Fernando Alonso is confident he will be in better shape for this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix after enduring a painful and stressful time in the United States.

Alonso put himself through the pain barrier in America after jarring his back a fortnight earlier in Abu Dhabi, hitting the track with a force of 26g after bouncing over a kerb.

Although cleared immediately after the race at a local hospital, and again by FIA doctors on his arrival at the Circuit of the Americas, the weekend still proved a highly uncomfortable one for Alonso.

Despite that the 32-year-old Spaniard still managed to finish fifth, doing enough to secure second place in the ’ championship for the third time in four years behind Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari, however, are still battling Mercedes for second in the constructors’ championship, so Alonso knows he will have to give his all one final time this season.

“I’ll be okay for Brazil. With a few days to relax I should be even better,” said Alonso.

“But I am tired because I physically didn’t have a good preparation for the race. I spent a week in bed with headaches.

“It was then a stressful weekend with all the battles, and the race was demanding, I had to fight all the way through, so I am tired now. Hopefully, I will feel better in Brazil, less tired, and be able to enjoy the weekend more.

“But there are still targets with the constructors’ championship, so it’s not as if I’ll be racing for fun in Brazil.

“There will be a lot of stress and pressure for the team, but we’ll try and do as well as we can.”

Even if second is not the position in the championship he wanted, Alonso can still hold his head up high given the constraints of his car again this season.

“I’m very proud,” added the Spaniard.

“We clearly don’t have the second quickest car, so to be second in the drivers’ championship is a little bit of a reward for me.

“Of course, we’d prefer to be 10 times 10th in the championship, and one time a champion than many times second.

“But I’ve been champion twice, three times second, so obviously one of my strongest points is scoring many points on Sunday.

“With whatever car I have, with whatever rules we race under, I will fight for the championship until the last race.”

Alonso appreciates he faces one more fight this season, with Mercedes now 15 points clear of Ferrari in the constructors’ after the German marque claimed four more than their Italian rivals in the US.

“We wanted to close the gap in the constructors’ championship – that was the goal – but we didn’t have the pace over the weekend to do that,” assessed Alonso.

“So we lost a few points again, and also Lotus are closer (18 points behind), so it was not a good weekend in terms of points.

“There’s nothing we can do, we were too slow all weekend, so we need to do better in Brazil if we want to fight for second place.

“Or maybe that has been too much of an optimistic goal, a dream, and we need to be more realistic because it’s going to be difficult for that dream to come true.”

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