Alonso felt “no pain” from back injury when he returned to car after missing practice

Fernando Alonso said the signs were good when he returned to his car after sitting out first practice due to a back injury.

The Aston Martin driver unexpectedly missed the opening hour of practice at the Hungaroring yesterday. The team revealed he had been diagnosed with a minor back injury following the previous round at Spa-Francorchamps.

The team’s reserve driver Felipe Drugovich took over the car for first practice but Alonso returned in time for the second session. Afterwards he said his back had not bothered him as he completed his first 25 laps of the weekend.

“It’s the same as yesterday,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “It’s going to be like this the whole weekend. I have a small injury in my muscle at the back on the lumbar area and I need some rest.

“But the summer break is coming so it’s another two days of managing the comfort in the seat. We found yesterday different solutions with air pads and other things that are working fine. Today I had no pain in FP2, so that’s positive.”

He said the injury was discovered in a scan following last week’s race. “Always you have small pain and discomfort here and there. The thing is that we did an MRI last week just to check properly and we saw a small injury in the muscle.

“Obviously if you are a normal person you would sit a little bit for two weeks. But I think it is manageable, I don’t have pain in the car which is the most important thing.”

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He ended the second practice session fifth on the times sheet, a tenth of a second slower than team mate Lance Stroll. Alonso said the car’s balance was reasonably good.

“Obviously I missed FP1 but FP2 felt good,” he said. “The balance is still maybe not in the window where probably I would like the car to be. There’s a little bit of understeer mid-corner and I’m struggling to rotate the car in the slow speed [corners].

“But [it’s] normal for the first practice of the weekend. Let’s see what we can change overnight.”

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• Alonso felt “no pain” from back injury when he returned to car after missing practice
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