Aston Martin was the big surprise in Formula 1 at the start of the season, but the racing team was unable to maintain its good form throughout the year
Aston Martin was the big surprise of the first half of the 2023 Formula 1 season. After finishing behind Alfa Romeo last year, they outperformed almost all the competition over the winter to become the first challenger to the dominant Red Bull team
Whoever had dismissed Fernando Alonso’s third place at the season opener in Bahrain as a fluke was quickly proven wrong. The Spaniard finished on the podium six times in the first eight races and even gave many fans vague hopes of winning the world championship.
The competition took Aston Martin as an example and tried to find out how the racing team was able to make up so much ground over the winter.
However, the team was unable to maintain its good form throughout the year. Aston Martin fell back significantly over the course of the season. Although they were still a clear contender for regular points, only two more podiums were possible for Alonso after the Canadian Grand Prix.
Meanwhile, team-mate Lance Stroll was looking for his form in the second half of the season. The Canadian regularly finished in Q1 after surprising everyone with his perseverance at the start of the season and achieving some impressive results despite the hand injury he sustained in a bike accident
In the end, however, Aston Martin had to admit defeat even to McLaren, who felt they had overslept the start of the season and only turned up the heat in the summer.
Aston Martin itself, on the other hand, did not deliver much performance, even though they kept coming up with ideas – such as the small fly wing in the crash structure, which even required a new jack. However, this mistake was quickly mothballed again.
In our photo gallery, we take a look at the tricks Aston Martin used to make its AMR23 so fast that it was Red Bull’s biggest challenger at the beginning