Topic

Motorsport.com's Prime content

Fernando Alonso, Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Prime

IndyCar / Indy 500 Analysis

Why Alonso’s latest McLaren reunion has cause for optimism

By:

David Malsher-Lopez

Aug 20, 2020, 8:12 PM

After a promising debut in 2017 was followed by last year's disaster, Fernando Alonso returns to the Indianapolis 500 for a third time. Despite a hefty practice crash and a lowly qualifying performance, his triple crown dream is not out of question…

Subscribe to PRIME Sign in

It was inevitable that someone this month would eventually ask McLaren CEO Zak Brown what lessons had been learned from the team's disastrous venture to Indianapolis in 2019, that resulted in Fernando Alonso's failure to qualify. He went into quite a long explanation, but he didn't need to: he had already nailed the answer in one sentence: "I think the biggest lesson we've learned is, 'Don't do what we did last year.'"

And they haven't. The partnership with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to form Arrow McLaren SP made so much sense and it's already bearing fruit. Despite hiring two hugely inexperienced IndyCar drivers - albeit, the last two Indy Lights champions – the team has already earned a pole and runner-up finish with Patricio 'Pato' O'Ward at Road America, and Oliver Askew delivered a podium finish at Iowa Speedway.

comments

David Malsher-Lopez

David Malsher-Lopez is Motorsport.com’s U.S. editor, covering the NTT IndyCar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Since completing journalism college in 1994, he has worked for Autosport, TRMG, Motor Sport, Autosport (again) and Racer, before joining Motorsport.com in 2015… where he has found himself enjoying a third spell writing for Autosport. Over the course of those 27 years, he has served as a journalist, sub-editor, features editor, deputy editor and editor. In 2015, he also wrote Will Power’s biography. David lives with his wife Sophia in California and when not writing about racing, he will be found reading about planes and classic cars, attending airshows, listening to a wide variety of music or watching cop shows from the ’70s. He intends to one day own a grand piano, an Airedale terrier and a vintage Pontiac. He doesn’t do Facebook and doesn’t understand Instagram but can be found @DavidMalsher on Twitter.