Indy 500: Was Fernando Alonso down to just one option?

Fernando Alonso may have been down to only one option to return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to compete in this year’s Indy 500.

A few weeks ago, two-time Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso was all set to return to the Indianapolis 500 with Andretti Autosport, the IndyCar team he drove for when he made his debut in the race back in 2017.

But at the last minute, that deal fell through, and Andretti Autosport have now confirmed that James Hinchcliffe, not Alonso, is set to be their sixth driver for this 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana.

So Alonso was still left without a ride for the 104th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.

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At first, it was reported that Honda rejected this deal, presumably over the fact that there was bad blood between Honda and the duo of Alonso and McLaren during their three years together in Formula 1 from 2015 to 2017.

As a result, all eyes turned to the Chevrolet teams.

Alonso does not want to return to the Indy 500 in a non-competitive car, which limits his options right off the bat. But Team Penske and Ed Carpenter Racing are already out of the mix, as Team Penske will not run a fifth car and Ed Carpenter Racing won’t run a fourth.

That really only left one good Chevrolet team. That one good Chevrolet team? Arrow McLaren SP.

McLaren are set to compete in IndyCar on a full-time basis this year after partnering with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to form Arrow McLaren SP, and from the get-go, they stated that they had a car ready for Alonso to compete in the Indy 500 if he wanted it.

There were questions as to whether or not this was still the case since McLaren and Alonso officially cut ties in January.

But according to RACER, this did not mean that a deal with Arrow McLaren SP was out of the picture. McLaren CEO Zak Brown was reportedly “still looking at it”, and team co-owner Sam Schmidt added stated that Alonso “needs to be in the Indy 500”.

Now Arrow McLaren SP have confirmed that Alonso is set to drive the #66 Chevrolet for the team in this year’s running of the race

Was this his only option left?

When Andretti confirmed Hinchcliffe, he also came forward with the bombshell that it was not the fault of Honda that the Alonso deal fell through, contradicting previous reports.

So could Alonso still technically have ended up with a Honda-powered team? Yes. But the odds weren’t exactly in his favor.

The other full-time Honda-powered teams are Chip Ganassi Racing, Dale Coyne Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Chip Ganassi Racing managing director Mike Hull had stated that Honda never told them they couldn’t field an entry for Alonso, but he also said that the deal was never on the table for the team, and expanding to four cars for this race would have been “difficult at best”.

Dale Coyne Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing may have been decent options since both tend to field additional entries for the Indy 500, and neither team have confirmed anything beyond their two full-time drivers for 2020. But there were really never any kind of talks of Alonso ending up with either one.

Suffice it to say that Alonso’s entry with Arrow McLaren SP is the best thing he could have hoped for given how his deal with Andretti Autosport fell through, and it may very well have been the only ride he could have possibly landed at this point.

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Was Fernando Alonso down to only one option, Arrow McLaren SP, regarding competing in the Indianapolis 500 this year? Regardless, they are the team for which the two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner and two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner is set to compete in an attempt to become the second driver to win all three races of the Triple Crown of Motorsport.