Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, and Aston Martin enjoy a dream start to the 2023 F1 season

Coming out of pre-season testing ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season, expectations began to grow regarding Aston Martin. Despite the absence of driver Lance Stroll due to a training injury, and in spite of an early red flag for reserve driver Felipe Drugovich in the very first practice session, the team and their 2023 challenger, the AMR23, looked like one of the strongest teams throughout three days of testing in Bahrain.

Their success over those three days led some to believe that Aston Martin could make a push for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship when all is said and done.

After the season-opening event? Fourth might be the floor for this team.

It was a dream start for Aston Martin at the Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday, as Fernando Alonso finished in third position, and Stroll — shaking off his injury and the subsequent wrist surgery along with a broken toe — finished in sixth.

For Alonso, it was his first podium since the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix. Stroll’s sixth-place finish was his best since the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix.

Speaking after the Bahrain Grand Prix, Alonso himself seemed surprised by the team’s start to the year. “It’s a perfect start for this project. We didn’t expect to be that competitive. I think the aim in 2023 was to get in the mix with the midfield, maybe leading that midfield and get close to the top three teams eventually.”

“Even a podium maybe was not on the radar in 2023, and we found ourselves with the second best car today in Bahrain, of the whole weekend, just behind Red Bull. This is a little bit of a surprise, but we are extremely proud, happy with the job done at Silverstone in the factory,” added Alonso. “A big congratulations to everyone. Let’s enjoy this moment and build from here hopefully a good 2023 campaign, and get closer and closer to the top guys.”

The dream start looked impossible early in the race, when Stroll drove into the back of Alonso in Turn 4 on the opening lap of the race. That saw Alonso, who qualified in fifth, slide back into sixth place. The collision also called into question Stroll’s AMR23, and whether he was having a braking problem.

However, both drivers shook off the early incident and began to power their way up the field. Perhaps the best racing of the evening, on a night where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen powered his way to a 1-2 lockout for the team, as Sergio Perez finished in second behind him, came late in the race as Alonso and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes battled for position. It was a battle that Alonso eventually won, and when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc retired early, it opened the door for Alonso’s podium finish.

This dream start might have the team — and us in the media — recalibrating their expectations for Aston Martin this season. The team leaves Bahrain and heads to Jeddah for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix sitting in second place, behind Red Bull at the top of the Constructors’ table:

But Sunday’s finish at Sakhir has Alonso starting to believe that bigger things could be possible.

“Let’s see. I had this same feeling from testing, like too good to be true, and you’re always expecting that… you will get a step back and you will get back to reality. But it seems real, the performance,” Alonso said after the Bahrain Grand Prix. “Let’s see in Jeddah. I’m curious to go to Jeddah and Australia – very different circuits. I think in Bahrain we were strong in things that maybe we don’t find in Jeddah and Australia. If we are strong in the next two races, I think we will have a very good 2023.”