McLaren return would have made F1 comeback easier - Fernando Alonso

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McLaren return would have made F1 comeback easier - Alonso

Alonso has impressed having struggled in the early stages of the season

Will Gray

Friday 23 July 2021 17:06

Fernando Alonso has conceded that returning to F1 would have been easier had he rejoined McLaren instead of Alpine.

Former two-time champion Alonso spent two years away from F1, driving in a number of different categories before electing to return to his old Renault team in its new guise as Alpine this season.

After 10 races of his comeback, Alonso sits 11th in the drivers' standings having initially struggled to get up to speed, although the Spaniard has impressed in recent races by scoring five times in a row.

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“I think at the beginning of the year I needed a couple of races to get used to everything in the car, not only for the F1 [car] itself but also the Renault.

“I think if I was jumping back on the McLaren style and the McLaren steering wheel, etcetera, I could maybe shorten that adaptation but with Renault, there was a little bit more work to be done.”

Alonso took a cautious approach to F1 return

Alonso revealed that he took a careful approach to his first few races back because he didn't want to embarrass himself with mistakes with all the pressure he was under.

Alonso added: “In the first races I was quite careful, I didn’t want to make a big mistake.

“Everyone was saying, you know, ‘let’s see how Fernando does after the different categories and coming back to F1 will it be easy, not easy, what do you think about the young generations,’ all these things.

“I just wanted to execute the races with no mistakes and slowly build up the confidence. Now I have more confidence and knowledge of the car and the team and the tyres I can drive with not too much thinking.

“I can just use the instinct because everything is coming automatically so I am happy for that.”