Fernando Alonso will not be in the paddock on Thursday for the Mexican Grand Prix media day due to illness, Aston Martin have announced.
The Spaniard was originally set to face the media alongside Charles Leclerc and Guanyu Zhou in the second press conference of the day at 2pm local time.
But he will no longer be there with Aston Martin confirming he is recovering from an illness.
Their statement read: "Fernando Alonso is feeling unwell and will therefore not attend media day at the #MexicoGP.
Fernando Alonso will not be in the paddock on Thursday
PA
"Fernando is focused on feeling 100% for Friday and his planned return to the AMR24 for Free Practice 2."
Aston Martin had previously announced that Felipe Drugovich was taking Alonso's seat in FP1 this weekend.
F1 rules stipulate that rookie drivers must be allowed to compete in two FP1 sessions throughout the year.
Aston Martin's statement suggests Alonso is expected to be back in the cockpit for FP2 at 4pm local time.
But Drugovich is looking to take advantage of his time out in the this year's Aston Martin car in FP1.
"I'm really excited to drive the AMR24 for the first time — I've been looking forward to it for a while," said Drugovich.
"I've spent a lot of the year working on the development of this car in the team's simulator, so it will be valuable for me to feel the correlation between the sim and the real thing.
"Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is a track I haven’t driven before.
Felipe Drugovich will take Fernando Alonso's seat in FP1
PA
"It’s a challenging circuit with a mix of long straights and technical corners, so I’ll be spending time on the simulator ahead of the event so that I’m ready to go come FP1."
The Brazilian driver has been a reserve driver for Aston Martin for two consecutive seasons after winning the F2 Championship in 2022.
With no seat available for the 2025 F1 season, Drugovich recently admitted that he could turn his attention to Indycar.
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Fernando Alonso is expected to return in FP2
GETTYHe said: “Looking at next year, I think it’s one of the opportunities we are studying as they said they changed the regulations so each team will have a maximum of two of three cars, in the case of Ganassi there are three.
“All three are already confirmed so we are looking at this test, something that was already foreseen last year.
"It ended up not happening due to scheduling and it ended up happening this year. it was a really cool opportunity to insert into the American world.”
