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

The two-time world champion made his debut in Alpine’s new-look 2021 car ahead of his m✃uch-anticipated return to F1 this year wit♚h 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 pl🌟eased 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 myselfไ.

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

“Hopefully tomo🌠rrow we start to fine-tune and optimise th🦂e 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 sai🐭d 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."