Alonso explains difficulty: 'Practically in the car for the second time'

Fernando Alonso will start his second season for Alpine in just under two weeks. In Bahrain, he hopes to get off to a good start and score points for his team, but it was different last year, he says to Car and Driver.

The French racing team decided to bring Alonso back to Formula 1 at the beginning of 2021. Alonso then faced a difficult period in which he barely had time to get used to his new car, and to top it off, he was unable to finish the Bahrain Grand Prix due to brake problems.

While Alpine finished fifth in the Constructors' Championship last year, it hopes to do even better in the coming season. Alonso, together with his teammate Esteban Ocon, should be able to score more points and attack the top teams.

Due to the longer preparation, Alonso notices that he had enough time in the simulator in recent months, to train and to analyse things. "All those things I couldn't do last year," he explains. "I was practically in the car in Bahrain for the second time. I feel good, one hundred percent. Now we are going to have a year that will be very intense, because every race we will have a lot of room for improvement."