Aston Martin looking forward to welcoming 'tenacious' Fernando Alonso into 2023 fold

Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough said they were looking forward to getting Fernando Alonso's competitive edge into their team for the 2023 Formula 1 season.

In what was termed a "shock move" just before the summer break, Aston Martin confirmed that Alonso would join them from the Alpine team for the 2023 F1 season.

The 41-year-old Alonso is a two-time F1 World Champion, winning the titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, and has been racing for the Alpine F1 team since joining in 2021.

His racing pedigree and competitiveness shone, though, and he finished the 2021 season 10th in the drivers' standings with 81 points, including a podium.

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Looking forward

So far, during the current campaign, Alonso is placed ninth on 51 points with six races remaining. Alonso will replace four-time F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin, who is retiring.

In an interview, McCullough clarified why they were so drawn to getting Alonso as part of the Aston Martin setup, explaining: "Watching him from the outside this year and last year, he's particularly competitive and really wanting to do well. We see the job he's doing at Alpine week-in, week-out."

"Really looking forward to getting him into our team. To see what we can learn with him and how he can help continue to drive us forwards. I expect him to be there, week-in, week-out, getting the most out of the car in qualifying, racing really well.

"He's a very tenacious racer: you saw in Zandvoort, at one point, the way the timing of the Virtual Safety Car and Safety Cars had gone, he found himself in the middle of a tight midfield bunch on older Soft tyres than others - but he