Race engineer shares the first thing Fernando Alonso said when he joined Aston Martin

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When two-time champion Fernando Alonso joined Aston Martin ahead of the 2023 season, a few eyebrows were raised.

The Silverstone-based team only re-entered the sport in 2021, but have had a former champion within their ranks every year they’ve competed in F1.

Race engineer Chris Cronin has now shared what it was like when Alonso first joined the team.

The merry-go-round of drivers in F1 going into this season was particularly interesting.

Sebastian Vettel’s retirement set off a chain reaction of movement with Alonso deciding it was the right time to leave Alpine.

They attempted to promote Oscar Piastri from within, but he moved to McLaren to replace Daniel Ricciardo who is now back on the grid with AlphaTauri after Pierre Gasly’s replacement Nyck de Vries was sacked halfway through the season.

It was still a real surprise to see Alonso join Aston Martin for the 2023 season, but the partnership started incredibly well.

The team had only achieved one podium in their first two seasons back in F1 but Alonso finished in the top three six times in the first eight races.

It all comes down to their preparation in the off-season and Alonso is a master at setting a car up and helping a team develop their vehicle.

How Alonso set up Aston Martin for success in 2023

Talking about the Spaniard’s influence on the team from the first moment he joined them, Cronin said: “The first three to six months of building a relationship and understanding each other and finding out how you can help each other to do the best job possible is one of the most difficult phases.

“You try to get to a point as quickly as possible where you’re only passing on information that’s really helpful, that makes a difference – that makes them move faster.

“There’s a lot of extraneous stuff that a driver thinks they need to know, but they don’t need to know. It just dilutes the information they need to focus on.

“When Fernando arrived, he immediately said: ‘This is exactly what I like and what helps me to be fast’.

“Having that kind of guidance shortens the familiarisation process, whereas with younger drivers it might take a little longer to find out what they need.”

The 2023 season started so well for Alonso and Aston Martin but their rivals quickly caught up to them midway through the season.

The 42-year-old showed at Interlagos that he’s still capable of racing against the very best.

He’ll be hoping the work they do this winter sets them up in a similar way for success next year.