After the epic show of strength in 2022, Max Verstappen and Red Bull arrived in 2023 with a lot of promise. After three days of testing, it looked like the Austrian team will once again run away with both championships. However, then came the two practice sessions on Friday and they realized the going might get tougher this time around. However, the competition hasn’t shown up from the usual quarters like Ferrari or Mercedes. It’s Fernando Alonso who is taking the world of F1 by storm once again after many years. The same man, Verstappen, once talked about missing the opportunity to race against at the very top. Well, looks like the racing gods have heard him and thrown him and his team a curveball.

Aston Martin finished 7th in the constructors’ championship last year. Therefore, no one expected them to compete for the glory anytime soon. However, the AMR23 turned out to be a head-turner from the moment it hit the tarmac. In FP1 in Bahrain, Alonso finished 2nd fastest overall, separating Sergio Perez and his Dutch teammate. In FP2, the Spaniard upped his performance to finish the quickest, leaving Verstappen and Co. scratching their heads.

Speaking after the final session on Friday, as quoted by Motorsport Dutch, Max said, “They are fast, but we already saw in the test that they are very competitive. They had a good day and as I said we still have some work to do, although we still have a very competitive car. that we put all the puzzle pieces in the right place.” [Translated using Google]

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The Flying Dutch also spoke about the car not feeling right in the first session. However, as the day progressed, he managed to adapt.

Max Verstappen is confident they can bounce back on Saturday

During the FP1 session, Max talked about the car lacking balance on the team radio. Later, in the interview, he revealed that the car somehow did not feel great in single laps. However, once it got into the groove in longer runs, it felt much better.

He told, “The first free practice was really bad and that’s kind of crazy, because during the test days almost everything we tried felt good. The start of the second practice was also difficult, but my last fast lap wasn’t that bad, even though I then had no reference and had to rebuild confidence in the car.”

“The car felt better at the end. We had a difficult start, but eventually we went in the right direction. Now it looks much better.”

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If the car really is not performing too well in single laps or short runs, Verstappen could once again face difficult qualifying sessions as he did last year. But again, if the car does perform much better in longer runs, he could well replicate 2022’s performances where he won despite starting the race from as far back as P10 and P14.