Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin are on Cloud 9 after a terrific start to the 2023 season. However, the Spaniard needs to be wary as his team, who are prone to huge swings in performance.
Sam Michael was the former chief designer at Jordan, Aston’s predecessor. The Australian engineer highlighted in F1’s recent podcast how Jordan and Force India have outperformed on track despite their limited budget.
Michael feels the Silverstone-based team has done a marvelous job this year by beating the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes. However, the Aussie gave a thoughtful warning to the high-flying world champion.
Former Jordan Engineer wants Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin’s lucky spell
Fernando Alonso has claimed 4 podiums in the opening 5 races of the 2023 season. However, Sam Michael believes Aston Martin has wild periods of ups and downs in their DNA.
Michael worked with Jordan during the late 90s when they were a midfield team. In the 1999 season, Jordan’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen was contesting for the driver’s championship. He was in the title race until the penultimate round and finished the season 3rd.
Here’s an interesting fact:
The Aston Martin squad which has its origins all the way back to Jordan F1 team hasn’t got back-to-back podiums since the 1999 F1 season.
This also means Alonso (at the current moment) has the second best start to a season in the team’s history. pic.twitter.com/ohAxaz3ZRs
— ＲＡ２５１１ 🦅 (@The__RA2511) March 21, 2023
Michael claimed Aston’s current spell is similar to Jordan’s 1999 miracle. He said on the ‘F1 Beyond The Grid Podcast’, “If you look through the history of Jordan, Force India, Aston Martin, they have this history of boom and bust. No other team has a history of peaks and troughs as they do, but that goes back to their Jordan days.”
Jordan was eventually sold to Midlands which became the Force India team in 2008. Force India managed to stay afloat despite being under financial stress. They regularly managed to fight the big teams in their limited budget until Lawrence Stroll brought in his investments and renamed the team.
How Aston Martin plans to sustain 2023 form
Despite being 41 years old, Fernando Alonso feels he has a couple more years of racing left in him. The Spaniard is also confident that Aston Martin can their first race ever in the 2023 season and his first race in over a decade.
Alonso also claims the team in green will be ready to fight for the title in a couple of years. He has even labeled his teammate Lance Stroll as “World champion” material.
With Red Bull dominating F1, Aston’s most realistic chance to fight for the championship will come in 2026, when the regulations change. And the Silverstone-based team has already drawn a plan to chase their goal.
Aston Martin has announced Honda as their power unit supplier from the 2026 season onwards. Honda previously provided engines to the title-winning Red Bull team. This is also a major step taken by the team who were known to be Mercedes’s customer team.
Team owner Lawrence Stroll has already committed $250 Million toward their new base. The upcoming state-of-the-art facility will also host a full-fledged wind tunnel. This will allow the team to step up into the big leagues as a front-runner for their maiden F1 title.
