Alonso airlifted to hospital but is given ok

SPANISH racing hero Fernando Alonso escaped serious injury in Barcelona yesterday (February 22) following a crash that saw him having to be airlifted to hospital.

The 33-year-old, two-time world champion suffered concussion when his McLaren-Honda left the track at the 150-kilometre-per-hour turn three and crashed heavily. Alonso was removed from the track by ambulance before being taken by helicopter to hospital to continue medical tests.

It’s not clear if the Spaniard made a mistake or if something broke on the car. McLaren said that Alonso was “conscious” and a spokesman said that scans had shown no injuries to the driver. He remained in hospital overnight as a precaution.

“Fernando’s accident was just one of those things that happens in testing,” said McLaren racing director Eric Boullier. “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.”

McLaren have suffered a plethora of technical problems in pre-season testing after switching to Honda engines for the year. “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,” said Mr Boullier. “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.”

The 2015 Formula 1 season begins on March 15 with the Australian Grand Prix.

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