GrandPrix247 2023 Surprise of the Year: Aston Martin and McLaren

That was a tricky one to decide, as Aston Martin raised eyebrows when they turned up for pre-season testing with their AMR23, or as Christian Horner called it, the "Old Red Bull Car" after Fernando Alonso finished on the podium in Bahrain.

Aston Martin did the smart thing, unlike Mercedes, and copied the Red Bull concept for 2023, and with that taking a big shortcut from a low-midfield team in 2022 becoming the second fastest over the course of the winter.

It was an impressive feat by the developing Aston Martin team, and Alonso did not waste any time bagging five podiums in the six races, eight podiums in total over the course of the season, and all of a sudden everyone was talking about win 33 for the Spaniard.

But a combination of Max Verstappen dominance and Aston Martin's failure to develop their AMR23 properly, a late upgrade package backfiring and making the car worse.

That meant Alonso had to wait more for another win, and to make things worse, his results dropped as the seasons progressed with rivals catching up Mercedes at some point, Ferrari on other occasions and then... McLaren.

The Woking squad produced a mediocre car at best for their 60th anniversary season, the MCL60, which got the responsible for its design, James Key, fired.

But after that, and following some changes within the technical department ushered by new Team Principal Andrea Stella, the McLaren engineers were set on the right path and by Austria delivered what was effectively a B-spec MCL60 - the second surprise of the season.

If you consider Aston Martin making a huge performance gain over the winter a surprise, McLaren making effectively the same jump is an even bigger one.

Up to Austria, McLaren's best finish was a sixth place in Australia with Lando Norris, while they finished out of the top ten five times.

Just an indication of how good the upgrade was, Norris went from finishing 13th in Canada to fourth in Austria to second in Silverstone, and unlike Aston Martin, who seemed as if they didn't know why their AMR23 was fast to develop it, McLaren did and kept pushing Red Bull till the end of the season.

In the end, it remains to be seen what Aston Martin and McLaren do in 2024, will they surprise us again?