Alonso ‘amazed’ by first run at Indy

Fernando Alonso completed a clean day of testing Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, passing rookie orientation in about an hour and getting acclimated to the 2.5-mile oval over the course of several hours with the track to himself. Turn 1 at Indianapolis can be the most intimidating corner in all of racing, and for someone as seasoned as the two-time Formula 1 World Champion, experiencing it for the first time was not what he expected it would be.

"It was OK, I think thanks to the rookie [orientation]," Alonso said. "The first couple of laps you lift off and you go in corners and you start feeling the grip, the car, and you try to follow that target you need to reach in terms of speed, so that was one thing and then at one point they told me, OK, you're doing with all the limitations, so now you just need to do 15 laps above 215mph.

"I knew that Marco was flat out in Turn 1 so I said, I can do flat-out now in Turn 1 because the car is able to do it, so I arrived to Turn 1 and I was convinced 100 percent I was doing flat out, but the foot, it had its own life, it was not connected, my brain and foot at the moment. So the second or third lap I was able to do it ... to be able to feel the respect of the place, the respect of the car, the respect of the speed is something for any racing driver is just pure adrenaline. It was a good day."

Team owner Michael Andretti went a step further, calling the rookie orientation program session "perfect."

"He did perfect, did everything he was supposed to do and got through all three phases [of rookie orientation]," Andretti said.

“He gets it. He’s one of the best in the world and you can see why. He watched what he was doing with his line and was changing up lap to lap to get a feel and he had a little bit of understeer that run and he adjusted his line. He’s the real deal; I think he’s going to be really strong this month.”

Alonso managed to run over 100 laps, with a fastest lap of 222.548mph. The 35-year-old Alonso, who ranks sixth on F1's all-time win list with 32, credited the smoothness of the session to the "fantastic" combined efforts of the McLaren Andretti Honda team, from the IndyCar side with Michael Andretti, the McLaren side with McLaren executive director Zak Brown and the team of engineers and Andretti Autosport drivers who have exchanged information over the past few weeks.

"The team has been very supportive," Alonso explained, "not only today but the last few weeks we exchanged information every day. I’m amazed at things like that that I was able to go into the test knowing more or less most the important things of the car and procedures.”

“Marco this morning, shaking down the car, making some setup changes already thinking of how I could feel the car on the first time I jumped in, so everyone was really looking after me, and together with the people from Honda we make some setup work on the engine side, with Gil de Ferran, the last two or three weeks we’ve been through many of the things that I was probably facing on this first day. Now we have a lot more things to go through after this test that will be much more.”

The day started out a bit cool but the winds – and the rain that eventually cut the session a bit short – gave him his first taste of how an IndyCar reacts around the speedway.

"The track definitely changed during the day," he said. "In the morning I think the conditions were a little better, less windy, less gusty. The wind became strange in the afternoon. But if the conditions were good or bad, I have no idea. It's what the team was asking me, how do you feel, and I feel good. I have no experience here when the circuit is good or bad or is fast or slow.

"It got worse throught the day in terms of wind on the straights, it was moving at times, in the last couple of rounds the wind was coming and picked up a little bit. It's very sensitive, this place, to wind and climatic conditions, so everyone was telling me this before coming here, we confirmed today we need to be always ready to set up the car for whatever conditions we have there."

The afternoon session was not entirely without incident, as two birds fell victim to the No.29 McLaren Andretti Honda.

“I didn’t see that one coming,” Alonso said. “I saw one bird approaching Turn 3 in the penultimate run, and I just lift off and avoid the bird, probably I will not do that during race day, but today I saved one life there. But I didn’t manage to save the other two that apparently they came out of 1, but those one I didn’t notice.”

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