Complex inter-team will await Aston Martin

Aston Martin has reason to be excited for the 2023 seasons. Growing closer to the likes of McLaren and Alpine last season, the team will be bolstered with the incoming Fernando Alonso to support their campaign. However, do the team have reason to already be concerned for their internal team dynamic with this move and how it will pair with the owner's son and incumbent driver, Lance Stroll?

Past

F1 veteran Fernando Alonso will certainly not leave any stone unturned in his efforts to further cement himself as the team leader. Racing for multiple race-winning teams, he has the knowledge and experience to shape up a competitive racing outfit to suit his needs. Alonso also has no qualms with disrupting team stability in order to achieve what he needs. In the past, he has happily played mind games with his much younger teammate, as one need only remember his antics with rookie Lewis Hamilton in their 2007 campaign together.

Lance Stroll still holds the unwanted moniker of being one of the grid’s “pay drivers”. While he has grown better as a driver in recent seasons, he has not been able to match his past teammates at the Silverstone squad in the likes of Sergio Perez and more recently, Sebastian Vettel. However, he has undoubtedly taken lessons from his previous teammates and integrated them with his work style.

Partnership

Alonso will definitely look to lead the team. Being in multiple championship potential seasons, he knows what would need to go on behind the scenes to ensure that a conveyor belt of success is maintained. He will likely work closely with the management behind the scenes, delivering unfiltered suggestions and critiques in order to bring the team up to his expectations.

Stroll will definitely need to push into his own. While the one-lap pace has made significant improvements, it will become even more important as the field slowly begins to pile up as the season progresses. His racecraft has come a long way, but he is still prone to making mistakes. However, this truly can be the season where he kicks into a new gear and pushes forward. If he wishes to stamp himself as a worthy team leader, this is the season to do so.

While both can and certainly will be expected to work together, efforts must be made to keep the peace on all fronts. The team’s internal structures and hierarchies will need to be made clear to drivers and all management personnel, in order to limit potential “drama” coming and serving as a hindrance to their efforts. An expectation of “equal status” may be too naive between a headstrong driver and an owner’s son, so Aston Martin must prepare for the worst and begin setting the expectations soon.

Expectations

The 2023 season needs to come on much further from their last few campaigns. Aston Martin’s slow start to the season before closing up to the rest of the field in the latter half has led the team to struggle behind the likes of Alpine and McLaren. Lawrence Stroll’s Consortium has expended a large number of resources to establish the Aston Martin F1 will team and will soon need to see positive returns on their investment.

The new state-of-the-art factory is still being steadily developed, so the team will not be available to reap the rewards just yet. However, if they can push for a much better season than their 2022 campaign, they could hit the ground running with their new resources and push themselves to be a far more stable frontrunner in the seasons to come.