On New Year’s Eve, Fernando Alonso has decided to look back on what was a historic year for him. The Spaniard registered a total of eight podiums to cross the 100 mark in his illustrious career. During one of his podiums, he also shared the stage with longtime rival Lewis Hamilton and newly crowned three-time champion Max Verstappen.
In the first couple of slides of his post, he can be seen expressing his emotions of joy. Alonso was ecstatic for most of the 2023 campaign after he endured several struggles over the past decade.
After leaving Ferrari in 2014 and before joining Aston Martin this year, he only clinched one podium (2021 Qatar GP with Alpine). Meanwhile, in Alonso’s third slide, he posts an image of himself celebrating his feat of achieving 100 F1 podiums, a feat he completed in Jeddah.
Following this slide, there are some more podium moments Alonso experienced. Since it was such a special season for Alonso, he had no other way to caption his post other than saying “gracias” (thank you) to his Aston Martin team.
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Considering the struggles that the team from Silverstone faced in their last couple of seasons, 2023 was indeed a special year for the entire side. In their last couple of seasons, Aston Martin only managed to finish the championship in seventh and scored fewer than 80 points in both campaigns.
However, in 2023, they managed to finish fifth and scored a whopping 280 points. Moreover, had the team not taken the wrong direction in the development of the car in the second half of the season, they could have also challenged the likes of Mercedes for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Aston Martin and Alonso will now hope to perform even better in 2024.
Why did Fernando Alonso join Aston Martin?
Since Alpine had been performing significantly better than Aston Martin over the past few seasons, only a few would have thought that Fernando Alonso would join the Silverstone-based team. However, Lawrence Stroll’s ambitions for Aston Martin convinced the Spaniard to join them.
In November 2023, Alonso revealed the chat with Stroll convinced him it was the right time to move to Aston Martin. As quoted by GQ Magazine, Alonso said, “Facts were supporting Lawrence’s words. I thought it was a logical move for me if I wanted to aim for something higher than my previous team. It didn’t take long for us to join forces“.
Final 2023 thoughts from @alo_oficial. #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/8vXLUDKF8t
— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) November 26, 2023
One of the primary reasons Alonso left Alpine was because he did not feel appreciated at the French outfit. Alpine had offered Alonso only a one-year deal but the Spaniard wanted more. As a result, he eventually decided to join Aston Martin, who offered him a two-year contract.
Since Aston Martin have been on the rise, Alonso will hope to register his much-awaited 33rd victory next year. The last time that the two-time champion won a race was back at the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.
