Fernando Alonso's humiliating Indy 500 elimination: On This Day

On this day in 2019, Fernando Alonso suffered one of the most humiliating moments of his career: being bumped from the Indianapolis 500 field by a part-time team and driver.

Fresh off his Le Mans 24 Hours win with Toyota, Alonso had left Formula 1 at the end of 2018 to chase motorsport's Triple Crown—only Graham Hill has won Indy, Monaco, and Le Mans. His first attempt in 2017 ended with an engine failure while leading late. In 2019, he returned with a full McLaren effort, but it turned into a comedy of errors.

Why it matters:

This episode underscored the unforgiving nature of the Indy 500 and the steep challenge for even the best drivers in an unfamiliar series. Alonso's failure to qualify highlighted how preparation and small mistakes can derail a superstar's ambition.

The details:

• Alonso crashed his primary car on Wednesday before qualifying, losing critical track time.
• His spare car was painted the wrong shade of orange and was back at Carlin's factory for repainting.
• Setup errors: British team mistook imperial-to-metric conversion, leading to incorrect setup; gear ratios were also wrong, limiting top speed to 227.9 mph instead of a theoretical 229 mph.
• McLaren even lacked a steering wheel for the Texas test, forcing boss Zak Brown to borrow one from Cosworth.
• On bump day, Alonso sat on the bubble at P33. Juncos Hollinger Racing's Kyle Kaiser—a part-time outfit with only two sponsors—set a four-lap average of 227.372 mph, edging Alonso's 227.353 mph. Alonso was out, Kaiser in.

The big picture:

The humiliation was stark: a two-time F1 world champion, 32 Grand Prix winner, and Le Mans victor for the only team to have won all three Triple Crown events, eliminated by a team running on a fraction of the budget. It was a defining moment that showed the Indy 500 respects no reputation. Alonso would later return in 2020 with Arrow McLaren but again failed to qualify, effectively ending his Triple Crown quest.