Aston Martin really said “Yes! Bye, bye!” as it took a huge leap over the midfield, which became the talk of the town in Bahrain as Fernando Alonso took the podium following Charles Leclerc’s retirement. And while Aston Martin may have revamped its car over the winter, Fernando Alonso isn’t ready to take his foot off the gas pedal just yet. As the season unfolds, the Spanish driver is relentlessly pushing for improvements, determined to transform his team into a formidable contender for the championship.

However, he knows the reality. He understands the challenges that will go into building a championship-worthy car and also acknowledges that the team isn’t there yet. Being the perfectly reasonable driver that he is, Alonso has set a realistic goal, something with which even Max Verstappen would agree.

Although Alonso finished third, he was almost 39 seconds behind Max, which promptly provided a reality check to everyone. Speaking about the difference between Red Bull and Aston Martin, the Spaniard was quoted by Formula 1 as saying, “On the race pace, obviously we lost time in the first stint. I just sat behind the Mercedes. In the middle stint, I had to pass George [Russell] and Valtteri [Bottas], and then in final stint I had to pass Lewis and Carlos.”

“All in all, I’m sure that you lose 10 or 15 seconds on all those battles, so if we are 40 seconds behind the leader, we could have been maybe 20 seconds or 30 seconds [behind], so not a real fight yet to Red Bull…”

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Max and Red Bull were in a whole new league, as they seemed formidable and the ultimate target for the rest of the grid.

Aston Martin in sync with Fernando Alonso

Alonso and Aston Martin have hit off instantly, something that no one would have expected in their wildest dreams. And with the beginning of the season, all seems to be going too well in the green team, so much so that everyone is on the same page in terms of reality and expectations.

Singing the same song as Alonso was the team’s boss, Mike Krack, who was quoted by Motorsport as saying, “I think the gap is still substantial. We don’t know how much management that Red Bull had to do and did. I think it was quite comfortable for them to just get the mandatory tires through and cruise the race to the end. So I think we have now one good result, we have improved our car.”

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Everything so far seems to have landed as per Aston Martin’s terms. A good start was all that they needed to keep the morale high. Even if they continue to be a challenger for Ferrari, let alone Red Bull, over the course of the season, that’d be a huge success in everybody’s book.