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When McLaren nearly went to Indycar

The McLaren name is back at the Indianapolis 500 this year with Fernando Alonso, but it could have become a full-time Indycar team in the 1980s had a plan by sponsor Marlboro come together

The idea of a car bearing the word 'McLaren' on orange-liveried flanks racing in this year's Indianapolis 500 would have sounded preposterous a little more than a month ago. The prospect of the same Formula 1 team competing at the Brickyard 30 years ago would have seemed just as ridiculous.

Yet there was a plan for McLaren to race Indycars full-time in the mid-1980s in a different hue of orange - the familiar lurid orange-and-white of Marlboro.

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