\u201cis always teaching us something\u201d<\/a>, two-time World Champion Alonso took a moment to reflect on what it means to team up with Newey.<\/p>\n\u201cA very proud moment, for sure,\u201d said Alonso, with Newey\u2019s cars winning 14 Drivers\u2019 and 12 Teams\u2019 titles over the years. \u201cI\u2019ve been racing against Adrian for the whole of my career, and now, finally, I can drive one of his cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [it\u2019s] a huge challenge this year with the new set of regulations, and being a works team, having [power unit partner] Honda in our side, and [fuel partner] Aramco, with the challenge that the sustainable fuels have been for the 2026 regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, I\u2019m very proud to be part of this family and this organisation, and I\u2019m looking forward to succeeding together.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that aforementioned Honda partnership, and a new state-of-the-art headquarters at Silverstone, the Spaniard added: \u201cI feel this is a very important moment for the team. It\u2019s the very first time we are a works team, and we have all the new pieces coming together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be [a] very interesting [year], because it\u2019s a season that\u2026 I mean, it always matters where you start in Australia, but I feel the second part of the season is going to be even more important than the first half, if you understand your weakness in the car, if you identify early enough that you can work on those [issues].<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s why the Bahrain test and the first couple of races will dictate a little bit the path for the rest of the season, so we are very, very focused on development of the car. I think, as a driver, it gives you the feeling that you will play an important part through the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting alongside Alonso at the event, Stroll shared similar enthusiasm over what lies ahead \u2013 the Canadian having been part of the Aston Martin project since the manufacturer returned to F1 as a factory team in 2021.<\/p>\n
Asked what excites him most, Stroll said: \u201cAll of it. I mean, just everything coming together. The new set of regulations, the collaboration with Honda, and yeah, driving an Adrian Newey-designed car is pretty exciting, for sure!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think back to the team we were in 2021, and when you see everything that\u2019s happened in Silverstone today, the transformation is incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ambition we have as a team, we want to win\u2026 We want to fight for race wins and championships in the future. I think it\u2019s just very exciting and motivating for everyone to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alonso and Stroll will be back behind the wheel of the AMR26 in Bahrain later this week, when the first of two official pre-season tests<\/a> gets under way at the Sakhir venue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fernando Alonso has described getting hold of an Adrian Newey-designed F1 car for the first time in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-282748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}