- First Barcelona Test - Day Four
Alonso suffered concussion in testing crash
McLaren has confirmed Fernando Alonso was concussed during his accident at the final day of the second pre-season test in Barcelona.
Alonso crashed towards the end of the morning session when his car veered off the circuit at the exit of Turn 3 and hit the inside barrier. The right-hand side of the car appeared to take the brunt of the impact and the McLaren came to a halt on the run down to Turn 4.
Alonso was extracted from the car and into an ambulance, but remained conscious and was able to talk the medical team. He was then airlifted to hospital where CT and MRI scans found no further injuries. He will stay in hospital overnight as a precautionary measure.
There had been some speculation over the cause and severity of the accident, but McLaren racing director Eric Boullier insisted it was not an unusual.
"Fernando's accident was just one of those things that happens in testing," he said. "Fortunately, he's fine, but was concussed during the accident, which therefore required an overnight stay in hospital as a precaution. That's normal practice after a concussion. Inevitably, some media reports have sought to exaggerate the severity of the incident - it was just a normal testing accident."
The team had planned to get Jenson Button on track in the afternoon, but the time needed to check the car's gearbox and power unit meant McLaren ended another test day early. It now has just four days of testing to rectify its remaining issues before the Australian Grand Prix in three weeks.
"While the car wasn't particularly badly damaged, it was enough of an impact to warrant quite a lengthy check of the gearbox and power unit systems. Given the time needed to carry out such an analysis, we decided to bring the curtain down on our test a few hours earlier than anticipated.
"It's been a tough week for the whole team, but we'll be back, and pushing harder than ever, in Barcelona next week."
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