Zak Brown has stated that his biggest mistake professionally, and also publicly, was Fernando Alonso’s inability to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 2019.
On the second attempt to win the iconic Indy 500 by way of a race team owned by McLaren Racing, Fernando Alonso was not able to qualify for the final grid to go to this year’s race.
Therefore, this ended up being one of the biggest stories in motorsport in 2019, because of the level and fame associated with McLaren and also with Alonso, as a two-time Formula 1 World Champion.
There were 33 cars that were allowed to qualify for the race, with three being eliminated after qualifying. And, during qualifying, there were some very close qualifying times, resulting in Fernando Alonso almost being at the bottom of the list of qualifying cars and ultimately being bumped by an equal number of cars to his left, as the bumps occurred based on them not qualifying at the close of the qualifying period.
This resulted in Kyle Kaiser from Juncos Racing being able to qualify for the race, and Alonso not being able to qualify for the race.
McLaren’s mistakes behind Fernando Alonso’s shock exit
The failed qualification attempt was later linked to several internal errors, including the team’s handling of Alonso’s practice crash and operational issues throughout the event.
Zak Brown admitted the entire episode became a major learning experience for him as a leader.
He said, “Especially in the early days, [there were] big obstacles. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I’m fine with that. I was saying to the team, ‘mistakes are okay, just don’t make the same one twice’ because you learn from mistakes.”
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“Probably my biggest, most public one – there have been a lot – but the most public one was not qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 with Fernando Alonso, which, at the time, was the worst experience of my life.”
“But I’m very proud of it. It sounds strange, but it’s because of how we leaned in.
“We learned from it. I owned it, it was my fault because I didn’t get the right pieces in place, the right people in place. I didn’t trust my instinct. All the things that I preach, I let myself down on.”
Zak Brown says the setback changed him as a leader
Zak Brown explained that the painful moment ultimately helped McLaren improve its IndyCar operations in the years that followed.
Since then, the team has become a much stronger force in IndyCar and has regularly challenged near the front of the grid.
“I’m kind of glad it happened, because I won’t let that mistake happen again,” Zak Brown said.
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“Since then, we’ve finished second twice at the Indy 500, and we’ve crashed going into the lead.
“I remember when we didn’t qualify, some people said, ‘Are you done now?’
“In racing, when you crash, you repair the car, you understand why you crashed, and you get right back in. That’s what you do in racing. So that was certainly a big bump.”
The 2019 Indianapolis 500 disaster may still hurt McLaren, but Zak Brown’s comments show how strongly the team used that failure as motivation to rebuild itself in American open-wheel racing.
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