Fernando Alonso’s first day at Aston Martin

After making his Minardi debut in 2001, Fernando Alonso spent three seasons with Renault F1 (Alpine, third time), two with McLaren and one with Ferrari – and is now beginning a new era for the 41-year-old with a fifth for the sports team, Aston Martin F1.

Alonso this week made his first visit to the England team’s facilities opposite Silverstone circuit, which will be replaced over the next two years by the team’s brand new factory on the same site.

On his first visit to his new team, the Spaniard received a tour and met the members of the team. Among them were two old acquaintances from Alonso’s first stint with McLaren in 2007. Former F1 driver and compatriot Pedro de la Rosa, who recently joined the Aston Martin F1 marketing team, and veteran management Martin Whitmarsh.

Whitmarsh was operations manager for the Woking team at the time and although things took a very lopsided turn between McLaren and the Spaniard that year, their embrace after a decade and a half was quite warm and joyous.

The team then made a mold of his body to build his racing seat in the new Aston Martin AMR23 for next season’s Formula One, and then the 41-year-old entered the simulator – which will also be replaced within the next year with a new and much more advanced.

We recall that Alonso had already met the people of the Aston Martin F1 racing team when he was testing Sebastian Vettel’s AMR22 car in Abu Dhabi – at the end of November, just after the finale of the 2022 season. And he declared at the time that he was enthusiastic about what he had experienced and learned from his new team.

Since then, the 41-year-old has completed an intensive training and fitness program. Next, his schedule includes a two-day test on behalf of Pirelli with last year’s Aston Martin car – on February 7th and 8th at the Jerez circuit – then the presentation of the new AMR23 on February 13th and finally winter testing of the new one of the car on 23.-25.02. in Bahrain.