How Alonso reached a new level of greatness

Fernando Alonso proved a lot of things with his Indianapolis 500 bid. He underlined his greatness, his willingness to put himself on the line in the pursuit of racing glory, the capacity to dedicate himself entirely to learning - and mastering - a new discipline and the ability to fight for victory in this greatest of races.

But he also established once and for all that he is what might be called 'the racing driver's racing driver'. Even though we can't be sure he would have won the Indy 500, and we'll get on to that shortly, he would certainly have been in the hunt.

The world of racing drivers, and those who race on two wheels for that matter, is a small one. And throughout the Month of May the great, the good and even the merely average of racers were falling over themselves to praise Alonso's efforts.

Drivers from Damon Hill to Dale Earnhardt Jr to Rick Mears were clearly taking an interest, some taking to Twitter to express themselves. When Alonso was presented at the public drivers' meeting at Indianapolis the day before the race, he was applauded not just by the crowd but by his fellow drivers.

And that tells you one thing: that Alonso has respect from his peers. And usually respect from your peers, the ones who get it better than any outside ever could, is the ultimate barometer of your ability.

Alonso is a master craftsman. The way he absorbed every piece of available information during his Indianapolis odyssey is proof of that. Three hours of running in the Honda Performance Development simulator before practice starts at midday? No problem.

Watching countless videos of both broadcast footage and onboard footage to make up for his lack of experience? No problem. Studying the data from his team-mates both from this year and the past? No problem. Alonso dedicated himself utterly to this race. The reason he did so well is not so much that he is a great driver, it's more that he's a great driver because of his dedication.

"It's 24 hours dedication for the last month-and-a-half," said Alonso of his approach. And he's not overstating the case. Everyone, and that is the right word, was amazed with his approach. Those expecting a Big-Time Charlie to turn up in what many see as a smaller, easier world and think he could stroll to victory without trying, were disappointed.

One of the common complaints of team bosses in motorsport is that drivers might have raw ability, but don't apply themselves. They learn and get themselves to one level, but then rather than keep learning and improving, they tick off that box and decide they know it all. And that's why so many drivers are erratic, plateau in their development or don't live up to their potential.

The Alonso we saw at Indy was one we haven't been able to see much of in F1 in recent years. He had a winning car and was determined to leave no stone unturned in using it. Other drivers, even those lacking in that application themselves, respect that more than everything. And that's why his Indy adventure fascinated even them.

That preparation allowed him to take an utterly composed approach to the race. And that is what made him so formidable - and into a victory contender.

When he got shuffled back from fifth on the grid at the start (the row behind him basically breezed past on the main straight and through Turn 1), Alonso took it in his stride. He held position for a bit, got a feel for track conditions and, as the stint went on, moved forward. On lap 37, he duly took the lead from Andretti team-mate Alexander Rossi.

And from there on, he was a victory contender. What he didn't know was that he was racing in what proved to be only a 447.5-mile race. For him, at least. But he might have had an inkling of what was to come, given the known problems with the Honda engine, and it won't have come as a complete surprise when he lost power.

The bare facts are that Alonso was running seventh at the time, less than two seconds behind second-placed Andretti Autosport team-mate, and eventual winner, Takuma Sato. So the key question is: could he, should he, have taken the most sensational of triumphs in the 2017 Indy 500?

There are two ways to approach the question: from the race that he was facing, and from the race he could have had. Let's deal with the latter first.

On race pace, the Andretti team was dominant at Indy. Alonso joined three of its regular drivers - Sato, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Rossi - in controlling the race for the first half of its distance before things started to get complicated. Had the race played out under green-flag conditions, nobody else would have had a shot. Given Rossi dropped out of contention after a slow stop caused by a troublesome refuelling hose, and Hunter-Reay with an engine failure, that has clear implications for Alonso.

"Helio and some of the guys, they've been lucky with the yellow flags," said Alonso after the race. "With a trouble-free race, Ryan, Rossi, myself, we would be half-a-lap in front of everyone. That is the nature of this race, you need to be lucky in some moments."

But, as everyone kept pointing out in the build-up to this race, Alonso would have been lucky had he not been inconvenienced by such things. Even so, he was still in the hunt.

Alonso was hugely accomplished throughout the race, but there was a telling moment when the race restarted on lap 148. Alonso took this restart 12th, the lowest he ran in the whole race, at a time when all of the top eight were out-of-sequence strategically. Arguably, this was the only point when you could say he showed any oval-racing inexperience. Even then, what happened was hardly bad. Inconvenient is perhaps the most damning thing you can say about it.

On lap 148, while Castroneves surged from ninth to fifth at the restart on his way to an eventual second place, Alonso had a much tougher time. Initially, Oriol Servia was a little slow on the restart, and, while Castroneves made his move, Alonso had a difficult lap, at one stage being confronted by a wall of five cars down the back straight.

He settled into ninth place and was still ahead of Sato, but he didn't make progress as quickly as he might have liked. Sato, in his eighth season of IndyCar, managed to get by both Alonso and Tony Kanaan in one lap during that phase of green-flag racing.

When Alonso ground to a halt, his position hadn't changed dramatically, but he was on the move. He had passed Kanaan for seventh a few laps earlier and was working on finding a way past JR Hildebrand. Had that race been able to play out without the interruption of cautions, it's reasonable to assume Alonso would have been in the mix with Sato.

But did that earlier period in the race suggest he might just have been giving something away in terms of experience in the final sort out?

"Obviously, there were some better moments than others in the race, but I felt competitive all through," said Alonso when asked about that phase. "When you are eighth, seventh, the last 20 laps were intense.

"But I was taking care a bit of the front tyres in the first couple of laps of that stint because I knew the race would be decided in the last six or seven laps. I think I had a little bit in the pocket before the engine blew up."

It all sounds very plausible. And there's little doubt he would have given it a damned good go. Mario Andretti said before the race that Alonso was a "shoo-in" for a top five, and would surely have been in the top three from there. And if you're in the top three, you're going to be in with a shot. It will be, forever, a maybe. The fact that Alonso finds himself in the middle of a never-to-be-resolved 'what if' scenario is impressive.

But whether or not he would have won is not the question. The point is that he did a remarkable job. In some ways, and this might be considered sacrilege, it's even more impressive than the impact made by the F1 invasion in the 1960s, when drivers like Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark made a huge impact.

Some of those drivers made their mark with a European technology advantage, or with strong machinery at a time when the spread was great. Yes, Alonso was in the strongest team, but all 33 cars were, at heart, the same and with only a choice of two engine suppliers/aero kits in Honda and Chevrolet, it put even great onus on the more arcane skills of oval racing.

A few days before the race, Alonso summed up the mindset that makes him the pro's pro. He was never overconfident, he probably said variations of the word 'learn' about two thousand times during the two-week build up to the race.

And, crucially, he showed respect for the big names and the established stars of IndyCar. And he respected the circuit, attacking it but not finding the wall at any stage during May. This is all about not being complacent. And so, so, many drivers get complacent - even Alonso himself accepts that's a danger for him.

"I have been discovering a new series, I have been learning from zero again," said Alonso. "I feel like a rookie, a beginner in everything I did and that wakes up all your senses as a racing driver that you always have inside yourself and that you maybe accommodate if you are in your normal series.

"You come here, you start from zero, you learn, you get up to speed as soon as possible because there is no time. I didn't start [oval racing] with the 20 miles of Cinncinati, I start with the 500 miles of Indianapolis, the biggest race in the world.

"There is no time to learn, you need to perform immediately. It is extremely challenging, but extremely rewarding."

And that, more than anything, is what the real racers respect: the reveling in the challenge. Alonso would have loved to have won, and might have done, but while the results list him in 24th place, he conquered this challenge gloriously. That's why he was named rookie of the year despite failing to make the flag.

While Ed Jones did a great job all month and took a well-deserved third place, the finishing position is only part of the equation - 25% in fact. The criteria are the driver's skill, sportsmanship, accessibility and conduct and finishing position. Given those, equally weighted, factors, it's hard to argue that Alonso was the right winner of the award. He was the story at Indianapolis and he played his part to perfection, it was only his Honda engine that let him down.

There was no doubt Alonso was an all-time great before he first turned a wheel at The Brickyard with his test on May 3. But he is all the greater for what he is done, and that's why fellow drivers around the world, or most of them at least, loved following his Indy adventure.

That's respect.