Fernando Alonso has explained that he felt “happier” in his Honda-powered McLaren-Andretti car during the opening day of practice ahead of the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 in comparison to his first IndyCar experience earlier in the month.
The double Formula 1 champion immediately set the pace during the two-hour rookie orientation/refresher programme at the start of the day, setting a 221.634mph lap to end the session fastest overall ahead of fellow countryman Oriol Servia.
Despite receiving a private rookie orientation programme of his own earlier in the month, Alonso was still slightly wary of returning to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as temperatures were much higher than experienced during his earlier test day.
"I was a little bit concerned (heading in) about the conditions, about the temperature, as it was much hotter today than at the test we did here on May 3rd,” explained Alonso, who was P19 overall in the first official practice session later in the day.
“But no, the car felt as good as it did at the test, and I was able to make some setup changes without losing the confidence in the car.”
Although Alonso managed to complete a considerable amount of running in the ROP earlier in the day, the Spaniard could only manage 20 laps during the first official practice session after his running was curtailed due to a mechanical issue.
“The last half an hour maybe we had some issues with the rear suspension, and we could not complete the program that we had planned to run a little bit in traffic at the end of the day, so we missed that part, but overall it was an amazing day.
“I'm happier than the first day with the car because I was able to feel some of the setup changes that we were planning in the morning.
“We did not do much running in traffic, so that's still the thing that I need to go through in the next couple of days.
“But I did two or three laps behind some cars that were going out of pit lane, and it was good fun."
