The only reason to not name Alonso's replacement quickly would be to find a permanent replacement. McLaren is such a mess right now maybe Alonso is looking to get out. In any case I'll be rooting for The Ani-mal!

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You might want to check Mario's stats.....4x Indy car champ (3x USAC & 1x CART) & 1x F1 champ. Like Villeneuve, Mario didn't get the LeMans either. But, he got the Daytona 500 in NASCAR!

I was kind of responding to Matthew's post above #32. His post stated the 90's Champ/IRL era and specifically mentioned Dario and JPM. Tried to just cut and past instead of quoting it. Sorry for the confusion. Mario is one of the greatest American drivers ever surviving one of the deadliest eras of racing.

meant no disrespect
 

^ I've just been a Mario defender all my life.

I agree with you on Mario. Great champion and a great era. However, it was well before my example of 90's to present. Back then there was a fair amount of guys switching formulas. Jimmy Clark died in Formula 2 race.

In a way it would be nice to see some cross over but I think they all have gotten so territorial and too many scheduling conflicts. Maybe expand the race of champions?

I had also forgotten Alex Zinnardi. He went to F1 after a few Cart championships but suffered greatly in F1. He had tremendous difficulty with the carbon brakes to the extent that they even went back to metal brakes for him. I was hoping he would have had similar success as JPM and Jacques.

The takeaway is that this is a throwback to racing's more unregulated, golden era days when drivers would switch in the middle of one racing season to race in another series. That type of thing had become totally unheard of.

I'm no Alonso fan either and I haven't followed Indy but I'm giving him number 1 unless equipment failure. Remember Mansell?


Sent from my Tapatalk.

Which means he had ONE. Almost only works for horseshoes, hand grenades, and atom bombs. Goodyear lost two 500s by a combined six-tenths of a second, but close doesn’t count when it comes to the Borg-Warner Trophy. Hildebrand led the Indy in his rookie year and crashed in turn 4 of the last stinking lap. He is not remembered for winning but for ending up as 1st loser. PT (the Chrome Horn) got a raw deal due to a yellow flag and didn't his face on the trophy in 2002 (full disclosure: I am a PT fan).

Anyone can thrash a car to get out front. Part of the skill in the 500 is saving your car so that you can be there at the end. There are some drivers who virtually never have a DNF. They don't put themselves in bad situations and know how to take care of the car. Bobby Rahal won a title that way (full disclosure I was a huge Bobby Rahal fan).

Both Mario and Michael had a driving style and philosophy of win or crash but don't come in 2nd. At best, you can say they are lousy engineers who build cars that aren't up to the task of 500 miles and if that is the case Alonso won't have a chance.

The Rossi win is an example of smart strategy. They played the mileage game and won. It wasn't pretty crossing the bricks at 179 mph but they don't ask how pretty just how many.

You really need to think about your comments a little more..

Ironic, coming from a guy that's a fan of the poster child for the win-or-crash mentality, Paul Tracy. I think Michael had one DNF at Indy due to driver error.

Neither of them built any of the cars they ran or engineered them. You can't blame a driver for a fuel pump that quits, or something similar.

Obviously, you're not an Andretti fan but you really shouldn't knock them so hard. They were a lot better drivers than you give them credit for.

JR

I just heard some comments about Alonso's choosing to do Indy. Made During the Quali sessions.
They were suggesting that the team is not fighting the choice in an effort to keep Alonso happy enough to stay with the team for a while.

I imagine they really value his input in developing the car.

Cheers Richard

The Andretti family has control over their engineers and has input into the things done to the car. They may not turn the wrench but they pick the people who do.
I like Mario and Michael. Mario and PT both had win or crash mentality.
Marco is a whiner and until recently wouldn't have had a ride without his last name unless the ride was Uber.

Totally agree. Indycar is currently the series that is most technically difficult for the drivers (with oval, road courses, and street courses), and provides the best racing by far. F1 is checkbook racing.

I hope Alonso does well, but it's ludicrous to say that if he doesn't win, F1 will lose face.

^^
I need counseling. I am agreeing with Madcorgi on something.

Outside of PARF, I bet we agree on a lot.

Alonso doing Indy 500 has to be great news for all top level motors port categories, I really hope this opens the doors for more cross-pollination as any real motor sport fan wants to see the best of the best mix it up in a different category than the one they normally compete in.

Just look at what Hulkenberg did in 2015 Le Mans 24hrs etc or Seb Loeb in the Paris Dakar, Le Mans 24 hrs and World Touring Championships. I'd like to see more of this.

Indy 500 for me is one the finest motor sport events in the world so to see the name McLaren back on the entry list and Alonso is really exciting news.

I think its very brave of both McLaren and Alonso to stick their necks out to compete, they both have more to lose than to gain.

I'm pretty sure they won't approach the race with an arrogant attitude as a lot of people have suggested. I've worked directly with Alonso and never did he ever come across as being arrogant. super focused, super ruthless yes but I never saw a hint of arrogance.

Driver's like Alonso don't jump into another top level championship because they think its easy, they do it because its hard and it doesn't come much harder than the Indy 500

Thank-you!

One thing I wonder about is how Alonso will adapt to the physical requirements of the race. It's much longer than an F1 race and sustained speeds are far higher. I also suspect an Indycar is a much higher vibration vehicle.

boy, he was pissed during the Bahrain race today. Said he had never driven a car with less power

Well said, Captain.

Live streaming of Alonso testing at Indy has been on most of the day. He's still going:

https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/watch-live-fernando-alonso-makes-indy-test-debut-901414/

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