"Fernando Alonso on the podium": Ted Kravitz feels the Aston Martin driver is currently ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes

TV pundit Ted Kravitz is impressed by Fernando Alonso's pace heading into the 2023 season. The two-time world champion impressed at the 2023 pre-season testing, taking the podium in Saturday's long-run testing.

Alonso finished ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes, putting Aston Martin in a good place for the upcoming season. The Silverstone-based team seems to have made up ground on the front runners and are touted to be feisty competitors in the upcoming season. Mercedes, on the other hand, have covered good ground compared to last year, when they struggled with porpoising right from pre-season testing. Two-time world champion Alonso joined Aston Martin at the start of the year, replacing four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who retired from the sport at the end of last year.

Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz was impressed by Alonso's performance during pre-season testing. He said:

"I've got Aston Martin third and potentially even a little bit closer to Ferrari. That's to do with Fernando Alonso's race run. In Saturday's Bahrain GP [long runs] such as it was, it would have been Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Fernando Alonso on the podium ahead of the Ferraris and the Mercedes."

“I think we are still discovering things on the car" - Fernando Alonso

Speaking to the media after pre-season testing, Fernando Alonso stated that there was potential to discover from AMR23 heading into the first race of the season.

As per PlanetF1, the two-time world champion mentioned that the team might need a few races to get to full speed with the new car. He said:

“I think we are still discovering things on the car. Last year Aston Martin was struggling with the car and we changed the philosophy completely, 95 percent of the car this year is new, and so I think we are just experimenting a bit with different set-ups and different things the last few days.

Fernando Alonso added:

“Hopefully we’ll put it all together, but we’ll need time, we’ll need a few races to really exploit the full potential of the car because there is no time now with only three days to really go through all the tests items we want.”

Alonso and Aston Martin could even challenge Mercedes for P3 in the championship, but there will be clearer answers post the first race of the season next week. The Spaniard's chances in the 2023 season seem to be good.