• United States Grand Prix - Ferrari

Alonso 'tired' heading to Brazil

ESPN Staff
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Fernando Alonso admits his recent back injury has left him fatigued heading to the final race in Brazil.

A high-speed bump in Abu Dhabi left Alonso with back pain and headaches from a trapped nerve in the build-up to the United States Grand Prix. Having finished in fifth place and been chasing Lewis Hamilton late on, Alonso admitted it had been a tough weekend for him and that he was not at 100% towards the end of the season.

"I'm tired," Alonso said. "I'm tired; also I didn't have good preparation for this race physically. I was one week on the sofa, in bed with headaches. The race was demanding, it was not an easy race, I had to fight all the way through so physically I feel tired now. I felt stressed all weekend from all the battles etc.

"Hopefully I can feel a little bit better in Brazil, less tired, enjoy the weekend a little bit more. But there are some targets to do with the constructors' championship etc. So it's not as if we race for fun in Brazil. It might seem like that from the outside - there's nothing more to fight for, you go to Brazil to race and have fun - but there's a lot of stress and a lot of pressure on these weekends for the team and we'll all try to do as well as we can."

Alonso also said that finishing second in the constructors' championship was an unrealistic "dream" for Ferrari after losing more ground.

"We wanted to close the gap a little bit in the constructors' championship; that was the goal. We did not have the pace this weekend to do that and we lost a little bit of points again while Lotus got closer, so not a good weekend in terms of points. But there's nothing we can do at the moment, we didn't have the pace, we were too slow all weekend; we fight to be in qualifying three, we fight to be in the points on Sunday.

"So we need to do better in Brazil if we want to fight for the constructors' championship or that was too optimistic a goal. We need to be more realistic and know that fighting for second place in the constructors' championship was a dream and maybe that dream is difficult to come true."

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