McLaren seriously considering IndyCar return

McLaren boss Zak Brown has conceded that McLaren could return to IndyCar in 2019 in what could be a massive move for the company.

Zak Brawn has confirmed that McLaren are considering other forms of motorsport. one’s that McLaren were earlier brilliant in. Brown has emphasised on the fact that they don’t want to jeopardise their F1 plans if they actually go ahead and participate in IndyCar.

Commercial feasibility will also be a major factor for the Woking based team.

“We’re seriously considering IndyCar, we’ve been doing some due diligence for quite some time.

“As stated before, if we’re going to get into other forms of motorsport which McLaren has a great history in, we need to do it in a way that first and foremost doesn’t compromise our Formula 1 activities, or we wouldn’t consider it.

“It needs to be commercially viable, something we feel we can be competitive in, and fits our brand. It has to tick all of those boxes, not most of those boxes.

“We’re not done yet with our due diligence, but it’s looking favorable. So we’ll take a decision in order to be prepared for 2019 sometime in the upcoming months, and if we’re confident we can tick those boxes, then it’s something we’ll probably move forward on. But we’re not done with the journey yet.” Brown said.

McLaren have had a brilliant history in IndyCar, especially in the 70’s.

Brown also addressed the fact about Alonso maybe making the switch to IndyCar for 2019.

“We’re in talks with Fernando. It was about this time last year that we started having conversations.

“He’s been doing F1 a long time, I think he’s enjoying driving as much as he ever has. I think he’s driving better than he ever has. He’s a little frustrated with F1 being a bit more of a constructors’ championship than a drivers’ championship. He loves F1, loves WEC [with Toyota], did Daytona [24 Hours with United Autosports] , so hopefully we’ll keep Fernando in the McLaren environment in some way, shape or form.

“I don’t really want to elaborate on the conversations that we’re having with him, beyond what I’ve spoken about. But I think any time he sees a race-winning car in front of him he’s going to want to drive it, no matter what it is. We’ve not got into that level of detail.”

McLaren have endured a painful relationship with Honda in F1, but Brawn has confirmed that those F1 troubles won’t bring about a bias in McLaren’s thinking if it enters IndyCar, i.e, they would be willing to have Honda as their engine partner.

“There are two excellent manufacturers, both of whom do an excellent job, in IndyCar,” he said,

“And we’d love to race with Honda again. They make great engines, they win a lot of races in IndyCar, so we wouldn’t hesitate to race with Honda if that was ultimately the direction we were headed.

“We’ve spoken with both manufacturers in our process of exploring what we might want to do.” he added.

Do you think McLaren should actually go into IndyCar