Qualifications Day 1: Report
Fast 9 finish for Fernando
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Saturday 20 May
Inclement weather delayed Saturday morning practice and qualifying for the 101st Indianapolis 500, but the skies cleared, and 31 drivers completed their qualification attempts for The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
FERNANDO ALONSO, McLaren Honda Andretti driver
| Qualifications Day: 1 | 7th | Top speed: 230.034mph |
"It's definitely a very unique place. We are here two weeks. You're not going to repeat two laps the same because always the conditions, they keep changing. And that's amazing from a driver point of view to have that feeling with the circuit that you have to drive the car always; always it will be tricky. In (Turn) 1 or 3 or 4, always you will fight the challenge.
"I am definitely very happy. Tomorrow I think we will be much quicker than today. But anyway, it has been a fantastic week of running, a fantastic week of different experiences, running alone, high boost, low boost; every lap feels different. Today we only had one attempt because of the weather, so that creates stress in everybody. I think we deal with that today. But as I said, I think there will be more speed to come, hopefully, tomorrow.
"The first lap May 3rd here; I mean, everything was strange for me. The car - how it turns in the corner, how it rotates in the corner was a little bit strange. But now I feel confident with the team. We are a six-car team, so we have a lot of information that we share. All the teammates, they have been a big help for me in terms of setup with the car and also running in traffic. We've been running a lot together, and that's really a huge help for me."
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