Fernando Alonso clarified on Saturday a comment in an interview that suggested he was "better" than F1's top drivers, insisting he misheard the question.
The two-time world champion and Alpine driver qualified ninth for Sunday's Bahrain GP, and will start his first F1 race since Brazil in 2018.
Queried on his comeback to the F1 grid in an interview with the BBC, Alonso was asked whether he was better than the sport's leading drivers, to which the Spaniard answered, "I'm better".
The comment portrayed the 39-year-old as a bit puffed up and bristling with confidence ahead of his return to F1, but on Saturday Alonso revisited the remark, saying he had actually heard "better than then" rather than "better than them".
"I thought the question was ‘are you as good as in 2018, when you left the sport?," he said.
"The answer was well I hope that I am better than 2018 because all the experiences maybe make me a better driver.
"It was not compared to Lewis (Hamilton) or to Max (Verstappen) or anyone.
"First of all it is difficult to compare and then they have dominated the sport for the last few years so I never meant to say that I was better than them."
After Saturday evening's qualifying at Sakhir, Alonso said he had enjoyed his return to active duty in F1 and feeling the adrenalin kick in once again.
"It was a very nice, enjoyable feeling," he said. "The first qualifying of the year is a little bit of an unknown, how fast we were, so every time I came to the garage it was a moment of curiosity looking at the screen.
"We have to be pleased with our qualifying session today. It was really exciting to drive these cars again with low fuel and peak performance from the tyres.
"Qualifying is always amazing to experience in Formula 1 and I have missed that feeling!
"The plan for tomorrow is to attack and score points. We’ll try to make up some positions from our starting spot but we have to be wary of the cars around us as some of our competitors are starting on the Medium tyres so it will be a close race."
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