Fernando Alonso said he was happy with a “stunning” first day of authority practice for the Indianapolis 500. The McLaren driver, who is racing at the current year’s occasion on 28 May rather than at the Monaco Grand Prix, was nineteenth on Monday with a 223.025mph normal.
“Everything went very smoothly,” said the 35-year-old Spaniard, who is a two-time F1 world champion.
“The last half-an-hour we had some issues with the rear suspension and we could not complete the programme.”
He added: “We had planned to run a little bit in traffic, so we missed that part, but overall it was an amazing day.”
Alonso has a race against time attempting to take in every one of the complexities of car set-up and racing on a 2.5-mile superspeedway against drivers who have been doing it for a considerable length of time.
He said he felt he had gained ground since his initially keep running at Indy when he finished his newbie test two weeks prior.
“The car felt as good as it did at the test, and I was able to make some set-up changes without losing the confidence in the car,” Alonso said.
“I’m happier than the first day with the car because I was able to feel some of the set-up 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.”
“In my case, qualifying is not very important,” Alonso added.
“When you are out there, you want to feel fast so it’s a question of enjoyment, not only the final position.
“But I think the priority for us in my garage is to set up the car for the race, to feel comfortable in traffic, to learn as much as I can, the way to overtake, the place to overtake, how you lose the minimum momentum in those manoeuvres.
“There are many things that I don’t know now and I need to learn quickly. So let’s see what we can do in qualifying. But definitely, the race preparation will be the first priority.”
