Alonso says new Alpine F1 car ‘feels good’, don’t expect fast times

Fernando Alonso says his new Alpine Formula 1 car “feels good” after getting to grips with the A521 challenger for the first time on the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

The two-time world champion made his debut in Alpine’s new-look 2021 car ahead of his much-anticipated return to F1 this year with the Enstone-based squad on Saturday, having recovered from a broken jaw he suffered in a cycling accident last month.

Alonso logged a mammoth 127 laps for the French manufacturer and was pleased with his work as he completed a full day of running behind the wheel of the A521 at the Bahrain International Circuit.

"Yeah the car feels good," the Spaniard replied when asked for his first impressions of Alpine’s car.

"I think we still have to understand a little bit of the characteristics of the new aero package and the 2021 rules, so there’s still some work to do but I think we are following the programme that we set two days ago, yesterday with Esteban [Ocon]; today with myself.

“There’s still one more day where we need to tick some boxes. I’m happy with the number of laps and the information that we got today but I think we still need to analyse everything.

“Hopefully tomorrow we start to fine-tune and optimise the package, so still some work to do.”

Alpine has enjoyed a fine two days of pre-season testing and has recorded the most mileage of any team so far, completing a total of 257 laps.

Much of the team’s focus has been spent on the harder compounds of tyres and racking up the laps, and Alonso said Alpine is not planning to set any headline-grabbing times on the third and final day.

"I think our choice for the winter has been to choose the harder compounds and to run as many laps as possible," he explained. “So you know, we are I think qualifying in two weeks’ time [and that] will be the time for the softs, not even tomorrow."