Alonso left feeling "impressed" with Jimmie Johnson after car swap

Fernando Alonso was left "impressed" with Jimmie Johnson's performance inside the McLaren Formula 1 car. The NASCAR legend drove Alonso's car while the Spaniard experienced Johnson's, NASCAR Chevrolet.

After his big goodbye yesterday, Alonso ironically climbed back inside his McLaren F1 car to set a benchmark lap time of 1:40.204 around the Bahrain International circuit. Johnson took over and managed to get as close as two tenths to Alonso's time.

Following the swap, Alonso told the media what he thought of the seven-time Cup Champion performance.

"Impressive. He was really gaining time every run. Sometimes you put new tyres on these cars for the very first time and you are not able to extract the grip, but he was able to guess this extra grip that the new tyres are giving to you, and extract that grip into lap time so I was very impressed with that," Alonso said in an interview on Autosport.

"We were swapping the cars, having fun, but also we wanted to feel the new environment in a representative way and in a speed that we could feel something close to what they feel normally."

Alonso had time to drive the NASCAR and admits he experienced a flashback from 1999. Perhaps it's something that Alonso will look to do full-time following his exit from F1.

"I knew that the cars were very basic in terms of technology. Last time I ran an H-gearbox was in 1999, so it was going back a lot in time.

"The car was very powerful for the amount of grip available. Maybe with other cars around it is different but definitely alone it was a lot of fun," Alonso added.