IndyCar Series

'I need to keep pursuing this challenge,' says Alonso

Published May. 29, 2017 1:13 p.m. ET

Samuel Reiman

Ever since Fernando Alonso announced that he would run the 2017 Indianapolis 500, there have been some who frowned on his decision.

Three orange open-wheel McLaren-Hondas were racing in front of a worldwide audience in two separate races on Sunday. None of them finished.

At the F1 race in Monaco, Jenson Button and Stoffel Vandoorne failed to make it to the end due to crashes on the narrow streets. Alonso, meanwhile, suffered a fate to what he has at many F1 races this season when he coasted to a halt at Indianapolis with an engine failure.

Alonso had completed 179 of the 200 laps at the famed 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was running in the top 10 when his engine let go. The Spanish racing driver had led laps and had the fastest average speed of the race at the time of his retirement.

https://twitter.com/IndyCar/status/868913410632699904

While Alonso didn’t get a chance to fight for the win, he still took a drink of milk after the race was over.

“I didn’t win, but I will drink a little bit of milk,” Alonso told the media.

“Before coming here, some of the questions were ‘how can you trade Monaco for the Indy 500? [Monaco] is the best opportunity for the team... to score points.’ I won two times there. I won world championships.

“To be here is not possible to compare to that thing.

“The people that watched the race this afternoon here, I think they could not sit down for three hours this afternoon. I didn’t miss Monaco in terms of result, you know.”

While Alonso wouldn’t have had an impressive finish in Monaco, his one in Indianapolis ultimately wasn’t that great either, and he knows he now has some unfinished business:

“If I come back here, at least I know how it is, everything, and it will not be the first time I do restarts and pit stops and these kinds of things,” said Alonso.

“I need to keep pursuing this challenge because winning the Indy 500 is not completed.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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