Double World Champion Fernando Alonso is seemingly loving the start of his life with Aston Martin, with the Spaniard having conducted an exceptional second day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit.
The 41-year-old completed an astonishing 130 laps in Bahrain on Friday, with the team’s new driver having completed both sessions, before handing the car back to reserve driver Felipe Drugovich Saturday morning.
Alonso will get his final opportunity behind the wheel of the AMR23 before next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix in the afternoon, where he’ll continue to “learn so many things”.
Reflecting on the second day of testing, Alonso revealed that he “felt great” and was very “happy” with how his new car is performing.
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“Yeah, it was good,” said Alonso, as reported by Formula1.com.
“Obviously, a lot of laps today so it was very much needed, the new car, also for me after a long winter; I did one day in Jerez over the winter with the old car and now today is really the first day with a lot of laps.
“So you learn so many things, and it felt great, so, happy with today.”
Alonso is certainly entering the forthcoming season on top of his game, with Aston Martin having been dubbed by many as a team who could go as far as challenging Mercedes come next weekend.
The team and the Spaniard are looking like a formidable duo, with the former Alpine driver entering the new season in great shape, thanks to having completed so many laps.
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“It felt good. It felt good,” Alonso continued, “because obviously you’ve been training for so long over the winter and now you jump in the car and there’s still some muscles that you need to adapt and there is no better training than driving the car.
So now I feel fitter and I feel great for the race so it was a good day also in that regard.”
Reportedly, the Spanish driver missed dinner yesterday in order to continue looking over data, highlighting just how determined Alonso is to find every “thousandth” ahead of the first Grand Prix of the 2023 season.
“That goat is not going to dinner because it is looking for the thousandth. THE THOUSANDTH!” revealed F1 en Movistar Plus+, who shared a clip of F1 reporter Antonio Lobato.