Indy 500 Qualifying live across two days on Sky F1 this weekend. Watch live on Saturday from 4pm and 5pm on Sunday
Monday 20 May 2019 08:29, UK
Fernando Alonso and McLaren's preparations for Indy 500 qualifying this weekend took suffered a setback when the former F1 world champion crashed during practice.
The Spaniard walked away unscathed from the accident and later tweeted that it was a "mistake from my side" with a "lesson learned".
McLaren did not return to track on Thursday as a result while they prepared the spare car, with their practice programme having already been delayed by an electrical problem on Monday.
"It was understeer on the car, and even if I lifted the throttle on the entry of the corner, it was not enough and I lost completely the front aero," said Alonso, who completed 46 laps with a top speed of 225.433mph around the 2.5-mile oval.
"The wall came too close and too quickly. Unfortunately, it happened today. We will lose a little bit of running time again. I'm sorry for the team, but we will learn, and hopefully, we will come back stronger tomorrow."
Gil de Ferran, McLaren's sporting director, said: "There's no denying the past few days have impacted our preparations, but we do feel we have a direction for where we need to take the set-up of the car.
"We're pulling together as a team, Fernando is in great spirits, and we just have to keep working in a calm and determined manner."
On the second day of practice at the famous Brickyard, Josef Newgarden set the pace for Team Penske ahead of Chip Ganassi's Scott Dixon. Felix Rosenqvist, the Swedish driver making his debut in the IndyCar series this year, also crashed and emerged unscathed.
Practice running continues on Thursday, with McLaren expecting to be back on track, ahead of 'Fast Friday' and then qualifying over the weekend. The Indy 500 itself takes place on Sunday May 26, following F1's showpiece Monaco GP, with both blue-riband events live on Sky Sports F1.
