Aston Martin’s new model has already revealed its major gains

In the opening stages of last season Aston Martin were stuck with a woefully slow car that was a troublesome beast to drive. Having committed early last year to building an entirely new model for 2023, they have found almost two seconds of time on track, an unheard of gain in modern F1.

At the Sakhir circuit, this leapfrogged them across the grid in a mighty bound. Fernando Alonso topped the timesheets in practice and claimed fifth in qualifying to beat both the Mercedes drivers. His teammate, Lance Stroll, driving with a broken wrist, managed eighth on the grid. In the race on Sunday, the Spaniard was indomitable, coming back from seventh to third in potentially the second-quickest car behind the Red Bulls.

Their achievement will make for painful viewing at Mercedes, but much more so at midfield rivals McLaren and Alpine, who have been striving for a similar step-up for far longer and with bugger budgets. The transformation the team principal, Mike Krack, has overseen has been remarkable and with a new factory and new wind tunnel facility at Silverstone to come online this year, there is an expectation Aston Martin will become even stronger.

There remains a good shout Alonso could yet, with good fortune and the wind in the right direction, take a win this year. After the showing in Bahrain he is highly unlikely to be retiring anytime soon.

Mercedes were cautious about their chances for a quick resurgence this season. They admitted they got it wrong in 2022, warning that this year’s car was not quite where they wanted it to be, but believing they would yet unleash its potential. To have been overtaken by Aston Martin and for the chasm to Red Bull to have widened even further was far worse than they expected.

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