F1 | Despite strong F1 return, Alonso thinks he has room to iron out some mistakes
The Spaniard returned to F1 after two years competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Dakar rally among others. After the Bahrain GP he thinks there is room to improve from his side.
Fernando Alonso, a two-time world champion, made his comeback to Formula 1 at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Sakhir. He made it into the top 10 in qualifying and was having a strong race, fighting for a point-scoring finish until he had to retire. It was a sandwich wrapper lodged into a brake duct that forced him to abandon 32 laps into the race.
According to Motorsport.com, after Sunday, the Spaniard champion felt he had room to improve and find more speed and confidence at the wheel. He expressed he felt the race was not too bad, but there are things he can improve on from his side.
"It was nice," said Alonso of his race. "I had a couple of good battles and some of those had happy endings, some of the were not as we were being overtaken.
"But I need to find more pace from myself and find more confidence and I need to extract more from the car, the brakes and execute the start better.
"At the pitstops I think the guys did an amazing job but my position in the second stop was not right. These are small things and mistakes I keep doing from testing and this first race, but hopefully by race two and three I can perform better personally."
Even though Alpine, formerly known as Renault, did not feature in the top positions during the first race of the 2021 season, Alonso is still confident people following his comeback and himself will be enjoying it.
"I think it is going to be okay. You will enjoy the comeback and you will enjoy the fight that we will put in every weekend," he added.
"I think we always said from the beginning that this is a very interesting and Alpine is in F1 for big things. Maybe 2021 is a continuation of 2020 and we are building the momentum and something more important heading into 2022.
After what could be called a disappointing weekend for Alpine, Alonso admitted that it was hard to judge the team’s position.
"It is difficult to say. I think we saw different results and a bit of mixed feeling for everybody including us. Sometimes we look better sometimes we look a little bit down.
"We will need a couple of races to have a more established order so let's wait and see. Our job is to work harder and identify our weaknesses if there are any and work on those and keep our strengths. It is an interesting season for everybody."
