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Fernando Alonso has apologised to Formula 1 fans for the "horrible" appearance of recent seasons' cars, hoping they can "forget what they saw" now designs have changed for 2017.

The new rules introduced for 2017 have produced more spectacular-looking cars that have generally received praise inside motorsport.

McLaren driver Alonso, one of the most outspoken critics of the past generation of F1 cars, made clear he was a fan of the new look.

"The only conclusion is the cars look nice," said Alonso.

"The cars are definitely faster in the corners, so it's good to come back to that feeling of downforce in the corners, and to be able to push the car to the limit a little bit more.

"I saw some other cars running alongside on the track, they look very, very good. I'm happy for that, I'm happy for the sport to go in the right direction.

"I probably apologise to the fans that for the last five or six years they saw horrible cars."

But Alonso conceded that the driving sensation will probably never match what he experienced earlier in his F1 career when the cars were much lighter and the rules not as restrictive.

"The feelings are never going to be the same as in 2004 and 2005 because the cars had an aerodynamic freedom that we don't have now," he said.

"Engines were very different, and especially [cars were] 130kg less than what we have now and 230kg less in the race.

"So it's impossible to have what we had in 2004 in terms of feeling.

"In terms of lap time, it might be possible, but if you put these tyres on the 2004 car we'd be lapping in 1m14s or something like that, so it's different."

He at least felt this year's cars looked like proper F1 machinery again.

"I like what I saw yesterday and today. The cars that I shared the track with today looked like Formula 1 cars. Very nice cars," said Alonso.

"So let's hope we can transmit that feeling to the fans, to the people coming to the track and watching TV, so they can try to forget what they saw over the past few years."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner is among those to have expressed reservations about shark fins and T-wings spoiling the look of the cars.

But he said he was overall a big fan of the new-look racers - though not of McLaren's new orange and black livery.

"I think the cars look great so far, apart from the McLaren colour scheme," Horner said.

"Everything else looks great. Ron [Dennis] must be going mad!"