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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

Gary Watkins May 24, 2017, 10:07 AM

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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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.