Fernando Alonso says pushing his car back to the pit lane in Q2 during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix proves he has lost not any of his enthusiasm for Formula One despite McLaren's current struggles.
Alonso slowed to a halt just before the pit exit in the early stages of Q2, where he had been targeting a maiden Q3 appearance this season. His stoppage triggered a red flag and Alonso starting pushing his car before the marshals got to it and continued helping when assistance arrived.
However, that violated rules which say a car must be returned to the pits without assistance, meaning he could not return to the track and will start the grand prix from 15th.
Asked if there was still the hope he could re-emerge, Alonso replied: "Yeah, absolutely! I want to be out there and I want to race and this shows how much I love my sport. It doesn't matter if you are last, 15th or pole position, you want to drive the car and enjoy being out there."
Alonso admits he would have saved himself the effort had he known it would have ended his qualifying prematurely.
"I understood when I got back to the garage that it was not possible, by the regulations the car needs to return to the garage by itself with the engine on. If I known that I'd park the car a little bit before!
"In free practice sometimes the car arrives, even on the crane, and you are able to restart, so I thought it was possible. We saw in some races that there were cars on the gravel and the marshals put it on the track and they keep going, so we know sometimes in our case."
Though Alonso hoped to return to the track, McLaren racing director Eric Boullier doubts they could have got him back on track before the end of Q2 because it was a connection issue with his battery.
"No," Boullier said when asked whether Alonso could have returned. "You need to take the [part] off and it's a connector which is inside the battery pack."