Alonso: “You have to be perfect every lap”

12 Heures de Sebring avec Toyota Gazoo Racing, essais F1 in Bahrain with McLaren, and now driving session in Texas in IndyCar to prepare for Indy 500… Fernando Alonso haven't been idle these last few weeks.

The double F1 world champion was testing yesterday on the American oval in order to really begin preparation for the big meeting on May 26, where the prospect of the Triple Crown will be at the heart of the McLaren driver's commitment.

The Spaniard, who discovered the universal aero kit offered by the new IndyCar single-seaters, accumulated 105 laps and allowed the Woking structure to accumulate important data, even if the ovals of Texas and Indianapolis are largely different.

“It’s a bit more of an unknown situation for all of us, Alonso immediately specifies, McLaren evolving this time without the support of Andretti Autosport as in 2017, but with the support of Carlin. We believe in different philosophies in terms of settings and preparation.

We are experimenting. We started with a basic setup that we know has been used in the past, but we've slowly been trying to test different things. Today was the first day and in Indianapolis we will go further.

I remain convinced that this universal kit is more difficult to carry with a little less support. It is therefore necessary to optimize the settings. Running alone is normally a little easier, but in traffic I think it will be difficult if you lack support.

We know how delicate these configurations are, how extreme they are. Small changes make a big difference to lap time, a big difference to feel. The track is never the same and continually changes all day starting in the morning. »

Following his discovery of the MCL34 in Bahrain, Fernando Alonso found a very different environment during this American session, with always particular driving on the ovals.

“I come from heats where you can hit the grass a little and lose momentum in a lap, recalls Alonso. Here, there is no such possibility in the turns. It's quite demanding and quite stressful. This test reminded me how critical everything is here. You have to be perfect in every round. »

Recall that the car of Fernando Alonso will be powered by a Chevrolet block, the former driver Ferrari having benefited from a Honda V6 in 2017 during its first attempt.