Alonso is a big boy. He’ll be ok. Guess he couldn’t find a way to cheat this time?
That is sad news. Al and ex-wife Shelley had a daughter with a serious medical issue, I always wondered if that precipitated the drinking?
Yah he should dump McLaren and use his huge sponsorship money to get a top seat. The guy draws eyeballs.
Fernley out. Oh, no, not Fernley! https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/fernley-mclaren-indianapolis-500-alonso/4392565/ BHW
Going back to the Ed Carpenter Racing/Alonso talk, I saw on another forum a post or two saying ECR actually offered McLaren a car and a setup sheet on Saturday night for $2,000,000 ($1,000,000 for each item). McLaren declined the offer. Zero idea if it's true or not as it was "from sources at the track."
Hours of qualifying, hours and hours of practice ......... I feel like I have already watched the 500
The Ax already falling.... McLaren Indy fires team president in wake of Fernando Alonso's Indy 500 failure https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/motor/indy-500/2019/05/20/mclaren-fires-team-boss-wake-fernando-alonsos-indy-500-failure-bob-fernley/3741124002/ INDIANAPOLIS -- It took less than 24 hours for the changes to start. In the aftermath of McLaren Indy and Fernando Alonso's failure to qualifying for the 103rd Indianapolis 500 on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, team president Bob Fernley has been fired. A McLaren official confirmed the news, first reported by the Associated Press on Monday morning. Before joining McLaren, Fernley was deputy team principal at the Force India Formula One team. His firing comes after a humiliating week for a proud racing team. Despite abundant resources and a two-time world championship driver, McLaren failed to find significant pace throughout practice, leading Alonso to comment following his first qualifying attempt Saturday that the team was "not ready for the challenge" of competing at the Indianapolis. "Our performance has been quite bad all week," Alonso said. "Quite poor." Alonso pointed out how quickly small-budget Juncos Racing was able to bounce back from a Friday crash -- getting its car prepared for practice the following morning -- while it cost McLaren its entire practice day Thursday before it was able to get Alonso back on track. "We’ve been slow," he said. "You see (Juncos) crashing yesterday and being ready at 6 (a.m.). That’s impressive. For us, we’ve been a little bit slow. Slow on everything." McLaren continued to be slow the rest of the weekend. Despite a total of five qualifying attempts Saturday, Alonso could not find the speed to squeeze the No. 66 Chevrolet into one of the top 30 spots. Given one last chance Sunday during the battle for the final three spots, Alonso was edged by Sage Karam, James Hinchcliffe and Kyle Kaiser.
Well, that didn't take long !!! I suppose the McLaren Indy team will be disbanded, and this project shelved for good. I wouldn't be surprised if Zak Brown ultimately pays the price for that costly distraction. The McLaren shareholders aren't very forgiving with a CEO that fails.
from the horse's (ass) mouth: great leadership. I've personally seen 80 year old billionaire Roger Penske cleaning, moving wheels, organizing equipment, etc. details matter. work matters. leadership matters. fire all the employees you want, when the leader says a task is beneath him, you're screwed.
That comedy of errors is unforgivable and is so bad that I don't know how Zak Brown escapes it with his job. The first thing I thought of when I read it was if this happens with the Formula 1 team as well and, if so, how fast they could be under better oversight?
Heat and serve racing. Proving that forgetting to mix the ingredients correctly results in a half assed product. Give me 4 hours with the car and i will put It in the show. Over management at its best ,
It seems to me ZB shouldn't be in racing at all. That story is a stunning appraisal of how he runs things.
Surely it's a matter of time before the penny drops for McLaren shareholders (the Bahrainis, Ojjeh and Peter Lim) and they realise that Zak Brown is just not up to run their racing business. This Indy venture just to pander to Alonso's whim has been a massive distraction from the F1 effort, and did cost a bomb as well with no tangible result.
“We actually had a 229 (mph) car but we had 227.5 gearing, so we beat ourselves again while we almost made it,” Brown said. Is that for real and not an excuse? I can see how everything else got screwed up, but that last bit in particular??? How in the world could that happen.
Wow... they lost 2 days of testing because the orange was the wrong color!!! McLaren purchased a car from technical partner Carlin, and though the car was orange when McLaren received it, it was not the proper McLaren “papaya orange.” It had to be repainted after the test, and that still had not been completed when Alonso crashed his McLaren-built car last Wednesday. The Carlin spare was in a paint shop 30 minutes from the track, more than a month after McLaren complained about the color, and it ultimately cost McLaren almost two full days of track time. The team looked foolish as other teams were able to move into backup cars in mere hours; James Hinchcliffe crashed in Saturday qualifying and was back on track in his spare that afternoon.
Ever heard the words "attention to detail"? Or in McLaren's case the lack thereof . I believe U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt Thomas Highway defined this as a "cluster****.
Wrong color paint they knew about for a month, screwed the build of spare car which screwed their practice. Incorrect conversion of metric to US. NO STEERING WHEEL. Wrong gears installed. Wrong tire pressure sensors installed. They didn't know how to set up the car! Basically no preparation and no knowledge. How did this even happen?
Marketing people doing a job for mechanics/engineering. Cutting corners in an effort to pocket more monies.
Carlin in a British firm. I was waiting for the UK press to blame it on stupid Americans who don't understand how the British work. Interesting that the problems could be seen long ago and no one did anything about it. Its a little too late to fire people after the disaster strikes.
