Abu Dhabi [UAE], November 30 : Fernando Alonso feels that Aston Martin had a chance to win both the Monaco and Dutch Grands Prix last season and that the team deserved to stand on the podium "more than anyone else" in 2023.
Alonso joined Aston Martin from Alpine over the winter, and his arrival coincided with a promotion from the Silverstone team, whose AMR23 finished second to Red Bull in the season's first races.
With four podium finishes in five races, Alonso believes Aston Martin first had a genuine shot at victory in Monaco, only to pit for another set of slick tyres as rain fell, rather than going straight to intermediates like eventual winner Max Verstappen, and lose valuable time.
A few races later, and following a drop in form from the green machine, a rain-soaked race at Zandvoort also provided plenty of opportunity, with Alonso pressing Verstappen during a late restart but falling short by a few seconds.
"I think it was possible," the two-time world champion was quoted as saying by Formula 1 when asked if a race win for himself and Aston Martin was possible this season.
"Probably Monaco was the closest, with a tyre call change or something. Maybe Zandvoort if we were in a different position in that restart or something. We probably had opportunities [to win] here and there, and yes, I believe that we deserve it more than anyone else this year," he added.
Alonso went on to examine the season's strengths and flaws, which included a leap from seventh to fifth in the constructors' standings and eight podium finishes courtesy of the Spaniard.
Pushed to name the biggest weakness Aston Martin must eliminate for 2024, in order to make another step forward, he said: "I think we need to find some consistency. Maybe one of the weak points was the car had to operate in a very narrow window. It's the same for everybody, but it seems that we're struggling a little bit and it would be nice if we could perform always at a stable level next year."
"Also, if we can improve the straight-line speed... I think that was, in performance numbers, our weak point, always [being] a little bit too slow on the straights. If we wanted to be as fast as the others, we needed to drop too much of the rear wing, and then we ended up slow in the corners as well, so that was probably the loop that we could not [get out of] this season. The strength was tyre degradation; I think on Sundays the car is very strong always. The execution of the strategy, the motivation of the team... We are a happy team, we are a young team, and we are celebrating every result as a win. This energy, it's important to keep it for next year," Alonso said.
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