Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin are at the beginning of their adventure, but for now the story couldn’t be more promising. After the podium in the race that opened the 2023 World Cup in Bahrain, the Asturian is already dreaming not only of his 33rd victory, but also of the possibility of taking his third world title after the age of 40.

But the commitment of onlyWhen he agreed to trade Alpine for Aston Martin last summer, it was not without risk, as the Silverstone team finished seventh in 2022 while the French were the fourth best team.

Lawrence Stroll, the businessman who promoted the Aston Martin team on the basis of multimillion-dollar investments, now tells how he convinced Fernando Alonso to accept Sebastian Vettel’s vacancy. The Canadian magnate explained it to Sky F1.

“I’ve known Fernando for a while, as has my son Lance. We met him when Fernando was racing at Ferrari and Lance was at the Ferrari Driver’s Academy, he was 12 at the time, so they’ve known each other for a long time”, he remembers.

“Fernando is one of the greatest drivers of all time and he shared the same belief as me. I went up to him and said, ‘These are my plans for the future. Because you know me, he replied. ‘You’ll be next, I want to be a part of this’, and chose to join us,” says Lawrence Walk.

“I don’t like to set goals, we will do our best. I think we show what we can do. Like everyone else, we are going to get better throughout the season, so it’s just the first days.” of this car. Our wind tunnel and CFD testing will improve as we go along, and I don’t want to give a target as long as we have a great year, but it’s been a good start,” admits Alonso’s boss, delighted with the progress shown in the first race.

“I said that a few years ago this is a five-season journey to fight for the World Cup. There were people who didn’t believe me when I said it and I can understand it because we took over the leadership of the Force India team, which later became Racing Point and later Aston Martin,” emphasizes the Canadian businessman, who is at work is for a new state-of-the-art factory and many square meters in Silvertstone, as well as a new wind tunnel: “We have made significant changes. Our workforce has grown from 400 to 740, we are building new state-of-the-art Formula 1 facilities and will not be moving in until May 1, so this year’s success cannot be attributed to the new building.”

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For his part, Fernando Alonso is also sure that when Lawrence Stroll sets himself a goal, he eventually gets away with it: “It’s hard to see something fail in the vision of Lawrence Walk. So I think it’s only a matter of time before Aston Martin challenges the top teams.”