Fernando Alonso says he was "happily surprised" after his first run onboard Aston Martin's 2022 car at Yas Marina on Tuesday, and also impressed with what he considers as the "outstanding" potential of his new team.
Just two days after concluding his tenure with Alpine, Alonso lost no time getting down to work with Aston as he was the first driver to head out onto the track at the start of Tuesday's test session.
Running onboard an unbranded AMR22 – as he is theoretically still under contract with Alpine – Alonso completed 97 laps before handing over his mount for the latter part of the test to his new teammate Lance Stroll.
Although lap times were irrelevant given the array of tyre compounds and fuel loads dictated by Pirelli, the two-time F1 world champion had set a 1m23.312s lap time that placed him third in the pecking order half way through the day, just under a second behind Ferrari pacesetter Charles Leclerc.
"I cannot be overconfident for sure, as everything is going to change next year," said Alonso, quoted by MotorsportWeek.
"But the feeling I had in the garage with the guys, the potential of the team, the talent that I see in the engineering room here, is outstanding, so I’m really, really, really happy right now.
"When I signed for Aston I was 90 per cent happy, when they started improving and finished the season on a high I was 100, this morning I was 100, now I’m 100 plus!"
Last Sunday, Alonso sparred in the first part of F1's season finale with Sebastian Vettel, the man he is replacing at Aston Martin. As he got acquainted with Team Silverstone's AMR22 on Tuesday, Alonso felt that the latter wasn't all that different from Alpine's A522.
"I was happily surprised on everything, but this year’s car is not near what we will run next year, so it is not anything to get confident or anything like that, it’s not that it is going to be a continuation of this car," he said.
"For sure they had a very strong weekend here, Sebastian qualifying in front of me, so I don’t think there was much of a difference between Aston and Alpine on the weekend, and I felt basically the same as well, I felt a very competitive car."
Alonso noted that nothing negative stood out during his first run onboard Aston's contender.
"Nothing really surprised me, the car was behaving well," he added.
"We had some concerns on the steering feedback as on Alpine the first year we had to work a lot for nearly five months on steering assistance and feedback.
"We had some concerns that we spoke the last few weeks so it was a happy surprise that I felt ok with Aston’s system and we don’t need to change much."
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