Fernando Alonso has detailed the extent of the damage done to his hand after his crash at the Australian Grand Prix in April.
Alonso had set a purple middle sector in Australia during his first run, and had also set a first sector quicker than polesitter Charles Leclerc, but he lost oil pressure due to a seal failure, cutting the engine and putting him in the wall at Turn 11.
The Spaniard still looked as though he may have been able to achieve a podium in the race, but a horribly times Safety Car was symptomatic of his ghastly bad luck in 2022, and he ended up outside the points.
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He has now revealed that the crash in Australia did some extensive damage to his hand, and it will take “a few months” to recover fully.
“I mean, I had a couple of bones, ligaments, tendons – everything is a mess at the moment,” explained Alonso.
“I need two or three months and there is no surgery, nothing you can do.
“I just need rest and unfortunately every two weeks I have to drive so I try to rest at home but it will take a few months.”
The double world champion was asked if he might step aside to allow reserve driver Oscar Piastri get his debut in Formula 1, and he had an amusing response.
“Yeah, but we need the points,” he joked.
Alonso scored points for only the third time this year at the Monaco Grand Prix after holding off Sir Lewis Hamilton.
His seventh-placed finish came off the back of long stint on Mediums, which he was having to look after at an extremely slow pace to look after.
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“I think we didn’t have the tyres or the tyre life to finish the race when it was 33 laps,” said Alonso.
“It’s a sprint race, we had two choices: refit the hard tyres from the beginning of the race, or put the medium tyre. We put the medium tyre, but our life estimation was shorter than 33.”
The 40-year-old sped up towards the end and dropped Hamilton, and he even had the fastest lap of the race at one stage.
Alonso divulged that he was trying to mitigate the time loss for team-mate Esteban Ocon, who had received a five-second penalty for a collision with Hamilton earlier in the afternoon.
“So we didn’t know if we could finish the race, so I managed a lot the tyres for 15 laps, and then I pushed for the remaining 15 when they told me that Esteban had the penalty,” he added.
Alonso’s six points in Monte Carlo was his biggest haul of the year, and it lifts him up to 13th in the Drivers’ Championship.