Fernando Alonso has failed to qualify for this year’s Indianapolis 500 following an inconsistent pace with his McLaren.
The Spanish driver only managed to set the 31st fastest time on the first day of qualifying. Alonso then faced a shootout on Sunday for the final three places on the grid but only finished fourth out of six drivers looking to edge their way into the race on Sunday May 26.
The BBC reports that Alonso’s four-lap average of 227.353 mph (365.889 km/h) was edged out by Kyle Kaiser by a mere 0.019 mph (0.030 km/h).
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“A difficult week, no doubts. We tried our best, even today with a completely different set up and approach, four laps flat on the throttle but we were not fast enough,” Alonso wrote on Instagram. “It’s never easy to drive around here at 227mph+, and want more speed… We tried our best and we’ve been brave at times, but there were people doing better job than us. Success or disappointments only come if you accept big challenges. We accepted. Thanks to the massive support always here at the speedway and everyone at home.”
The two-times F1 world champion had hoped to secure a win at this year’s Indy 500 to become just the second driver in history to win motorsport’s ‘Triple Crown’ with wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours, Monaco Grand Prix, and Indy 500.
For 2019, McLaren decided to set up its own team from scratch but encountered a number of issues throughout practice last week.
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