Doubts and certainties of Fernando Alonso: can Aston Martin catch up with Mercedes and Ferrari?

• Closing at Sakhir Another step forward for Aston Martin

• First day Alonso, 29 thousandths behind Verstappen

Every winter, F1 teams repeat the same warning: the goal of pre-season testing is to lay the foundations for the future.

So any analysis has to focus more on the kilometers accumulated and the reliability of the engines than on the spectacular fast laps.

All data must be carefully evaluated.

However, neither would it be appropriate to ignore the striking growth of Aston Martin and

in the Bahrain tests.

A week before the start of the World Cup, the Anglo-Austrian team is shaping up to compete with Mercedes for the podium places left vacant by Red Bull and Ferrari.

The knock from Aston Martin, the main entertainer from Thursday to Saturday, has been even louder given the high level of the tests.

And it is that nothing seemed to escape the control of the engineers in Sakhir.

After just over 24 hours of activity on the track, the commissioners only had to display three red flags.

And even the most backward teams on the grid were around an average of 100 laps a day.

Nothing to do with those McLaren hardships in 2015 and 2017 or with Red Bull's hot flashes to adapt in 2014 to the demands of the hybrid era.

In this context of fierce competition, the AMR23 has stood out above the rest.

And the first surprised has been Alonso himself.

It is not that the Asturian was wary of the hours of strenuous work at the Silverstone factory or the talent of the staff incorporated throughout 2022, with

and

-from Red Bull and Mercedes- at the helm.

But after his recent fiascos at McLaren and Alpine, Alonso preferred to keep his optimism indoors.

He wanted to hide his cards so much that in the last long run on Saturday, the race simulation, he started with excessive caution.

And only when he discovered the fantastic positive momentum did he squeeze the power out of the car until he found an extremely competitive pace.

Drugovich's problem

Unlike last winter, when thick smoke exposed the structural deficiencies of his Alpine, Alonso has not suffered any serious damage at Sakhir.

Only a setback on the flat bottom, which did not prevent him from setting the lap record (270).

The main headache for Aston Martin was

's electronic problem during his first lap on Thursday and that ended up dropping him to the third from last place in the ranking, with 387 laps, far from the maximum for AlphaTauri (456).

Nothing worrying, in any case, for a car that, according to

during his presentation, has changed 95% compared to 2022. To that notice from the

was added another warning from Fallows: «Two thirds of the car will They will change during the season."

So with a strong foundation like this, every update should bring new momentum.

Although precedents are also remembered -ask at Ferrari- that point in the opposite direction.

In any case, anyone in the

knows that, as a starting point, a fast car is always preferable in pre-season.

Even if it breaks more times than another slow.

Therefore, it does not seem by chance that Alonso's last message in the tests pointed in that direction: "We feel that there is a long way to go from AMR23 and that we have not had enough time to show it here."

Neither Mercedes, as has been the norm in

, has wanted to offer too many clues, nor spend blanks.

One year after his stormy experience with porpoising

the aerodynamic concept of this W14 is not so groundbreaking.

McLaren doesn't seem to have hit the mark either, so the last team with a chance to climb to the top-3 is still Alpine.

And so far

,

, has only slipped, perhaps sarcastically, that they have not emptied the tank in search of a fast lap.

Fallows and Blandin

Whether or not they are relevant, there are those who have dared to draw parallels between Aston Martin and that Brawn GP of 2009, which coming out of nowhere and taking advantage of a loophole in the regulations made Jenson Button

.

Of course, the comparison seems exaggerated, although it is also not convenient to forget the spectacular recovery of the team after a terrible start in 2022 and the perfect coupling of their signings.

It seems evident that the design of the green car merges the most select of Red Bull and Mercedes.

And he does it for a simple reason: both Fallows and Blandin brought their best ideas from Milton Keynes and Brackley.

With Red Bull in a different orbit and no evidence that Ferrari or Mercedes have made enough progress,

seems in the best position to clinch his third crown, which would put him on a par with

,

,

,

and

.

In the middle of an all-out war between F1 and the FIA, the worst news for the World Cup would be that

deepened its overwhelming dominance over it.

Even so, thousands of fans dream that Alonso, a decade later, can add, at the age of 41, his 33rd victory in the Great Circus.

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