Perez: "Certainly Aston Martin and Ferrari look strong"

After Friday's Bahrain GP, Fernando Alonso seems to be living up to Aston Martin's wild expectations. All teams and all drivers are reckoning with a strong Aston Martin in 2023. Sergio Perez is also expecting a fight.

It is not that crazy. Fernando Alonso seemed fast during the winter tests and sat at the top of the timesheet in both Friday practice sessions in Bahrain and during FP2 he even outsmarted both Red Bulls. That Max Verstappen, meanwhile, is the favourite makes the prediction of a battle between the two two-time world champions plausible.

Perez hopes to fight in it. Speaking to Sky Sports, the Mexican looked back on his training sessions: "It was quite tricky out there, the temperature from morning to afternoon changes quite a lot so the only representative session was this evening. We have some work to do over one lap and that should automatically put us in better shape for the long run."

Verstappen's teammate used Friday mainly to figure out the set-up and try out the car. The battle this weekend is going to be exciting, he says: "I think it's very close together at the top. Certainly Aston Martin and Ferrari are looking strong. It's going to come down to who drives the best lap during qualifying on Saturday and who has a better race pace on Sunday."