McLaren and Fernando Alonso were forced to scrap Wednesday’s practice at Indianapolis, a setback that leaves the Spaniard just one day of running before this weekend’s qualifying for the Indy 500.
It’s been a miserable start for team and driver at the Brickyard, with Alonso suffering electrical issues on the opening day of running and then crashing heavily on Wednesday, leaving the two-time F1 champion’s lap count at Indy so far at just 96 laps.
On Thursday, the team bore the consequences of Wednesday’s mishap, its crews working frantically to prepare a spare car supplied by partner Carlin which was also fitted with a fresh Chevrolet engine.
The workload prevented the team from taking to the track on Wednesday.
“Not running today was a serious setback to our Indy 500 program, but all is not lost,” said McLaren sporting director Gil de Ferran.
“We should have a full day of practice and preparations for qualifying tomorrow and our goal will be to have a nice, clean day.”
“It’s definitely slow going,” added McLaren boss Zak Brown.
“We had to borrow pieces from the one car and move them to the other car, bring in bits from an outside location, change the engine. It’s been a lot of work.
“We’re just trying to get it done right, put some extra TLC in it and make sure it is ready to go.”
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While pressure was inevitably mounting for McLaren, Brown insisted the team was working diligently and not letting a sense of panic set in.
“Fernando is a little sore from his accident – his legs bent the steering wheel – but he’s fine,” Brown told Motorsport.com.
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“But you know what Indy is like. If you panic, that’s when you make a mistake so you’ve just got to keep your cool and build the car and get it right and make sure you get the setup right.
“It takes a long time on the setup pad to get the configuration, and I don’t think you can rush it.”
Contrary to Alonso’s first visit to Indy in 2017, when McLaren was merely an entrant and Andretti Autosport handled the running of its car, the Woking-based outfit is on its own this year, although it does enjoy a small alliance with full-time IndyCar outfit Carlin.
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Unfortunately, McLaren’s independent effort hasn’t made its task of dealing with Tuesday’s crash easier.
“Being a new team is certainly a disadvantage as it takes time,” said Brown.
“The guys are all very experienced but they’ve not worked together as a team before.
“So this is the first time they’ve had to rebuild a car overnight and you’re always going to do it a second time or third time or fourth time.
“But the only way to get through that is to be a new team once, learn from it. But they’re cool, calm and collected.”
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