Fernando Alonso (41) was overjoyed after taking the podium in the Bahrain Grand Prix in his first race for Aston Martin. Red Bull Racing was in a class of its own, but behind it he ‘simply’ had the best car. “The team has the ambition to get even better and we keep our feet on the ground.”

Fernando Alonso 99th podium

“It felt really good today. We had a lot of speed in the long runs,” said the two-time world champion after clinching his 99th podium at Viaplay. Initially, he was overtaken by both Mercedes, only to put things in order and even get to the podium. “It was a really messy start that I had to recover from. But it’s great what we did. We were just the second car in the race…the team did a fantastic job.”

Great time

,,I enjoyed it, but we also have to immediately look at the next race because it could be an interesting season. Our goal was to be somewhere in the middle and the podium was certainly too optimistic, but we just got that right away. The team has the ambition to become even better and we keep our feet on the ground. It is also a fact that Red Bull is very far ahead of us,” said the Spaniard who came over from Alpine, who was voted ‘driver of the day’ by the fans. During the interview, he was flown around the neck by teammate Lance Stroll. The Canadian also performed well with P6 itself.

Leclerc: ‘Red Bull operates at a completely different level’

As great as the joy was with Alonso and Aston Martin, so great was the disappointment with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. He said he had ‘no power’ and fell silent, relinquishing what appeared to be a podium position. What was it about? “I don’t know what happened and what to say. This is very unfortunate,” said the Monegask. “More than P3 would not have been possible anyway. We knew that the speed was not there compared to Red Bull, but that it ends like this is very disappointing.”

Great start

At the start, Leclerc was still in the wind. He immediately caught Sergio Pérez before Turn 1. ,,I had second place for a while, but it was only a matter of time before Checo would pass again. Red Bull is currently operating on a completely different level. However, all that matters now is that we didn’t finish the race…”