Fernando Alonso denied that Honda played a role in Andretti turning down his chance at a seat for the 2020 Indy500 event which forced the Arrow McLaren SP move.
One of the bigger storylines of the 2020 IndyCar season thus far has been Alonso returning for another Indy500 run. It hasn’t been plain sailing despite his interest as there was talk about which team he would run with in the event that he did compete.
Initially, the Spaniard was thought to be lined up for a seat at Andretti Autosport until reports came out that he had been denied by Honda due to the residual bad blood from their F1 relationship fallout, when they were together at McLaren.
And, while he did admit to having talked with Andretti, Alonso has come out saying that nothing of this sort ever occurred. In fact, the F1 world champion stated that they were not involved in negotiations, which were instead between solely himself and the team.
“Nothing about that [Honda vetoing],” said Alonso. “I have read that, as well, in the news and in the papers, and I was surprised, and I was talking with Michael sometime because we both were surprised. When you talk with a team and negotiate with a team, you are negotiating with them, not with their partners or anything like that.
“They don’t have that power anyway to do this kind of things. I don’t have any issues at all with Honda, and as far as I know they don’t have any issues with myself. But that’s more a question for them, but I’m sure that they don’t have any. Yeah, at some point I was also more towards the Andretti project.
“I just thought we waited to finish the Dakar, and after the Dakar I think the McLaren team had some re-enforcements, and they were having other new people come into the team, and I don’t know, I turned a little bit more towards the McLaren one, and I know also that Chevy won the last two Indy500 events.”
Elaborating more on Chevrolet and his return to McLaren, Alonso feels that the engine gives them slight advantage and after what happened in 2019, the Spaniard feels like he owed everyone something which he wishes to give back.
“I raced with Chevy last year there, and I know that for the top end they have maybe a slight advantage, so that was also something to take into account,” said Alonso. “At the end, I think with the three-car team, we can be protective in terms of data, in terms of information, but not too chaotic in terms of too many cars or anything like that.
“At the end, I don’t know, I felt like this was the natural place for me to land and to race, especially after what happened last year. It’s something that I think we need to give back to everyone.” Alonso will have Patricio O’Ward and Oliver Askew at his side.
Here’s the announcement of Fernando Alonso returning for Indy500
The story was edited by Darshan Chokhani