Fernando Alonso seems to already be loving life as an Aston Martin driver, following a season full of reliability issues at Alpine.
The double World Champion endured the most horrific luck in 2022, with the Spaniard having endured some sort of reliability-based issue at the vast majority of the races.
Last Sunday’s season finale at the Yas Marina Circuit was no different, as the Spaniard was forced to retire from his final race with Alpine.
Alpine’s biggest issue in 2022 has been their power unit, which is undeniably powerful but absolutely woeful in regard to reliability.
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Alonso suffered a catastrophic number of power unit-related issues last season, which, resulted in a fair few grid penalties throughout the season.
With that in mind, Alonso has revealed how “concerned” he was before the post-season test at Abu Dhabi due to the mileage on the AMR22 that he was set to drive.
Unlike at Alpine, though, it appears that Aston Martin’s engine is incredibly reliable, after he completed 97 laps with his new side without an issue.
“Yeah. When they told me the mileage of the engine on Monday night, I was concerned,” admitted Alonso.
“I said that number is a little bit high for my standards, but we did 97 laps, no problem so it’s outstanding.”
Alonso’s relationship with Alpine arguably broke down almost completely in the closing rounds of the season, with the team’s poor reliability a common source of the 41-year-old’s frustrations.
He revealed at the season finale and at the Brazilian Grand Prix that he was looking forward to leaving the Enstone-based team and joining the Silverstone-based team, with the Spanish driver “much more optimistic now” following the post-season test.
“I’m much more optimistic now,” said Alonso.
“When I signed for Aston Martin, I was 90 percent happy.
“When they started improving and they finished the season on a high, I was 100 percent, now I’m 100 plus,” he insisted.
“There was nothing that really surprised me.
“The car behaved well, although we have some concerns about the steering feedback.”
A potential issue that had been flagged by Alonso and Aston Martin has supposedly already been dealt with, after Alonso revealed that the duo had “some concerns” over the design of the team’s steering wheel.
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However, he has since stated that the design “felt okay” in the test so doesn’t need changing, something which will likely come as a relief to both parties.
“The first year, we [Alpine] had to work a lot – nearly five months – on the steering assistance, on feedback,” the Spaniard added.
“So we [with Aston Martin] had some concerns that we spoke about over the last few weeks so it was a happy surprise I felt okay with Aston’s system and we don’t need to change it.”