel setup he wants. His level on the track is incredible throughout his entire career regardless of the car he had. He is always there, in qualifying and the race, and you hear him on the radio and he is advancing the race strategy. The hunger that I see in Fernando impresses me, he is a force for all of us. I see hunger in all the engineers with a driver who drags you like that.
Alonso stresses that fighting for victories in 2023 “is not realistic”, but it should be in 2024. Fallows picks up the gauntlet: “I am glad that Fernando is confident in this team. The key is to progress realistically. We respect our rivals a lot. We must show constant progression for this project to go in the right direction.” Krack, for his part, prefers to talk about less specific objectives following the example of his pilot: “Fernando has also told us that we must keep our feet on the ground and it is very important for everyone. Making predictions of victories and titles is not the way to act at this time.