【F1 Topic】Old and strong~Alonso is still too far from retirement

The opening two rounds were won by Red Bull, even 1-2. This is about to become a trend in recent years, and it is not new. But no one expected that the third place: the driver with the most races in the history of F1 in his early years Driving the original middle and lower reaches of the racing car, he even got on the podium for two consecutive races...

sinceSince the Aston Martin brand returned to the F1 field in 2021, Sebastien Vettel stood on the podium in second place at the sixth station of the year, but it was only once in the past two years; and after Vettel announced his retirement, this year with another The former champion driver Fernando Alonso led the race, and even got on the podium at the opening station! Considering that the team’s predecessor, Racing Point, ranked 4th in the championship in the last year, and won 7th for two consecutive years after the name change, it is a bit reluctant to say that the mid-level team is a bit reluctant. Is such a result a strength now?

Even if the mid-range team is concerned, the record of being on the podium is short-lived, but if they are on the podium for two consecutive races, it cannot be said that it is all luck-especially under the premise that almost all the previous teams have finished the race (also That is, it was not picked up)──And those "former train teams" also include the Mercedes team, Aston Martin's power supplier, and even the two teams are currently tied for second in the standings! If the power supplier's factory team outperforms its own customer team, it is obvious that the latter has done better in other parts, which is quite embarrassing for the factory team.

A quick way for mid-stream teams

Aston Martin paid tribute to Red Bull’s body side box design in the middle of last season. At that time, it was also jokingly called “Green Bull” and “AMRB” (the English prefix of Aston Martin’s racing model is AMR, while Red Bull is RB), but The design of the championship team is of course the Holy Grail. This year, as mentioned in the previous preview, apart from the Mercedes team and Ferrari and its customer teams Alfa Romeo and Haas, other teams have more or less "imitated" Red Bull's body side boxes (after all, it is the holy grail!) .

But Aston Martin is more than that: the heat dissipation part on the side box also refers to the concave shape of Ferrari, which can be said to be the culmination of the advantages of each company. Only the rear half of the body uses the interior of Mercedes due to the relationship between the power brand. And this is the only place where Mercedes is "right"—everything else is wrong—although Aston Martin copied from east to west, they all have the right key points. This approach has made their performance in the winter test a blockbuster.

Although F1 has a famous saying that "winter testing cannot be trusted", the mid-range team's success in winter testing is usually regarded as a flash in the pan, which may not be the case after the actual season starts, but Aston Martin's practice session at the opening station is also very eye-catching. It can be said to be a flash in the pan, and it may not be the case in the official game, but the team won 5th and 8th in qualifying, you can still say it was a flash in the pan, and the final may not be like this, and the finals ran 3rd, 6── Surrounded by strong enemies, each advanced two—is it easy? Not to mention that they are not inferior to the former train team, they are already counted as the former train team!

Once is not enough?then twice

One podium record can still be said to be a flash in the pan──How long will we have to stop believing in evil──What about two consecutive times? Moreover, the real ranking of the second qualifying race was better than that of the opening race, winning 3rd and 6th. Lance Stroll, who retired due to a failure in the final, once occupied the 4th place. This kind of racing power should not be a flash in the pan. The future competition is just to see how much room for upgrades this "almost non-original" car can have, but at least take advantage of the confusion at the beginning of the season to get some points to lay the groundwork.

Under such a premise, the blessing of the former champion driver has a leading role in the locomotive: Although Alonso is already "old" 41, he is not only the driver with the most races in F1 history, but also the oldest active driver, but his fighting spirit has never been It hasn't faded due to getting older-it's not "leggy" at all-it just depends on whether there is a good car for him to play, and even if he drives a car with poor combat power, he can still see him doing everything he can. It drove to the best, and even exceeded your original expectations for it, so the industry still has great confidence in him.

But Alonso’s last podium was in Alpine in 2021, and the last time was in 2014 in Hungary (Ferrari), which shows that he has been bored for a long time, after all, when you haven’t been on the podium for seven years At that time, no one would believe that you could be on the podium again, and this year's opening two races also made him the sixth driver in the history of F1 to be on the podium 100 times, once again proving that his own strength is beyond doubt , It’s really just a lack of a good car! Alonso has been judged to have no vision of choosing a team, and this time he is finally washed away?

Higher expectations on the podium

Vettel came to Aston Martin in 2021. At that time, he was considered to be in a difficult situation. Perhaps he saw that the team owner Lawrence Stroll invested heavily in the transformation of the team, but of course it will take time to reap the results. Vettel endured for two years and finally retired. The result is embarrassing The most important thing is that this year proved that two years is not long enough──and it was just a little bit──When he handed over the seat to Alonso, he immediately ushered in the blooming period of the team. A driver who will not be consumed by bad cars is waiting for this kind of opportunity.

Of course, it may be too early to say that Alonso finally has the vision of accurate team selection (still not convinced?)--after all, this is only the opening two stops--but such a start is enough, and it can definitely Let him add to his already full motivation. After all, before this year, the interval between his first two podiums took seven years! But in such a space of imagination, some people began to expect him to have the opportunity to stand on the center of the podium again after 10 years since his last victory? That depends on whether Red Bull "cooperates".

The team that arranged 1-2 in the opening two races was actually mentioned by me at the end of the article: Although Red Bull's performance in the opening season of this year is stronger than last season when they regained the double championship, it is not completely smooth. There will be a few good rate hiccups, but you'll get over it eventually, and then you can expect that just once in the season's 23 stops -- if only once -- the Red Bulls will both fail. Wings), maybe there is hope to see another pair of wings (Aston Martin's factory emblem) rising in the middle of the podium.

Wang Yiping