Alonso's vital Indy 500 weapon

Teaching Fernando Alonso, one of the best racers in the world - arguably the best - how to drive is a waste of time. His driver coach, 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time CART champion Gil de Ferran, agrees. So you have to ask why exactly Honda has bothered to give the Brazilian the assignment.

The key to understanding why is grasping the fact that there is a big difference between an instructor and a coach. That explains why de Ferran might just be Alonso's key Indy 500 weapon, given that motorsport is a world where all too often the benefits of coaching are overlooked or even derided.

Since his Indy adventure was announced last month, Alonso has stressed that he is on a steep learning curve trying to make up for a serious experience deficit both in IndyCar and at Indianapolis. Think of de Ferran as his experience bank and you get an idea of what his value could be to Alonso.

"The way the process is transpiring, it's as an extra pair of eyes, another set of brains," says de Ferran.

"We've been bouncing around things about the car, about driving, really openly exchanging views about what's going on, what he thinks he needs and so on and so forth. Discussing how to approach some situations that worked and some that didn't work.

"By nature, I'm not a very prescriptive person. Even when I was running a team or trying to mentor Simon Pagenaud, or even how I educate my kids. It's not my style to say, 'You must do this, you must do that'.

"It's more about bringing things to his attention, helping him digest pieces of information he's receiving from his driving, from the car, and helping him make sense of it all. It has been interesting and fun."

De Ferran has a unique status in this operation. He's close to the Andretti Autosport team, but not entirely integrated, and describes himself as slotting in between driver, race engineer Eric Bretzman, team boss Michael Andretti and McLaren.

His role is not to call the shots, to dictate or to command. He's there to help the driver understand everything from car handling to set-up changes to how weather conditions influence the car, effectively being a proxy for the experience Alonso can't possibly have.

Someone who has been around as long as de Ferran, both as a driver and team boss, gets that he isn't there to throw his weight around.

"I'm there listening and whenever I feel I can chime in, I do," he says of his involvement with shaping Alonso's run programme. "But it's led by the team and that's good because the team has had a lot of success here in the past.

"Last year, it was a particularly good year for them, so they're coming off one of the best Indy 500s that they have ever had, so there is a lot they do right.

"But whenever I feel that I can be of help or have a piece of information that might contribute to a better decision, then I do that. It's important when you have a role like this that you don't bring chaos just to make your ego feel good. You have got to be very sensitive to that, and I certainly am."

You can see why de Ferran fits the role well. He's an intelligent and engaged character, something that even shines through as an interviewee. He digests each question, considers his answer and delivers it without any obvious attempt to build up or embellish his own role. You can see how that approach would be hugely beneficial to Alonso when it comes to using de Ferran as a sounding board.

De Ferran also knows what level Alonso is operating at, and insists there are few parallels between the 35-year-old double world champion and the 28-year-old rookie he was when he made his Indianapolis 500 debut for Jim Hall's team back in 1995.

For the record, he started 19th and was classified 29th after completing one lap by limping back to the pits with his front-right wheel in the air after hitting a flying wheel from Stan Fox's infamous accident.

But de Ferran is a driver who understands the European racing culture that Alonso comes from, as well as having a proper feel for Formula 1 having had a stint as sporting director of the BAR/Honda team from 2005-07.

And while he did know Alonso "a little", he is new to working with him and has been able to build up this relationship effectively from scratch. What he's found is a driver with a profound capacity to learn.

"I did cross paths with him when I was at Honda F1 and he was in the middle of winning his world championships," says de Ferran. "So we came across each other in the paddock and said hello, but I never really knew him all that well.

"His success as a racing driver, it's clear that hasn't just come from an ungodly amount of skill. His, as Jackie Stewart would say, mind management is very good. He is very intelligent, very perceptive, very focused, very calm, even keel, clear thinking. The ultimate professional."

One thing that's very clear is that Alonso is not in any way overawed by the challenge of Indianapolis. When asked to characterise what Alonso faces in attempting to come here and fight for victory as a rookie, de Ferran gives a typically thorough answer.

"Challenge number one is you are walking into somebody else's territory," says de Ferran. "The guys that do well here, not only are they very good but they have been doing this for quite some time.

"If you get a good, experienced driver and you sink them into a different environment, you see how difficult it is to get to the level that the guys who have been doing it for a long time are at.

"Challenge number two is really understanding the environment, which is very different. Some guys have no problem, other guys are like, 'Oooooh, I don't like this', because the feeling of the car is very different, it's asymmetrical. It's a different challenge.

"Challenge number three is dealing with so many cars around you all the time. There are not many forms of racing where you experience that at the same frequency that you would in a race like this. You never get far apart from anyone, even if it's lapped traffic.

"I'll give you an example, the race that Daniel Ricciardo had in the Spanish Grand Prix, he literally had no-one in his mirrors the whole race and couldn't see anyone in front of him. That's not only rare, it just doesn't happen here. So he will be surrounded by people all the time.

"It's not impossible [to succeed] because rookies have come here and done well in the past. And if it has four wheels, an engine and Fernando Alonso behind the wheel, that combination will have a chance."

And that sheer racing nous and know-how is Alonso's best chance of delivering a great result, perhaps even the greatest possible result. If he can stay in the hunt, keep out of the wall and be in the mix in the closing stages, that's when it's all going to be about Alonso's qualities as a racer.

The intense cut and thrust of the dash for victory that could happen in the closing stages is not something that can be practised or simulated. But if the groundwork Alonso lays through the build-up to the race, the effort of the team and the experience and insight of de Ferran do their job, the speed and the understanding will take care of itself.

What it will then be down to is a combination of Alonso's innate ability, and the sum of his vast experience of countless races in cars and karts. That's something that's not learned as such, it's accumulated through a lot of hard knocks and fewer successes. And as one of the greatest racing drivers in the world, Alonso is surely going to be equal to that challenge.

"Racing instinct," is de Ferran's two-word summary. "He's experiencing, and will continue to experience, this running in turbulence, how to place yourself and when to go. But in the last 10 laps of the race, if you are in the middle of the pack, people start pulling tricks that you haven't seen all month. So it will come down to instinct and racecraft.

"Watching Fernando, it's clear to me that, as a racer, he is one of the best that I've ever seen. He's really good at positioning himself on the first lap, for example; that's why you often see him making a lot of places on the first lap because it is not about taking risks, it's about seeing what's happening in front of you and positioning yourself in the right way to take advantage.

"I don't want to raise or lower expectations. Suffice to say, he's a very good racer and as good as anybody I know. He's in as good a position as anybody I know to meet that challenge as a newcomer."

This is what makes de Ferran so valuable, even if his impact is far subtler than those of the vastly experienced Andretti Autosport team personnel. Alonso has the skill, the speed, the application, the team, the engine and the opportunity to star in his debut Indy 500.

In de Ferran, he has a shortcut to solving the one big weakness, his lack of experience. De Ferran has that in spades, and has exactly the right attitude to feed a lot of it to Alonso if and when it's required.

After all, experience isn't didactic. It doesn't stand there barking orders, instructing you. It's an altogether subtler mechanism that works through learning from your mistakes as much as, if not more so, than from your triumphs. De Ferran has plenty of both, and his laidback approach will allow Alonso to make a withdrawal from that bank of experience when he needs it, not when someone else thinks he does.

De Ferran can't win the Indy 500 for Alonso - only the man himself and the team can do that. But he can be a second brain for Alonso, one who has 'been there and done that' in IndyCar.

And it might just be one trick, one piece of advice, one idea from de Ferran picked up in the build-up to the race that Alonso draws on at the critical moment that makes all the difference.