Alpine scored their best pair of finishes so far in the 2021 Formula 1 season at Portugal as Esteban Ocon came home in seventh closely followed by Fernando Alonso. The result ,after the French outfit struggled to find the balance of the car in the first two races in Bahrain and Imola, was a significant forward step, helped by aerodynamic modifications made during the weeks off. Alonso had come in for some criticism after those first two races that the former world champion was struggling to get to grips with the car, but speaking to RacingNews365.com and other select media, he said he felt able to driver as well as he ever has in F1. "I still think the same that I am at a point in my life where I feel good, I feel capable of driving better than ever." "But that doesn't mean that you don't find difficulties while entering a new adventure, or this comeback. At the same time I had one weekend where I was not totally comfortable, at Imola." Alonso said that he disagreed that changes in F1 since he had left the paddock in 2018 were behind any issues he had had in the first two races, but said he was open that he wasn't immediately comfortable again in the car. "As I said before, I don't tend to agree with this and things are getting bigger than what it is," he said. "I was the first to admit that I was not 100% anymore, or not comfortable, and probably underperforming. But it was one race and one race that we underperformed, I think two tenths of a second behind my teammate. "So, you know, it cannot be a big thing. It can't be that at the end of the year we talk, if I underperform the whole season, and everything was more difficult than expected. "Okay, maybe there is a point to really discuss and go deep into the the questions of why, it is more difficult than than previously."
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