Can Fernando Alonso win the Triple Crown?
Next weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix has long been the crown jewel of the F1 calendar. But this season, the Monte Carlo event will be missing one of the paddock’s biggest and brightest stars as Fernando Alonso will forego the race to compete in the legendary Indy 500. Why? Because Alonso is chasing the biggest milestone in motorsport; the Triple Crown.
To this date, only one driver in the history of motorsport has won the Triple Crown; winning the Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500, and Le Mans 24 Hours. That driver was the great Graham Hill, who completed the Triple Crown in 1972 when he added a victory at Le Mans to his five Monaco wins and 1966 triumph in Indianapolis. So the big question is, can Alonso follow in Hill’s footsteps?
Alonso already had two Monaco Grand Prix wins (2006, 2007) to his name. This Sunday, he will be competing in his first Indy 500 with a Honda-powered, McLaren-branded Andretti Autosport entry. Throughout last weeks practice sessions, Alonso finished as high as fourth place as he got to grips with the different skill set required in IndyCar racing. Alonso made the nine-car pole position shootout and ultimately qualified fifth, quite a feat after having just a few months to prepare.
The Indy 500 famously covers 500 miles across over 200 laps of an oval at average speeds of over 220 mph. Alonso will be the first active F1 driver to compete in the event since Nigel Mansell in 1994. Honda has been the top manufacturer in the IndyCar series in recent years, and was the strongest machine on the high speed ovals last season. So can Alonso win?
In last year’s centenary of the historic speedway event, former Caterham and Marussia F1 driver Alexander Rossi took victory at the Brickyard in his first attempt. However, he was not a true rookie as he already already had a full-time drive in the IndyCar series. Rossi also drove for Andretti Autosport, who have won four IndyCar series titles and four Indy 500 wins. This year, Alonso will compete against drivers like Rossi, three time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, 2013 winner and 2014 series champion Tony Kanaan, reigning series champion Simon Pagenaud and old F1 rival Juan Pablo Montoya; a two-time Indy 500 winner in 2000 and 2015.
Alonso is arguably the greatest F1 driver of his generation and is a natural racer. His smooth driving style and ability to adapt to different cars across his career should allow him to acclimatise quickly. He also has five other Andretti Autosport team-mates who can help him in the race with slipstreaming. However, due to the high speeds of an oval, the Indy 500 is often unpredictable. Just ask Sebastien Bourdais, another former F1 driver who crashed in qualifying and suffered multiple bone fractures. Alonso has the natural skill to win, but he’ll need some luck as well.
But there’s more to this than Alonso’s desire to claim the Triple Crown. His Indy 500 journey is also incredibly important for Formula One, especially under new owners Liberty Media. The company sees North America as a huge market for potential growth, and having one of F1’s biggest and most respected stars competing in America’s most famous motor race should give Formula One increased exposure in the States.
If Alonso manages to win the Indy 500, he will join a small cadre of drivers who have completed two thirds of the Triple Crown. The two most notable are Montoya, who won the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix to go with his two Indy 500 wins, and, perhaps fittingly, Bruce McLaren, who won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1962 before claiming victory at Le Mans in 1966. Emulating McLaren’s Le Mans win would be the final piece in Alonso’s pursuit of the Triple Crown.
Several former and current F1 drivers have competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours in recent seasons. Mark Webber finished second in 2015 en route to the World Endurance Championship title with the works Porsche team, while current Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg was part of that year’s winning Le Mans entry on his first attempt, also with Porsche. It was Porsche’s first victory at the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe since 1998.
Success at Le Mans is predicated on endurance, reliability, and measuring and conserving consumables like fuel and tyres rather than pure pace. As part of a three man team for each car, drivers must often race for over two hours on each stint before switching with a team-mate for a rest. That’s four stints each. So, if Alonso were to enter Le Mans, he would be dependent on having both a reliable car and team-mates to win.
It is likely that Porsche will be the team that Alonso competes in Le Mans with. They’ve been happy to take Formula One drivers before, to great success as Hulkenberg’s 2015 win shows. It’s also highly unlikely that Honda would allow Alonso to drive an entry from rival Japanese marque Toyota. With Audi withdrawing from the WEC to focus on their Formula E program, Porsche and Toyota are currently the only top LMP-1 class manufacturers that could offer Alonso a realistic chance to win at Le Mans. If his Indy 500 odyssey goes to plan, we could see Alonso enter Le Mans next year in an attempt to complete the Triple Crown.
But why is Alonso pursuing the Triple Crown? Simply put, to be known not just as one of the best F1 drivers of all time, but to become perhaps the greatest driver in the history of motorsport. With McLaren-Honda’s F1 partnership currently limiting Alonso to the lower end of the grid, the restless racer must pursue other challenges.
Alonso’s peers, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, have never shown any interest in the Triple Crown. Neither did the great Michael Schumacher; Alonso’s main rival when he won his two World Championships in 2005 and 2006. Alonso isn’t currently in a position to battle Hamilton and Vettel for the 2017 title, and it’s highly unlikely that he will match Schumacher’s tally of seven titles. To separate himself, Alonso must do something none of them have ever done; win the Triple Crown.
There is also the motivation of surpassing a record that has stood for almost 50 years. When Graham Hill won his Triple Crown events in the 60s and 70s, the cars used in F1 and IndyCar were extremely similar, and Le Mans cars were just beginning to move away from being modified sports cars into purpose-built machines. But now, the cars in each formula are vastly different. If Alonso can master all three disciplines and complete the Triple Crown, he will be rightly recognised as not just the best F1 driver of his generation, but perhaps the best racing driver of all time across all formulae.
Hamilton, Vettel, and Schumacher have spent their careers chasing Formula One titles. Alonso is now chasing motorsport history itself, and that is all the motivation he needs…
