INDIANAPOLIS – Fernando Mania was back at Indy this year. Unlike the first time he came over here to run the biggest race in motorsports, Alonso announced much earlier that he was going to attempt to make the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 (11 a.m. ET/NBC/INDYCAR Radio Network).

That is what Doug Boles told me a month or so ago that caused a spike in ticket sales from fans coming from Spain. It gave them more time to plan their travel. Unfortunately, Alonso’s home fans won’t have him to cheer for.

 

Alonso, was one of three drivers that failed to make next Sunday’s 200 Lap race as he surprisingly will be going home early. It caps a frustrating month for the former F1 world champion, to what he called out his team about not being ready for this challenge.

See, McLaren made it known that it wasn’t going to be easy. Zak Brown said back at Long Beach that they were coming into this all by themselves. They didn’t want to partner with anyone. In 2017, everything was essentially an Andretti car. They just had to show up. It was easy for them.

Andretti is among the top teams in the NTT IndyCar Series and was the dominant team that month. Alonso, started fifth and had a chance to win that year.

Since he won LeMans last year, he desperately wants to win the Triple Crown. The only thing eluding him was the ‘500.

So, Alonso retired from F1 action at the end of the 2018 season and set his sights on making himself happy again. A lot of people speculated that they’d come over to Indy Car on a full time basis. For whatever reason, that deadline came and passed.

So, instead of racing before Indy, they showed up on their own hoping to make the field in what was the closest in ‘500 history from top to bottom. With that being how Indy Car racing is these days, they were set up for failure from the beginning.

Then, it was their negligence that led to them not making the field. They were offered help for so long. They just didn’t take it.

From the April 24 test to the May 19 bump day failure, it was a mess from start to finish.

Alonso, had a mechanical issue on his opening lap in the test. The rain didn’t allow them to run much that day, then add the fact they had an issue and you get chaos. On the opening day of the week of practice, they had a mechanical failure. More lost time. On the second day, another issue. Then, after they thought they had the issue fixed, Alonso crashed in Turn 3.

They lost an entire day of practice on Thursday to repair his car. Something that Alonso said was frustrating and really at that point made him feel nervous about making the show. On Friday, they finally had a good clean day but on Saturday, the speed just wasn’t there.

Alonso, was forced to the Last Row Shootout. They didn’t have a good setup in Sunday morning’s practice, but that was because of an alliance they made for dampers with Andretti Autosport.

Despite Andretti’s help and a chat with Team Penske, McLaren was bumped out on the final qualifier by a team with 48 employees.

While rumors were circulating that McLaren was shopping for a spot in the field, Gil DeFerran confirmed that they won’t be buying their ways in.

“We will not do that,” said deFerran. “We want to earn our place in the field.”

So, the story of Alonso comes to an end. Will he be back for another go?

“Yeah, I don’t know,” said a dejected Alonso. “Right now I think it’s difficult to make any promise. “It’s just too soon to make decisions. I don’t know even what I will do after next month Le Mans 24 hours, finish my program in the world endurance championship, and I wanted to have the 2020 open because I don’t know exactly what opportunities may come for me for next year in terms of racing. So you know, I don’t know — until I know the program for next year, I cannot promise or have any idea in my mind.

“But as I always say, I would be more than happy to race here again in the future and to win the triple crown, which is still a target or different target. You know, maybe I race different series with different challenges. Maybe next year, as well, completely out of my comfort zone again, and maybe, you know, this type of challenge, they can bring you a lot of success and you can be part of the history of the sport or can be really disappointed. You know, today is one of those, but I prefer to be here than to be like millions and millions of other people, you know, at home watching TV. I prefer to try.”

What about McLaren’s full time entrant for 2020. Brown, said that it would depend on Indy. Well, they didn’t make it at Indy.

“You know, you try to do the best you can, you know, drawing up plans and everything, and one thing when you asked Fernando about positives, I think from my perspective, we’ve certainly learned a lot of lessons here that will carry that forward, that possibility, still in consideration,” de Ferran said of that situation. “But no decision has been made.”

Alonso, said that he can takeaway some things for this month but leaves with his head held high.

“I still feel proud,” said the Spaniard. “Obviously I’m disappointed now because we will not be in the race, but as I said, even for McLaren, they will be a bit thin in the next day or next two days, and then everyone will forget. But the next two days it will be maybe hard for the team. I feel unfair a little bit if things goes on that way. We didn’t do the job. We were not quick enough. Simple. The others, they did better. We congratulate them. But at the same time, I think only McLaren is the only team in motorsport that won the Indy 500, won the Le Mans 24-hour, won the Formula 1 championship. You can only do that if you try. If you stay only in one series and you concentrate there for all your history or your organization is only racing in one series, maybe you can succeed, you can have good seasons, bad seasons. But you are in that small world.

“But in terms of motorsport in general, to be here and at least try, it deserves some credit. Obviously we are all disappointed, and we will try to do better next time. But it’s that kind of things that you learn. I said before, I prefer to be here, even 34th, than being at home like last year.

“I tried my best.”