McLaren and Fernando Alonso have failed to qualify for the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 after getting bumped during Sunday afternoon's last-three shoot-out.
Alonso was left to fight for a place on the final row of the grid for the famous race in a one-shot attempt to qualify, having missed out on the top 30 spots during Saturday's session.
In Sunday's opening practice session Alonso's #66 McLaren-Chevrolet was seen sparking across the track, showing the team was still struggling to get the car in right set-up window. Rain then forced the session to end prematurely, which left the team with no more preparation time ahead of the vital final six driver shoot-out for the remaining three slots on the grid.
Then, during Sunday's rain delayed session which finally started at 4.30pm local time, the Spaniard was only able to achieve a four-lap improvement of just 0.1mph faster than his best run on Saturday afternoon and had to watch on from the pit lane as Juncos Racing's Kyle Kaiser bumped the double Formula 1 World Champion and McLaren from the iconic event.
And for McLaren's Indy 500 partner, Carlin, qualifying went from bad to worse for the rookie British team with only one of the four Carlin-related cars – that of Charlie Kimball – making the final race grid as Alonso, Pato O'Ward and Max Chilton all missed out, taking 34th, 35th and 36th spots respectively in the final qualifying standings.
Alonso's next event is set to be the 24 hours of Le Mans on June 15th where he has the opportunity to win the FIA WEC Drivers' World Championship in his final race for Toyota.
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