Breaking: Fernando Alonso to Run Indy 500, Skip Monaco

Fernando Alonso to race in 2017 Indianapolis 500

Two-Time Formula One Champion Fernando Alonso will be making his Indycar debut at the 2017 Indianapolis 500. The Spanish driver will be piloting an entry from McLaren entered in partnership with Andretti Autosport. The deal, which had been in the works for months, will not be McLaren's first foray into the race: the McLaren team was victorious in 1974 and 1976.

Alonso will miss the Monaco Grand Prix, held on the same day as the 500. The team is expected to field a replacement driver for that race and that race only. Alonso will return to Formula One to run the Canadian Grand Prix in Montréal. Though running both races was fairly common in the past, with legendary drivers like Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Graham Hill, and Pedro Rodriguez entering both, it has not happened in recent memory. The last two examples occured in the 1990s, with Vincenzo Sospiri in 1997 and Nigel Mansell in 1994. Neither driver ran an entire campaign, and Sospiri only ran one race in F1 that year.

This will be Alonso's first experience of oval racing in his long career. It has been suspected that Alonso wants to make a run at the Triple orown of Racing, including the F1 championship, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Indianapolis 500. Graham Hill is the only winner, and Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya are the only active drivers who have completed two legs of the triple crown.

LINK: https://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128926/alonso-to-race-in-2017-indy-500

Let's hope he can do it. It'll be cool to see.

That has to easily be the craziest story of the year. 500 hype just got hotter.

Hot rumor is his replacement for Monaco might want to cancel his sabbatical.

Disclaimer : This isn't meant to be serious.

There's only two possible Results, They clone Stoffel, or get MALDONADO'D

Very surprising news, hope he does well. I also hope he finds it fun enough to try again next year.

Quite possibly the biggest headline since the split ended.

That's the biggest headline of 2017

Best motorsports news I have heard in a very long time.

And I happen to think if he does well this year and enjoys it, I think either in the next year or year after, a full-time IndyCar ride might be on his radar.

I'm actually kinda surprised that McLaren's going with him. When I first saw the headline I thought Fernando was going to make a run at the 500 alone, and pick up a team somewhere along the way. It always seemed to me like he was never happy at McLaren in Formula 1; the cars were always weighing him down. And you'd think after all the struggles Fernando's endured with that team, he would try to get as far away from it as possible. Of course, I wasn't born yet when McLaren was last in the Indianapolis 500, so what do I know?

At any rate, I openly welcome both Fernando's entry into the 500 with McLaren. I agree that this is very good news.

Doesn't surprise me to see Alonso do things outside of F1, he clearly wants a competitive car or out, and Honda is probably trying to "sweeten" him up, trying to get a deal done for 2018, but Fernando himself seems like won't stay with McLaren for 2018 on forward.

The left field of motorsport sure has seen a lot of action in the past year, hasn't it?

I've been wondering as to who will be driving Andretti Autosport's 500 entry this year... but I never saw that coming.

To be honest, I hadn't even realized that any F1 driver could even be permitted to miss a Grand Prix by his team for the purpose of racing elsewhere, but lo and behold it's the team, itself, which is helping him to do it! This is very exciting news, to say the least, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Alonso can do in his first attempt at an oval race (and also what McLaren can do with the Andretti crew).

Well this came way out of left field.

I will admit, I am actually not that surprised by this. Given how McLaren has been since Fernando joined them, they have been utter....shit. They are the 9th best team on the grid just slightly ahead of Sauber, Fernando has to be furious with the way they have been.

In simple terms, Fernando is not going to win a 3rd drivers title this season, McLaren will most likely not getting any better, why not let him try something different.

Dexter249 wrote:Disclaimer : This isn't meant to be serious.

There's only two possible Results, They clone Stoffel, or get MALDONADO'D

Pastor Maldonado could possibly be in a second car for Juncos (Yes, I read the disclaimer).

Back to the main topic, as someone who has close family at at Andretti, this is very exciting. Considering the other drivers Andretti was also rumored to pick (don't think I can say anything else than that) this is very good. I am super pumped for this!

Dexter249 wrote:Disclaimer : This isn't meant to be serious.

There's only two possible Results, They clone Stoffel, or get MALDONADO'D

In all seriousness, potential replacements lined up for Monaco are Jensen Button, Nyck de Vries, and Nobuharu Matsushita (no relation to King Hiro). Most likely Button.

Couldn't log on yesterday, but as one may expect this has me super pumped. Biggest news for the 500 in terms of participants since the split, like Cynon said. Awesome news. I'll go update the 500 topic.

On the topic of Alonso, Jenna Fryer should not be commenting on a driver she doesn't know about at all. In fact I don't think she knows a damn thing about Formula 1 either.

http://racing.ap.org/article/column-so-what-alonso-racing-indy-500

BWardboy88 wrote:On the topic of Alonso, Jenna Fryer should not be commenting on a driver she doesn't know about at all. In fact I don't think she knows a damn thing about Formula 1 either.

http://racing.ap.org/article/column-so-what-alonso-racing-indy-500

I don't think she knows a damn thing about racing, period.