Could Fernando Alonso ditch McLaren for future Indy 500 runs? Zak Brown reacts.

Fernando Alonso

Could Alonso ditch McLaren for future Indy 500 runs? Brown reacts

He failed to even qualify for the 2019 race.

Matthew Scott

Thursday 23 May 2019 14:49

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown concedes that Fernando Alonso could be attracted to another IndyCar team for future efforts at the Indianapolis 500, having failed to qualify for this year's race. A somewhat shambolic week in the McLaren garage leaves Alonso with a watching brief for this weekend's race at the Brickyard and shelving his 'Triple Crown' ambitions for another year at least.

Delays across the weekend, due to a wait to get a steering wheel finished and the incorrect paint used on the car among other things, put Alonso on the back foot, with more than a day on the track lost after the Spaniard crashed in last week's testing.

Alonso then failed to make it through the main segment of qualifying and was nudged out of the last-row shootout, but Brown hopes the two-time world champion will return to the team for future efforts in the race.

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"I think we'd like to go back with Fernando. I've spoken to Fernando a lot since then, we've had that conversation," Brown told Sky Sports.

"He, like us, just wants to decompress for a little bit. Clearly there's lots of great teams there and Fernando wants to win it.

"I think Fernando wants to win it with McLaren and McLaren want to try and win it with Fernando, so I wouldn't rule it out. It's a conversation we'll be having with him later.

"At the same time, though, if one of the top teams that routinely win the race gave him a call and I'm Fernando Alonso… you'd certainly consider it wouldn't you?

"But the relationship with Fernando's great. He's had lots of highs and lows in his career and we're in good shape with Fernando."

The McLaren chief also praised Alonso's reaction through a disappointing week, suggesting that the double world champion deserved to be in the race, despite the issues.

Brown added: "He was unbelievably professional, just like you saw externally how he handled the media and the fans that's how he was in the garage.

"We were all frustrated but I think he knows, being the champion that he is, that if he would have done anything other than be laser focused on trying to continue to move forward, it would have gotten worse.

"So he was great. He's obviously disappointed. We feel like we let him down. Fernando deserved to be in the race; I didn't think McLaren deserved to be in the race.

"Fernando's great and we all want to come back. If you have a crash or lose a race, you dust yourself off and you get emotional but then you want to come back and do it again and prove to yourself that you can do it."