How real is Alonso’s Indy victory chance?

Just one hour of practice on 'Carb Day' on Friday separates Fernando Alonso from his rookie Indianapolis 500. Where once seemingly endless opportunities to lap The Brickyard and adapt his prodigious skillset to oval racing stretched in front of him, crunch time is fast approaching.

On Tuesday, he's in New York as part of the Indy 500's attempt to spread the word, but no matter how many interviews he does between now and the race, he can only answer the big question on Sunday: can he win what he keeps describing, correctly, as the biggest race in the world?

"Absolutely," says 1992 and '94 Indy 500 winner Al Unser Jr, without even a hint of hesitation.

"He's got a great team, Andretti has got more cars than Penske or Ganassi in the top nine, he's got great talent, he's working at it, he's concentrating, he's thinking. There is a strong possibility he will win the race.

"He's taking it extremely seriously and he wants to win this race. He's attacking it like he would a Formula 1 world championship and he's brought the mentality of what he's done there to this. So he's going to be a force to be reckoned with on race day, just like Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell were."

Unser's positivity about Alonso's performance is shared by most seasoned observers at Indianapolis. But they are also universal in their warnings that the race is a very different kettle of fish.

Johnny Rutherford knows a thing or two about winning the Indy 500 in McLaren colours, doing so in 1974 and '76. The 79-year-old is here as an ambassador and, during the practice week, said: "I have a couple of things I want to tell him about racing around here." He's not the only one, and Alonso will have been inundated with advice about how to approach the race.

The odds offered by bookmakers on Alonso winning fluctuate wildly, but a glance through some of the bigger American sites generally places him around sixth favourite. He's certainly shown enough to be in that conversation, but it's not difficult to come up with five drivers whose experience makes them bigger threats.

Speed is certainly not a problem. Alonso's pace has never been questioned before, and it became apparent pretty early in practice that Indianapolis offers no reason to change that policy.

He qualified in fifth place having reached the Fast Nine under intense pressure on what he described as a "stressful" first day of qualifying thanks to the lengthy weather delay that restricted everyone to one run.

While Alonso's claim that he might have been close to pole, or perhaps even taken pole, without the overboost leading to the ECU briefly easing back power at the end of the second lap of his four-lap qualifying run was stretching a point, it's certainly true he was very likely to make the front row.

There was also a suspicion from Alonso that the car may have been trimmed out a fraction too much on 'Pole Day', which would also have cost him. That, combined with the fact that an engine change was required between the practice session and the pole shootout, all added up.

"There was a little bit of stress going on, but the team did an amazing job changing the engine in record time," said Alonso.

"Definitely, some things were not optimised for the run because the engine needs to learn some of the settings, but everyone did a fantastic job to put me into a competitive position.

"One week ago, I didn't know anything about about IndyCar or these cars, so to be fighting for pole position, or the first row of the grid, is a happy surprise."

His pace during Monday's practice session, which is all about running in traffic and working on race set-up, was certainly good enough to say he can lap plenty quick enough to be in the mix. And even if he wasn't, he's out of time anyway.

"This was the last real practice," said Alonso. "Carb Day is just to check that the car is perfectly set up, but it's very low information that you can take from there."

But speed must be qualified with an ability to make the car work in all conditions. The race will last around three hours, with the potential for vast changes in weather conditions and the certainty that off-line will get more and more claggy as the miles tick by.

Alonso has had the chance to understand how conditions change and impact the car, but in the race there is little margin for error.

"It's the only place where you are here for two weeks, at a four-corner circuit, and you never repeat two laps in exactly the same conditions, in the same wind, the same traffic," said Alonso on Saturday. "Every lap you are out there, you need to keep learning."

And there is a lot of work to be done to adapt the car during the race.

As well as the option to make slight wing adjustments during the pitstops, the drivers have some tools available to them. The weightjacker is a hydraulic cylinder in the right-rear shock absorber of Alonso's car that can be electronically controlled to add more weight to the front-right or the front-left corner.

He also has the ability to adjust the front and rear anti-roll bars, which are controlled by a lever to the right of the driver.

"Your rear rollbar you hardly change, you just have it soft to give you as much grip as possible," explains Chip Ganassi Racing's Max Chilton, who, like Alonso, came to IndyCar from Formula 1.

"The front bar, if you've got understeer you try to soften it off. You have six stages of movement and you can also have different bars, which make bigger changes. But basically softer gives you more turn-in and stiffer gives you more understeer.

"For us [Ganassi], the jacker goes up in fives from +30 to -30. You would only go to -30 if you have massive understeer because you are putting oversteer into it. It's a quick change and you just tap a button.

"You need these on an oval 100%. When you are pretty much on the limit of the grip every single corner, those little changes can have a big impact."

It's unsurprising that Alonso got a feel for these tools rapidly, using them early on after practice started last Monday. During his qualifying run, he made use of them to tailor the car to the conditions but certainly wasn't over-using them.

Next up is the question of traffic. Monday's frenetic practice session featured the most intense traffic runs Alonso will have experienced, and for the most part he looked composed and accomplished.

A few rivals noted that there were times when he was perhaps a little too close running through turns, but overall his timing has been pretty good.

What there's no question about is that he's absolutely comfortable lapping in traffic. It also helps that he qualified so well and will only have polesitter Scott Dixon, Ed Carpenter, Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato ahead of him on the grid.

"He's done remarkably well. I've never doubted him and it's good to see he's come out here strong," says Chilton. "He seems to be getting fairly comfortable in race running, which is good to see.

"He is one of the best in the world, so he can feel cars. He's perfectly able to win this race given the chance.

"The further you are to the front, the less draft you have, it's easier to save your tyres and extend your stints, and it makes it easier from there."

Alonso has also rehearsed safety car restarts during practice and used the race day pitlane both during his initial test at Indianapolis on May 3 and Monday's practice session.

But there are still other experiences that can't be simulated and rehearsed, including having to pile onto pitroad with 30-odd cars around you under an early caution.

That said, Alonso does have a good slot on pit road in pit number 10, which means that he exits across the gap at the top of Gasoline Alley rather than having to swing out around the next pit. Small things like that can make a difference.

Alonso has at least digested a huge amount of footage of how these races play out, both the normal broadcast coverage and complete races from onboard cameras.

A driver of his ability and intellect should be able to deal with those challenges. But errors can still be made and at least some bad luck is surely inevitable. And Alonso can't get around the fact that he's never raced in the Indy 500 before.

"There are marbles, the track changes during the race and it can change in a different direction if the weather goes one way or another," says Gil de Ferran, 2003 Indy 500 winner and Alonso's driver coach.

"So you have all of these complicated, complex factors. There are a lot of nuances to this race. Every journey starts with the same step.

"I was a rookie once, he is a rookie. You find yourself sometimes in certain situations when you can [clicks fingers] sort it out quickly, other times it's more difficult.

"But this is Fernando Alonso. You are talking about one of the best drivers in the world today, without question. What for some is probably complex and difficult, for him is not."

Alonso has already hinted that he will come back to Indy one day, even if it's not possible next year thanks to F1 commitments.

But with winning the Triple Crown his stated objective and only the Monaco Grand Prix ticked off, you can be in no doubt that Alonso will leave nothing on the table when it comes to trying to get that Indy victory first time out.

It's not impossible; just look at sometime F1 rival Rossi, who triumphed last year on his rookie outing. But this could well be Alonso's only shot for a good while.

As McLaren team boss Zak Brown explains, if Alonso is on McLaren's books next year (and it remains an if, for his contract expires at the end of the year), he will be in Monaco.

"We're not in the business of compromising our Formula 1 team in any way, shape or form," says Brown.

"Had we been running at the front in F1, this wouldn't have happened. One has to assume we're not going to be where we are today, next year, which will mean whoever is in our Formula 1 cars is going to be in Monaco."

So, for now, this is a one-shot deal for Alonso. He knows he needs to take every opportunity to seize victory if he seriously wants to go after the Triple Crown.

But for all the challenges mentioned that he has faced down, there's one he's yet to be tested against: racing against formidable opposition.

There are seven Indy 500 winners in the field (although 1996 victor Buddy Lazier isn't going to be a victory contender), and drivers of the calibre of Will Power, who has somehow yet to get his face onto the Borg Warner Trophy, so even an Alonso with a bucketload of experience at The Brickyard would be up against it with such strong competition.

There's also the question of making the finish, as there's always the risk of a crash, being taken out by a rival or, especially for the Honda-powered cars, a reliability problem.

So can Alonso win the Indianapolis 500? Certainly. Will he? Possibly, but if he did it would be one of the most remarkable stories in the illustrious history of the race.

One thing history tells us is never underestimate Fernando Alonso. When it boils down to it, his racecraft, nous and sheer instinct make him one of the best of all time.

The greats are defined by their ability to do the near-impossible. That alone is a very good reason not to discount Alonso from being the winner of the 101st Indianapolis 500.