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For the past couple of weeks, it has been a foregone conclusion that Fernando Alonso would be running this year’s Indianapolis 500 with Andretti Autosport. It’s my understanding that the sponsors had been lined up and that a deal was imminent. It was assumed by everyone that Andretti and Alonso had received the blessing from Honda’s global headquarters in Tokyo, and that they had finally moved past Alonso’s public trashing of the Japanese manufacturer a couple of seasons ago in Formula One.

As Lee Corso would say – Not so fast, my friend!

On Sunday, we learned from Marshall Pruett at Racer.com that as Honda Performance Development (HPD) sought final approval, they were told by the Tokyo officials not to proceed with the deal. Oops!

There’s a reason that I never intended for this site to be a news site. I only comment on news that has been confirmed. Whether or not my opinions matter to anyone is up for debate, but I have never tried to break stories or regurgitate the same press releases we all see on the same sites. Sometimes my commentary is delayed and old news by the time I comment on it, but I’d rather comment on old news instead of spreading fake news.

When the Kobe Bryant news first broke about ten days ago, the amount of misinformation out there was appalling. Within the span of one hour, we went from hearing that TMZ had reported his death to hearing from other sources that his entire family was on board the ill-fated helicopter. The death toll also jumped from five in the afternoon to nine that evening. Things were out of control, mostly because of different news outlets being more concerned with being first, than being accurate.

I saw the same thing this past weekend with the Alonso/Andretti deal. I kept coming across story after story of people claiming this deal was confirmed. But I kept looking at the sites that were claiming it to be official, and I noticed at the time that there was one common thread among them – I had never heard of any of these outlets. Nowhere did I see these reports coming from Racer.com, IndyCar.com, IndyStar.com, Trackside Online or directly from Andretti Autosport – the ones that would really know the truth.

Look, I’m not disparaging small amateur sites. Who am I to do that? With help from my wife, I’m pretty much a one-person show here. I have a fulltime job and do this in my spare time for free. How much more amateurish can you get than that? But as Clint Eastwood once uttered in a movie; a man needs to know his limitations. I recognize my limitations and that’s that I can’t be obsessed with being first or even 101st. I let things play out after they are confirmed and then I pound out however I feel about things, for whatever that’s worth. But I digress…

Getting back to the deal that never happened, is this Honda trying to posture their way into publicly humiliating Alonso and forcing him to beg their forgiveness before they give their blessing or are they being steadfast in their resolve to never do business with Alonso ever again? To be honest, I have no idea.

But this sure throws a wrench into the Indy-only plans of several drivers.

If Honda doesn’t change their mind, this opens the door for James Hinchcliffe and his backers for May to take the open seat at Andretti Autosport. But if sponsorship is not an issue (I know, that’s a big if), would Michael Andretti prefer to run Hinchcliffe, who is usually solid at Indianapolis or Carlos Muñoz, who is usually spectacular there? Muñoz is spectacular, but he has not driven an Indy car since the 2018 Indianapolis 500. Two years out of the car can sometimes be a problem. We may get our answer as early as Friday on Hinchcliffe. Last night, he posted a somewhat cryptic tweet with "02.07.2020" and the hashtag #challengeaccepted. That sort of gives the impression he will be making a pretty big announcement on Friday.

And what about Fernando Alonso? What are his options if Honda doesn’t eventually relent? Well, there are open seats for May at Carlin, DragonSpeed, Dreyer & Reinbold and possibly Foyt. There is also a third seat at McLaren, who Alonso publicly divorced from less than a couple of weeks ago. There are already three filled seats at Ed Carpenter Racing for May and I don’t see them adding a fourth. Then there is Team Penske. Tim Cindric has repeatedly said that they don’t want to run more than the four cars they already have. But now that Roger Penske owns IMS, would he consider ponying up for a fifth car for the good of the Indianapolis 500, which is now his event?

I know one thing. If I’m Fernando Alonso and Honda doesn’t budge on their stance, I would try to run the Indianapolis 500 with Team Penske or else I would go home. I don’t think he wants to risk the embarrassment of not making the field two years in a row or put in the time to run around at the back of the field with DragonSpeed or Foyt. He wants to come here and win and he would have no shot at winning with those teams. If Andretti is out and Penske says no – I would pack my bags and focus on 2021.

Once again when it comes to Fernando Alonso, there are more questions than answers. Stay tuned. This is going to get even more interesting in the coming days. But this story was made worse by some people jumping the gun and reporting this as a done deal, just in the never-ending quest to be first.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on February 5, 2020 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.