10/03/2015
NEWS STORY
As speculation over his Barcelona crash continues, Fernando Alonso says he is aiming to be back on the grid at Sepang later this month.
Though he will watch Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen from the comfort of his sofa this weekend, Fernando Alonso insists he will be with McLaren in spirit and is looking forward to driving the MP4-30 in the second round of the championship.
"Of course, I'm very disappointed not to be joining Jenson in Melbourne in the McLaren-Honda garage, but I understand the recommendations of the doctors and I'm already back in training and preparing for my first race in the MP4-30," said the Spaniard.
"I would like to thank everybody for their kind wishes and support and I'll be giving everything to be back in the cockpit for Malaysia," he added. "I wish Kevin all the best for this weekend in Australia, and I know the car is in his safe hands!
"Even though we faced a lot of challenges in the tests, I am very encouraged by the feeling I got from the car, and I'm looking forward to going through all of the data from this weekend with the team to continue our push for development and improve our performance."
Meanwhile, his manager Flavio Briatore had waded into the speculation surrounding the Spaniard's accident last month, describing the incident and the circumstances surrounding it as "very strange".
"He crashed without any reason," Briatore told Italian broadcaster Sky Italia, somewhat ironic really when one considers the reason for the Italian's banishment from the sport. "It was not even that dramatic. The impact was not so hard.
"We have to see if there was a steering problem," he continued. "We have not had any information on that from McLaren. The accident, if you see it, you do not say: 'Mamma mia, what a crash!' It is the sort of accident you see all the time. The angle in which the car hit the wall could have been bad for Fernando. The impact was hard."
Referring to reports in the Spanish media last week, that Alonso awoke following the crash having forgotten the last twenty years of his life, the Italian said: "People said a lot of stuff; that he woke up and said 'I'm young and I race in karts.' That is nonsense. El Pais wrote it and everyone else wrote about it because it was almost funny. There was a time when he lost some memory, but it lasted two or three days.
"If Fernando had had problems, the doctors would have discovered them. If he had passed out briefly, they would have seen. We did hours of tests with the leading specialists in Europe.
"If Fernando had had a problem, a heart problem, a small stroke, a blood clot; it can happen even to a great sportsman," he concluded. "And we have seen that absolutely all the examinations and tests made on the driver were negative."