Fernando Alonso revealed he missed the feedback of his teammate Lance Stroll at the Bahrain Formula 1 pre-season test, as he’s the one who could compare the team’s new car with the old one.
Lance Stroll suffered from a injury after being in a cycling accident ahead of last week’s Bahrain F1 pre-season test which he had to skip, with his participation at the 2023 season opener, held in Bahrain as well, is also in doubt.
Aston Martin confirmed that their reserve driver, and 2022 Formula 2 Champion Felipe Drugovich – who shared driving duties in pre-season testing with Fernando Alonso – will drive the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix for the team should Stroll be deemed unfit to drive.
Aston Martin had a decent test, their AMR23 apparently a big improvement from its predecessor but Alonso admitted he missed feedback from Stroll during the test.
“We are learning a lot about the car, I think this car is very different compared to last year,” he said, quoted by Motorsport.com. “We are changing a lot of things.
“Unfortunately we don’t have Lance, because that would be a benefit for us. We miss him here because some of the changes we’re making to the car, we don’t know if it’s this car, or it’s just an Aston Martin thing that for me feels different.
“So it’s not ideal, but hopefully he can give us some feedback soon, and we can make some progress,” the Spaniard maintained.
Stroll can compare the old and the new car
Asked to explain how exactly Stroll’s missing feedback would help; Alonso said: “It hurts a lot. I think we miss him because some of my comments or my feelings with the car, we never know if it’s just me in a new team and a new car, or it’s just maybe an Aston Martin thing that Lance would spot.
“So brake pedal feeling, power steering…all these things I don’t know if this is a legacy from the team, or is just new on this car. So yeah, we cannot do it without him, so I hope he can come back soon,” he added.
Reflecting on the test, and the AMR23; the double F1 Champion said: “I think so far the car was responding well to the set-up changes.
“It was doing what we were expecting. The only thing is that the baseline set-up from last year is pretty much useless, because we operate in a very different window with this car.
“So that’s very challenging now for the engineers, but they were very brave, very creative with different ideas in the last few days, and we found new ways to set up the car.
“We have very talented people in the team, so I trust them, and we will get more and more productive,” the former Alpine driver concluded.