Former champion Fernando Alonso relishing return to Formula One competition

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso said he was delighted to be back in the car yesterday for the first practices of the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2021, kicking off his comeback season.

The Spaniard last raced in motorsport’s top flight in 2018 with former team McLaren, and ever since returning to action in pre-season testing in Sakhir earlier this month, has been itching to get back to competing on the track.

 Despite being classified in the bottom five for both of yesterday’s sessions, Alonso was pleased with his day, which he rounded off with higher fuel runs in Alpine’s A521 contender.

In the first practice, Alonso was 16th overall with a best lap of one minute 33.872 seconds while running for 18 laps in the daytime.

In the second session at night held under BIC’s bright floodlights, he went one better to 15th on the classification with a mark of 1:31.770 while completing 24 laps.

Alonso commented at the end of the day’s events: “It was fantastic to be back in a free practice session today in Formula 1.

“You feel the extra adrenaline with the traffic and everything going on around you; it’s very different from testing. It felt good and I felt the racing spirit each lap, which I enjoyed.

“We got through our programme in the first session in very hot conditions and then some long run this evening as the track cooled for FP2. “We do still need to fine-tune some of the car setups and analyse the data a bit more, but, overall, I’m happy with my day.”

Alonso is racing with Alpine alongside French teammate Esteban Ocon.