McLaren have announced that Fernando Alonso has been cleared to travel to Malaysia for the second race of the Formula One season, and confirmed the Spaniard will race in the grand prix if he passes a final FIA medical assessment on Thursday..
The driver, who suffered concussion after crashing in testing in Barcelona last month, missed the season-opener in Australia on 15 March and has since passed FIA-assessed memory tests and reflex checks in Cambridge to establish the extend of his recovery.
“Since his Barcelona testing accident, Fernando has followed a rigorous, specialised training programme, designed and closely monitored by leading sports scientists, to ensure his safe and timely return to racing,” read a statement on the McLaren website.
“At the McLaren Technology Centre last week, Fernando met with his engineers and drove the simulator, to bring him up to date with the latest developments on the MP4-30 chassis and power unit. As part of that process he spent time with senior engineers, discussing the accident and reviewing the comprehensive data and analysis, all of which has been shared with the FIA.
“While there was nothing evident in the extensive car telemetry data, nor anything abnormal in the subsequent reconstructions and laboratory tests, Fernando recalls a sense of ‘heavy’ steering prior to the accident. Consequently, the team has fitted an additional sensor to the car, to increase our data capture.”
McLaren, who have not won a race since 2012, were woefully off the pace in Australia with Jenson Button finishing last in 11th place after he and Danish team-mate Kevin Magnussen qualified on the back row.
Alonso is returning to McLaren, the team he drove for in 2007, after five years at Ferrari and at the start of a new Honda-powered era for the former champions.
The 33-year-old suffered temporary memory loss in his crash, with some reports suggesting he had forgotten in the immediate aftermath that he was a F1 driver and could not initially remember anything after 1995.
However McLaren racing director Éric Boullier played that down at the time, saying the Spaniard – who spent three nights in hospital – had suffered “a normal concussion”.
