On Thursday, the McLaren driver was ruled out of the Bahrain Grand Prix after 90 minutes of tests carried out by FIA doctors in the Sakhir medical centre.

"I have a broken rib and I'm in some pain so it's not easy to sleep," said Alonso during the official FIA press conference.

"I would like to sit in the car and see how is the pain in the car and enjoy driving the car. You understand this is motorsport, every time you step in the car it is a risk."

When asked if he would race in China in two weeks, he said: "It is not 100 percent. So there will be another test. I need to do in the next eight to 10 days. After that test, the FIA will evaluate again as they did now.

"First of all is the safety – and hopefully everything is okay. We need to see with the next test."

Pneumothorax

Alonso also revealed further checks during the past week showed he had a pneumothorax - air in the cavity between the lungs and the chest wall - and that getting back in the cockpit would have been too risky.

"Last week I was okay. On Sunday I had some knee pain but no big things, and I had the green light from the doctors to leave the track and it was okay.

"On Monday, a little of overall pain but nothing serious. I flew back, I arrived in Spain and the pain was similar or a bit worse so we did a proper check.

"I had a small pneumothorax on the lung, so we took the advice from the doctor to relax at home and make everything come to normal and we repeated the scan on Monday and the pneumothorax was gone, but we had some rib fractures.

"It's risky because of the unique position in the car, and the risk a fracture could move into the lung. It is not a broken arm but it is in the chest, where there are some important things."

The McLaren driver insisted he respected the FIA's decision to rule him out of the event.

"I am disappointed," he said. "We want to race, we love the sport, so when you come here and you cannot even try, it is always sad - but it is understandable.

"I respect the decision. It has been some painful days with some pain at home, but I was ready to work with this pain somehow in the car and make sure I could race because at the end of the day the pain is manageable if you don't think so much.

"But there is some risk."

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