pokerman wrote:
pokerman wrote:
Lotus49 wrote:
pokerman wrote:
Lotus49 wrote:
What was said before and by whom? Afaik McLaren or Alonso never approached Honda about 2019, Chevy were McLaren's preferred choice. Honda themselves said they'd be happy to work with Alonso and he had unnamed offers to ride with other teams in Indy which may well have included Honda powered teams for all we know but he wanted to do it with McLaren.
Maybe you wouldn't want to know that McLaren had no interest with working with Honda perhaps? HPD when they said they'd happily work with Alonso never mentioned McLaren so imo based on what we've heard I'd say the likelihood is McLaren and Honda have no desire to work with each other at the moment and it was never on the table from either side.
I heard that Honda would work with Alonso but not McLaren, the problem then being that Alonso wants to do the Indy 500 with McLaren so hence it had to be with Chevy.
Right, but had you heard McLaren wanted to work with Honda in the first place? I haven't and everywhere I look I see Chevy listed as their preference for 2019.
I think McLaren and Honda would find it very difficult to work together this soon after the split tbh so the idea they wanted Chevy from the off doesn't surprise me any.
I think it's a case of what came first the chicken or the egg, all early talk was of Honda then we heard talk of problems with Honda and now it's Chevy. They've always wanted to run under the Andretti umbrella but they run Hondas so the Chevy tie up would be a problem which is why I think it's taken so long to sort out the deal?
Now apparently it's always been Chevy from day 1 which is strange because I can't remember reading that, now all talk is of what a great company Chevrolet are, of course it could never be said that perhaps they were the second choice?
Where's the early Honda talk though? Apart from that anon source from Japan that said Japan said no which HPD denied there's been nothing from McLaren,Alonso or anyone else saying Honda was the first choice for McLaren. Both Marshall Pruett and the article above say Chevy was the preference. The early Harding rumours were about running Chevy while under that Andretti umbrella. The Ed Carpenter rumours were Chevy.
The idea of Honda saying no to McLaren might put a smile on your face but the only sourceable info we have point to Chevy being first choice for McLaren at least, no idea about Alonso or if he even had a preference.
Not sure about the authenticity of this article?
https://motorsportnotes.com/2018/12/04/ ... for-chevy/In respect to McLaren I didn't want the Honda project to fail it would have only added to the quality of the show, my only crticism of McLaren was how they blamed everything on Honda and then utterly failed this year.[/quote]
I notice in an article linked to that one (
https://motorsportnotes.com/2018/10/22/ ... -long-con/) Alonso's welcome seems to be waring a little thin and he is seen as just using Indy as what they call 'plan B' when he can not do what he really wants. Or maybe its just one persons view, I dont know the 'reporter'
"No longer in demand, no longer relevant and the records of Schumacher, Hamilton and Vettel forever out of his reach. It is that impending irrelevance and unfulfilled promise that seems to have triggered this whole exercise" is likely to upset many, Is this really the way he is seen in Indy?
It gets worse (to Alonso) from that paragraph on, so I shy away from posting it here. I can not see who wrote it, but grantee he is crossed off some Christmas card lists.