McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes that the participation of McLaren and Alonso in this year's Indianapolis 500 will help McLaren's F1 outreach in the States.
Brown reiterated his belief that Formula 1 still had a long way to go to establish a significant presence in the United States and that there is still a lot more to explore. Needless to say that the American motorsport arena is currently dominated by its own national championships, NASCAR and IndyCar with the Indianapolis 500 being the crown jewel.
“I think North America remains a key growth market for Formula One, the biggest sporting market in the world, and I think Formula One has lots of room for growth,” said Brown.
McLaren will be fielding its own team with Alonso at the helm for the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 this year. The team is going to be independent of an existing marque this time around, unlike it was associated with Andretti Autosport in 2017.
McLaren switched to Chevrolet power for this year's running instead of Honda that it used in 2017. Former Force India team principal Bob Fernley will be heading the team's Indy 500 operations.
Speaking to IndyCar on Tuesday, Brown further stated that America is an important market for majority of the sponsors and that contributes to the fact that McLaren is racing in the Indy 500 for the second time in 3 years, and that it plans a possible full time entry in future.
“That is one of the reasons why we are competing in the Indy 500, because we think Indianapolis and the IndyCar Series … for seven out of 10 sponsors, America is an important market.
He also reckoned that Formula 1 was unable to tap the Stateside market as effectively as many of the partners would want it to.
"Formula One right now can’t quite ring that bell as loudly as a lot of partners would like, so we feel Indy car racing for a variety of reasons, but that being one of them, helps round out a global proposition for our partners,” concluded Zak Brown.
Formula 1 currently races in the United States only once a year. The highly attended US Grand Prix is currently being hosted by Circuit Of The Americas (COTA) on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Formula 1 had earlier stopped staging the US Grand Prix from 2008 to 2012, until the newly constructed COTA facility was inaugurated.
IndyCar will finally have the COTA included in its official calendar beginning from 2019. The highly anticipated race at COTA will be held in March. Fans often seem eager to compare both the IndyCar and Formula 1, finally racing on the same track in the same year.
McLaren confirmed back in December last year that the team will begin its Indy 500 testing in April, a month before the spectacle of racing takes place.
The official IndyCar website contributed to this article. Click here
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