(Motorsports news) In 2023, Alonso made the audacious decision to switch from Alpine to Aston Martin, and he was rewarded with a competitive car that produced six podium finishes in the first eight races of the season. Following the summer break, he added two more podium finishes to tie Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for fourth place in the drivers’ standings.

With eight podiums, the Spaniard trails only eventual winner Max Verstappen and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in the standings, and leads McLaren’s Lando Norris by one top-three finish in 2023. Alonso feels his squad would have been the most deserving of a victory after their improvement from 2022, even though they only finished in third position, as opposed to Norris’ six.

His closest call occurred in Monaco, where Alonso was only able to secure pole position and a perfect opportunity to turn it into a victory on the winding course thanks to a fantastic final sector from Verstappen. He was further deprived of a chance to overtake the Dutchman following a contentious decision to pit for mediums on a track that was starting to get wet during the grand prix.

“I believe that was conceivable. Monaco was most likely the closest, according to Alonso. Perhaps changing the tire call or something else could have made a difference. Perhaps Zandvoort, if that restart had happened in a different place or something. “Every now and again, we had chances. And I think we were the ones who earned it the most this year.”

Despite his team’s perplexing lack of success towards the conclusion of the season, Alonso still sees “only positives” from 2023, even if McLaren overtook Aston Martin as the season’s surprise package after the summer break. The lack of competitiveness caused it to fall to fifth place behind the Woking team, proving, in Alonso’s opinion, that the Silverstone team is not yet ready to be regarded as the best.

“I see only positives and those struggles I think are part of the job and part of the journey of this team,” said the 42-year-old. “We got off to a great start with the car, which was surprisingly competitive—in fact, the improvement from last year to this year may have surprised us. And after that, we might have found ourselves in a situation for which we were unprepared.

Fighting at a level that they are accustomed to, against strong teams like Mercedes and Ferrari. We may have taken a slight detour in the car’s development during the season. We discovered that we were a little less competitive and that we are not yet at the top level. Overall, though, it seemed unimaginable to consider the campaign we ran a year ago at this point.

“I remember perfectly the test last year after Abu Dhabi with the team and if someone had told me that we would be in this position, I would not have believed it.”

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