Alonso “more prepared than most rookies,” says Marco Andretti

Although the two-time World Champion and 32-time Formula 1 race-winner completed only 20 laps in the four hours following the Rookie and Refresher practice session, Andretti said he’s not expecting Alonso to struggle.

“I think he's more prepared than most rookies, to be honest,” said Andretti who finished second in his first Indy 500, back in 2006. “I think he's got a lot of knowledge and experience from the whole team to go off of… Probably too much information at once thrown at him!

“But he’s more prepared than me at 19, know what I mean?! Driving an F1 car, you're still at some level of understanding of dirty air and how to maneuver in and out.

“It's just that – but a little more intense.”

However, Andretti did sound a word of warning, as many drivers have, that dirty air is going to be Alonso’s biggest struggle.

“It depends where he qualifies,” he remarked. “I think if he's towards the front, the wake isn't as intense, but I've started everywhere here – front row and towards the back. Towards the back is very interesting on the start because you lift [off the throttle] and the car doesn't slow down like you're used to because your sucked along. A lot of turbulent air.

“I think that's the biggest thing. But I think as we do these group runs we can almost simulate a race [experience], with all the cars we [Andretti Autosport] have on our team – almost a fifth of the field!

“So hopefully by then Fernando will have a good enough feel. But raceday just always has a surprise for you. It just never goes like this. It's 500 miles, so it's just about sort of adapting. What I've witnessed of his career so far, I think he's all right at that!”

Andretti satisfied with his own progress

Although Andretti agreed that being fastest in the draft on the first day of practice wasn’t hugely significant, he said he was satisfied that the Andretti Autosport cars are fast.

“We were sort of trying to check the bigger setup item boxes today, the ones that take take a long time. That's why we were down for a lot of the day, and we got some good answers. We're trying to get the bigger items done now so you can start tuning mid-week and later in the week on the smaller things.

“So we need to make big changes now, which we've been doing, and we’re quite pleased with the starting car. Obviously we ran good here last year, the car felt good when I tested for Fernando and it still feels good. We need to keep it there, if not improve a bit more.”

“Speed is always good. That's the first thing you always want here because then you can really put more focus on just getting a comfortable race car, which is obviously my plan the rest of the week.

“They give points for qualifying now, so we can't just totally ignore it, but my goal is to win the race.”