Double World Champion and new Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso has praised his team for launching their actual 2023 car at their launch event, with the team having opted for a traditional car launch.
A theme of the 2023 launch season has been that teams have opted to simply reveal their livery, not their actual car set for Bahrain.
Most sides have used a model of their 2022 car to show off their new livery, in a bid to give absolutely nothing away.
Aston Martin on the other hand, used their actual 2023 car – the AMR23 – at their launch event, which was held at their new Silverstone-based factory.
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Whilst the British side weren’t the first this season to hold a launch event, they were one of the first to unveil their actual car, something Alonso believes “the fans will appreciate”.
“I think the fans will appreciate that we launched the real car,” he explained to media, as quoted by RacingNews365.
“It is sometimes disappointing to see a show car with different stickers, so this team is just more fair on everything.”
Aston Martin technical director Dan Fallows added on Alonso’s comments and admitted that the team were “very keen” to use the car which would be used in their shakedown test, with the side also wanting to demonstrate to their fans that the team “do want them to see the real car”.
“We obviously have a very aggressive development programme,” Fallows said.
“Although we’re restricted by the cost cap, we do want to be continually putting parts on the car as quickly as we possibly can.
“But we were very keen that the car we launched is the car that will shake down, and it will be with some very minor adjustments perhaps in Bahrain.
“That’s the key thing for us. I think it’s important to show to our fans that we do want them to see the real car.
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“I think it’s very difficult from a personal point of view, standing around looking at last year’s car, to say: ‘Well this is obviously different, the sticker’s different!’
“That was a big thing for us.
“We’re very fortunate to have built up a very strong fan base over the last couple of years, and I think it was very important to us that we gave them something, as well as media and our families.”