Fernando Alonso is in his final season with Alpine to join Aston Martin next calendar year. For engineer Raúl Martín, who will work with the Spaniard next season, the news came as a big surprise. He told the Spanish Marca.
Just before the summer break Sebastian Vettel announced that he will leave Aston Martin after the current season. The German is ready for another challenge and therefore chose to say goodbye to Formula 1. It ensured that his current team immediately had enough work to do.
The formation was looking for a replacement for Vettel and decided to go for an experienced driver again. Alonso appeared to be willing to make the switch. It was a decision that Martin did not see coming, as he was counting on other candidates.
"Internally there was talk of [Mick] Schumacher or [Nicholas] Latifi. I didn't think Alonso would come," Martín said. "I thought he would stay with Alpine. It's striking and hard to believe, but it's the reality." The engineer is hoping for a great partnership. "He's not going to win everything right away, but we're ambitious."
Aston Martin wants to make rapid progress
In the coming years, Aston Martin still hopes to grow significantly so that it can compete for prizes in the future. This season, however, it is still far from that. With twenty points the team is only trailing Williams. Vettel scored sixteen points of that number.