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Alonso, Alpine, Bahrain

Alonso clarifies 'better than F1 champions' comments

Alonso, Alpine, Bahrain — Photo: © LAT Images

Alonso clarifies 'better than F1 champions' comments

Alonso suggested he was superior to his counterparts ahead of the Bahrain GP

Two-time champion Fernando Alonso has insisted his declaration he was "better" than any driver currently in Formula 1 stemmed from a misunderstanding of the original question.

Alonso made his F1 comeback at the Bahrain Grand Prix last month, failing to finish after a sandwich wrapper led to overheated brakes.

Ahead of his 'second debut', Alonso told BBC Sport he was looking forward to racing with other top drivers in the field, such as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, but when questioned, declared he was "better" than them.

The Alpine driver, however, has conceded he made a mistake as he misheard what was asked during the interview.

"Yeah, I probably misunderstood the first question," said Alonso. "I thought that the question was 'Are you as good as in 2018 when you left the sport? Which Fernando will we find in the comeback?'

"The answer was 'Well, I am better than 2018' because the experiences make me a better driver. It was not compared to Lewis or Max or anyone."

Commenting further, Alonso described the difficulty in ranking drivers in order and praised his counterparts for their performances.

He added: "It is difficult to compare to anyone. They have dominated the sport for the last few years so I never meant to say I was better than them."

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