The Apprentice finalists have labelled half of their competition “stocking fillers” and said the most difficult part of the process was dealing with them.

Mark Wright and Bianca Miller will go head-to-head in Sunday night’s final of the BBC show in a bid to win a £250,000 investment and Lord Sugar’s backing for their business ideas.

Asked what the toughest thing they’d faced was, Mark replied: “The tasks are easy, Lord Sugar becomes easy when you see him every day, it’s the other people.”

The 2014 Apprentice contestants
The 2014 Apprentice contestants (BBC)

Bianca agreed: “You’re managing these personalities and they’re ready to compete with you. They don’t really want to listen – even if it means working together would be better for the team effort, they don’t always see it like that.”

Mark added of the 20 candidates: “I think anyone could have won it in the final seven – they were a different calibre to the top 10, and the 10 that went before that – I think they were just stocking fillers.

“It is a business competition at the end of the day and the two most serious business people have come to the top.”

Talking about finding out that they had made the final, Bianca said: “It’s so strange because you’re there and one person is getting fired after another, and suddenly you’re like, ‘There’s just two of us left. We’ve made it.’”

Mark said: “I think it was the worst mathematics I’ve ever done. I was watching them go out the door and I was so pleased that Daniel (Lassman, Mark’s rival) left, I didn’t realise there was no one else in the room other than us two.”

He continued of Lord Sugar and his aides Karren Brady and Nick Hewer: “Lord Sugar’s the most frightening by far but Karren wasn’t far behind. I found Nick really nice at the start, then Karren warmed towards me at the end, so I’m just confused.”

The Apprentice final airs on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm.