McLaren Spectacular Indy Failure

Famed Formula 1 McLaren team try their hand at Indy this year and failed miserably in spectacular fashion as their driver, two-time Formula 1 champion, Fernando Alonso failed to qualify for the race. The team struggled the entire week getting up to speed going into the weekend. Alonso totaled a car during practice. Come qualifying Saturday they couldn't able get themselves locked in top 30 forcing them qualify for final three spots of the field with six cars gunning for it in one shot on Sunday. Alonso qualified in the field only to get bumped out by the last car on track, a sponsorless cash-strapped Juncos Racing team driven by 2017 Indy Lights champion Kyle Kaiser.

How could this happen to well-known world racing team pumped with full of money failed miserably? I been reading articles and listening to podcasts on the subject that came out afterwards. It was series of follies that started when McLaren announced their running of the Indy 500. 

The big difference from their run in 2017 to this year is that they had partnership with Andretti Autosports, who have years of running Indycar, in their 2017 run. McLaren decide go at it alone with upstart Carlin Racing providing support. Originally they approached Ed Carpenter Racing to partner up, but they declined. Another note Andretti uses Honda engines while Carlin uses Chevy. Why is this important? Cue back to 2015 to McLaren Formula 1 season where they are in their downward spiral stretch of a difficult season along rocky relationship with Honda. After a race in Japan, their driver Fernando Alonso called the engine a "GP2" (lower tier series) pissing off Honda. When McLaren and Honda split in Formula 1 they will work with team in the future, but not with Alonso driving. Cue to late 2018 where they announce running the only engine available to them, a Chevy, for this year's Indy 500.

There is their preparation going to Indianapolis. McLaren arrogantly thought they can drive in and waltz through the field expecting to win. They end up learning the hard way what they can do in Formula 1 does not work in Indycar. Here's a small rundown on McLaren road to Indy follies....

- order a steering wheel for the car, but did not order the required paddle shifters for it because the team said they do not need them.
- electrical issues plagued their Indy test. Instead finding the problem they removed member of the team. The electrical gremlins continued, but this time it was on week on Indy practice to qualify losing valuable track time.
- purchased a backup car from Carlin and complained about orange paintjob isn't "papaya orange." The car sat in Carlin's shop being repainted and not ready when Alonso crashed in practice. Meanwhile other teams get backup ready in few hours (see James Hinchcliffe and Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports) Alonso sat by wayside for almost two days, yet again losing much valuable track time.
- poor car setup with very low ride height as bottom of the car scraping the track at times.
- couldn't converted inches to metric system.
- couldn't set up gear ratios

Fans surprised to see McLaren bombed badly, but not for those within the garages and paddock area. They knew its was going be trainwreck a mile away. The teams who been around Indy know how they must work as cohesive unit taking steps at time with setups and input to get car running in practice and make necessary changes during the time before going to qualifying. Even the brand new DragonSpeed team did it to reach their goal of qualifying for Indy 500. Juncos Racing, despite a setback, went to work repairing the wrecked car and got in the field. McLaren team turned into comical disorganized chaos with too many chiefs running it with no direction from beginning to end. The team's road to Indy run will go down as one biggest qualifying disasters at the speedway.

I bought this at COTA during Indycar race weekend. Let's say I own a piece of "reject" merchandise.