Fernando Alonso could not wait to get back into his McLaren and on track for the Bahrain Grand Prix, almost two weeks after his death defying accident during the Australian Grand Prix.
On Wednesday in a team press release Alonso said, "Firstly, I’m very pleased to be heading to Bahrain after the crash in Australia. I’ve spent some time resting and I can’t wait to get back in the car."
But twenty four hours later the Spaniard failed an FIA medical test and it was announced that he would be replaced by McLaren reserve Stoffel Vandoorne for round two of the F1 world championship in Bahrain.
Alonso explained during the Thursday drivers' press conference, "To summarise a little, last week I was okay Sunday. Some knee pain but not big things. I had the green light to leave the track and everything was okay."
"On Monday I had a bit of overall pain, nothing too serious. Then I flew back, arrived in Spain and the pain was a little more, so we did a proper check and I had a small pneumothorax [collapse] on the lung."
"We took advice from the doctors to relax at home and repeat the scan last Monday - the pneumothorax is gone more or less but I had some rib fractures. And because F1 is a very unique position in the car, and with the G-forces, there was a risk the fractures could move into the lung."
"It’s not like broken leg or arm where you can deal with the pain; it’s the chest where there are organs, so we cannot do much more."
When asked whether he would make it to the Chinese Grand Prix on 17 April, Alonso responded, "It is not 100 percent - it will be another test I need to do in the next eight or 10 days and after that the FIA will evaluate again, as they did today."
"I will recover. I am already recovered from the pneumothorax, it’s just the ribs are not ‘glued’ let’s say, so it could be a problem. It is a very, very small risk, but I understand we all want zero risk. So it is just a matter of time. In the next 10 days it should be fine but we cannot guarantee - maybe five days, maybe 10, maybe 12."
The double F1 world champion will stay in Bahrain to help his substitute Vandoorne who will now be making his grand prix debut earlier than expected.
"The team did a fantastic job preparing the car so I wanted to try [to race] until the last moment. Now I will stay here all weekend to help Stoffel because it is a good opportunity for him, and to help the team because I love what I do, I love F1 and racing."
"I want to learn from the outside how the team prepare, the actions around qualifying, the strategy, the pit stops - I want to get involved in everything on the outside because it could help me on the inside next time."
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