Fernando Alonso enjoyed the first day of practice for the Indianapolis 500, even if a suspension issue meant he only completed twenty laps of the 2.5-mile oval on Monday.
Fresh off the back of his Spanish Grand Prix outing on Sunday, the Spaniard took to the track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in his McLaren-Honda-Andretti entry and set the nineteenth fastest lap of the day, hitting 223.025mph.
But the rear suspension issue meant that Alonso is still lacking when it comes to running in traffic around IMS, and he knows he will have to address this issue in the forthcoming days.
“I was a little bit concerned (heading in) about the conditions, about the temperature, as it was much hotter today than at the test we did here on May 3rd,” said Alonso. “But no, 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. Everything went very smooth.
“The last half an hour maybe we had some issues with the rear suspension, and we could not complete the program that we had planned to run a little bit in traffic at the end of the day, so we missed that part, but overall it was an amazing day.
“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.”
