F1 boss admits Fernando Alonso qualifying failure was 'worst experience of my life'

Fernando Alonso

F1 boss admits Fernando Alonso qualifying failure was 'worst experience of my life'

Fernando Alonso missed out on Indy500 qualifying in 2019

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 5 May 2026 14:27 Updated: 15:08

McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown has opened up on 'the worst experience' of his life, a qualifying failure with Fernando Alonso.

Brown has been CEO of McLaren Racing since April 2018, but has been with the team in another role since November 2016.

It meant that he crossed over with two-time world champion Alonso, who rejoined the F1 team in 2015 before retiring in 2018 - although that retirement was short lived.

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In his years spent away from the F1 grid, Alonso tried his hand at a number of racing series, and tried to claim success in the Indy500 in 2017, 2019 and 2020. A win in that race would've given him the third leg of motorsport's iconic triple crown having already been a Monaco GP winner and a two-time Le Mans winner.

However, Alonso did not manage to claim victory in the iconic American race, and his best finish was 21st across the three attempts.

In 2019 while racing for the McLaren IndyCar outfit in their first full comeback race in the event, Alonso failed to even qualify, being bumped by Juncos Racing's Kyle Kaiser during the Last Row Shootout.

McLaren were largely unprepared for the event in 2019, with a tumultuous week beforehand being underpinned by a practice crash, having the wrong-sized parts at the circuit, and poor preparation.

Now, Brown has revealed quite how embarrassing the event was for him personally, but how much he learned from the whole incident.

"At the time, it was the worst experience of my life, but I'm very proud of it, which sounds strange," Brown said in quotes reported by Motorsport.com.

"It's because of how we leaned in, we learned from it. I owned it, at the end of the day it was my fault because I didn't get the right pieces in place, the right people in place, I didn't trust myself.

"All the things I preach, I let myself down on, so I'm glad it happened because I won't let that mistake happen again.

"Since then, we've finished second twice at the Indy500, we've crashed going for the lead. I remember when we didn't qualify, some people said 'right, so you're done now?' I was like 'no, no, no, no'.

"In racing, when you crash, you repair the car, you understand why you crashed and you get right back in. That's what you do in racing."

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