Zak Brown explains McLaren's plan for IndyCar racing team

Zak Brown says he is "extremely confident" McLaren Racing will be able to form an IndyCar team and manage their current Formula 1 car simultaneously. On Saturday, the team confirmed Fernando Alonso's return to Brickyard for the Indy 500 in May. He will be backed by a full McLaren Racing team, completely separate to their Formula 1 crew.

Alonso last made an entry to the Indy 500 in 2017 with Andretti Motorsport. Since then, he has won Le Mans 24 hour race and moves just one part away from claiming motorsport's triple crown. With just six months until the event, McLaren's CEO Brown, explains the format of his team.

“It’s a whole separate racing team that will be created, and we are a large racing team with a lot of resources, and I am extremely confident, or we would not have entered, that we can give maximum effort in our F1 effort as well as Indy without one compromising the other,” Brown told Motorsports NBC.

“It is going to be people that are not currently on our Formula 1 team. It will be built up from relationships that we have. It’ll be a new McLaren entry.”

Rumours began at the start of the season as to whether McLaren would race in IndyCar full time. While they confirmed it wouldn't happen next year, the prospect of a single race ignites further possibility of a permanent future in the sport. Brown gave some light on the matter.

“Certainly we’ll be in a position where we are there with equipment, people and resources so it gives us a head start if ultimately we end up doing a fulltime entry,” Brown added.