Alonso has finished third in Monaco four times since joining Aston Martin in the off-season – with the Greens now 122 points behind Red Bull’s closest challenger in the constructors’ championship .

Despite Red Bull’s perfect start to the current campaign, it is likely to fail in Monaco due to the unique challenges posed by the narrow street circuit layout, where overtaking is next to impossible, so favoring any possible Opponents start before Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez.

Despite Red Bull entering the event as title favourites, possible rain at the weekend could present another challenge for the drivers as they will all need to finish flawless races to keep their intra-team title challenge alive.

This weekend, Alonso said “I don’t care” he would prefer to race in the dry or wet – like in 2022 – but when asked how confident he was of success ahead of the Monaco press release At the meeting, he replied: “Honestly, I think it’s the same as any other race.

“We don’t think we are the strongest in Monaco. I don’t think it will be a huge change compared to Baku, which is[also]a street circuit. Miami[is also].

“Ferrari did a great job in Baku – we can see another good weekend from them here.

“But I’d be lying to you if I told you I wasn’t here to win games. Because it was a one-off opportunity.

“We know Monaco, Singapore – there are certain tracks where you need to gain confidence in free practice, getting closer and closer to the wall.

“Yeah. I’m going to play more aggressively than any other weekend.”

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23

Photography: Steven Tee / motorsport pictures

Alonso also highlighted Red Bull’s unsatisfactory reliability record so far in F1 2023 as another potential avenue for Monaco’s win, as he believes “you never know” how it will affect Verstappen and Perez’s 2023 season. The in-race chances he has have led to two title wins for Renault and McLaren in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

“I think they are better than everyone else, they have done better, they dominated the season and they deserved it,” Alonso continued.

“For us, it’s just a gift of what we’ve achieved so far. We didn’t expect to be in this position, so we enjoy every weekend.

“But yeah, there have been a few weekends like this where I come here thinking I’m going to try to win.

“Maybe it’s our worst weekend and we’ve lost points. You never know.

“It’s a very specific circuit. But you try to maximize that one-off opportunity.

“And we saw (a) the gearbox failure in the Max in Saudi, and in the second quarter they had problems with the Checo car in Australia in all the free practice and qualifying.

“So, if one of those things happens on Sunday, you automatically close the gap a lot and it starts to get more interesting. The championship is a long way off and we’re not going to give up.”