ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Fernando Alonso ended doubts about his participation in Formula One next season by saying Sunday that "I will be racing, 100 per cent."
The Spaniard had another tough race at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where he was given a drive-through penalty for causing a collision at the first corner in a decision he slammed after the race as symptomatic of the sport’s problems.
He said over the car radio that he wanted to pull out of the race as there was no point in continuing, showing the frustration in a year when his McLaren team was well off the pace.
That frustration had sparked talk over the weekend that he would skip 2016 and wait for the car to be improved.
McLaren chief Ron Dennis fueled that speculation after saying on Saturday that he had discussed with Alonso the option of taking a year off.
However, Alonso said he would be attending the factory next week for a seat fitting for the 2016 car and was keen to help the team improve next season.
"Goodbye to 2015 because it has been a very tough year for us, very difficult and the performance has been quite poor," Alonso said. "I will be racing, 100 per cent. If I had to choose a sabbatical year, I would choose this one!"
The two-time world champion’s exasperation was not limited to the slow pace of improvement in the Honda engines powering his McLaren, but also with Formula One officials.
He said his collision with the blameless Pastor Maldonado at the first corner was caused by contact from Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, and not by any wrongdoing of his own.
"The FIA should look at a lot of other categories like MotoGP or World Endurance Championship, at how successful they are and how consistent they are with the penalties, and we need to make some common sense," Alonso said. "F1 asks itself about the sounds of the cars, and why they have less and less spectators, but these things … they need to have a little bit more sense."
