McLaren Racing has presented their car for this year’s Indianapolis 500, which will be run on 26 May 2019.
The paint job is very similar to their Formula car, where orange and blue is once again the overall colour scheme.
A new thing for the team, is that they will run the car themselves, opposite to the 2017 race, where Andretti Autosport ran the car. Back then, both Andretti and McLaren used Honda engines, and while Andretti still does so, all ties between the British team and the Japanese manufacturer has been cut, so they won’t supply their Indycar engines either. So it’s a Chevrolet installed in the back of the McLaren this year.
The team has a lot of learn, so they went to Texas Motor Speedway last week, where Fernando Alonso got the first laps in the car. The Spaniard did race the 2017 edition of the Indy car, but that was with the old aerokit on the car, so he has to get used to the new kit, which was introduced for the 2018 race.
Photo: Indycar.com / Chris Owens
With just a limited amount of days allowed on the Indianapolis oval, the team had to go for the oval in Texas instead, which is very different from Indy, with its very high bankings, opposite to the more flat Indy.
The team was overall happy with the pace of the car, but it’s always tough for them to measure then against the competition, with nobody else running in that private test.
They won’t have to wait any longer than next week, where there will be an official test at IMS, with 28 drivers entered so far. 24 April will be the first opportunity in 2019 to test on the oval, before the cars will be stowed away again, and the regular aerokits will be used for the Indycar Grand Prix, which will be run on parts of the old Formula 1 track, with other sections being different from that.
The oval driving starts on 14 May, where a lot of practice sessions during the next 12 days, will culminate on 26 May with the big 500 Miles race.
