Replacement chassis for Alonso after Spa crash

Fernando Alonso will run a replacement chassis at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix after his previous one was damaged in his Belgian GP crash.

The double World Champion was booted out of the Spa race on the opening lap when he was hit from behind by Nico Hulkenberg.

The impact sent him airborne, crashing over the top of Charles Leclerc’s Sauber.

And while McLaren have yet to learn whether Alonso’s Renault engine survived the crash, it was clear from the onset that he would need a new chassis for this weekend’s race.

“I think it’s a chassis that I used anyway in winter testing or the first races,” Alonso said. “So it’s something that we already raced with.

“On the engine side it could be OK, but we will find out probably in FP1. We want to put it in and confirm everything’s OK.

“There were some concerns on Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday they checked everything properly and it seems OK, so hopefully we can run still with that engine.

“The full car – not only the chassis – but the floor, the front wings, things that we are limited on parts as well, they’re gone and it was quite expensive.”

Alonso confirmed that McLaren had enough new spec parts for this weekend’s race, but acknowledged that they are now out of spares.

“We have enough luckily,” he said, “but we’ve probably run out of spare parts.

“We have just what we have on the car. All the rest will probably be a different specification.

“As I said, this is quite tough, because the damage on the cars was quite extreme, especially on my car.

“Then you have four days only to build a completely new car for Monza. It’s the way it is.”