Zak Brown has lived through boardroom battles, Formula 1 chaos, sponsor dramas and high-stakes racing gambles – but according to the McLaren Racing chief, nothing compares to the humiliation of watching Fernando Alonso fail to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.
Not a crushing Formula 1 defeat. Much less a lost championship, or even a catastrophic crash.
For Brown, the darkest moment came in 2019, when McLaren’s ambitious Indy 500 project with Alonso spectacularly unravelled in public view. And years later, the memory still clearly burns.
Alonso’s Indy nightmare still haunts Brown
McLaren’s relationship with the Indianapolis 500 is soaked in history. The team conquered the iconic race twice in the 1970s and returned full-time to IndyCar competition in 2020 with serious ambitions of becoming a powerhouse once again.
In 2017, Alonso – driving then for McLaren in F1 – stunned the motorsport world by skipping the Monaco Grand Prix to chase Indy glory instead.
That run, managed for McLaren by Andretti Autosport, ended in retirement while the Spaniard was in the leading pack due to a Honda engine failure, but it at least showcased Alonso’s brilliance on oval racing’s biggest stage.
Two years later, however, disaster struck.
Electrical gremlins crippled McLaren’s preparations, Alonso lost critical track time, and the entire operation spiralled into embarrassment as the two-time Formula 1 World Champion failed to even make the grid.
©Indycar
Speaking last during the Autosport Business Exchange event in Miami, Brown admitted the experience was brutal.
“Especially in the early days, big obstacles,” he said. “When I started my company, there were many times if the cheque didn’t show up on Thursday, payroll wasn’t going on Friday.
“You have to have a ‘never quit, failure is not an option’ attitude.
“I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I’m fine with that. I always say to the team, mistakes are OK, just don’t make the same one twice. Because you learn from mistakes.”
Then came the painful confession.
“Probably my biggest, most public one – because there’s been a lot, but the most public one was not qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 with Fernando Alonso, which at the time was the worst experience of my life.”
Brown owns up to massive failure
What makes Brown’s reflection particularly striking is that he did not attempt to shift blame elsewhere. No excuses. No finger-pointing.
Instead, Brown openly admitted the failure landed squarely on his shoulders.
“But I’m very proud of it, which sounds strange, but it’s because of how we leaned in, we learned from it,” he said.
“I owned it. It was, at the end of the day, my fault because I didn’t get the right pieces in place, the right people in place. I didn’t trust my instinct; all the things that I kind of preach, I let myself down on.”
©IndyCar
The scars of that humiliation, however, may have ultimately fuelled McLaren’s resurgence in IndyCar.
Since the Alonso disaster, Arrow McLaren has transformed itself into a genuine contender at Indianapolis, finishing second twice and consistently battling near the front of the field.
Brown believes that painful 2019 collapse became a turning point.
“So, I’m glad it happened because I won’t let that mistake happen again. Since then, we’ve finished second twice at the Indy 500, and we’ve crashed going for the lead,” he said.
Read also: Brown’s decade at McLaren: From ‘darkness’ to dominanceAnd in typical racer fashion, Brown insists failure simply demanded a response – not retreat.
“I remember when we didn’t qualify, some people said, ‘Right, so you’re done now?’ I was like, ‘No, no, no, no. In racing, when you crash, you repair the car, you understand why you crashed, and you get right back in.’
“That’s what you do in racing. So, that was certainly a big public one,” the McLaren chief concluded.
Ironically, the race that once delivered Brown his “worst experience” may still hold unfinished business for Alonso too.
After all, the Indy 500 remains the final jewel missing from his Triple Crown collection.
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