Alonso to drive for Toyota in NASCAR

Alonso is still contracted with Toyota in the WEC, and that eats at Honda's crawl. Driving for Toyota in NASCAR probably makes more sense

Suggestions that HPD, Honda’s North American motorsport arm, is jibbing at supply engines to an IndyCar entry linked to Fernando Alonso – and, by extension, McLaren – are no surprise given the public humiliation the Japanese motor company suffered during their truncated F1 partnership. Given the background, said suggestions are not only fathomable, but utterly logical.

It may be an understatement to say Honda’s F1 engines were initially sub-standard in terms of power and reliability. But, as we suspected then and know now, McLaren’s hardware was not up to scratch either. Indeed, in this era of overly complex power units, the one commodity Honda truly needed upon its return to F1 was tolerant co-operation, and that was blatantly conspicuous by its absence on the parts of both McLaren and its star driver.

During a recent McLaren press session I asked whether Alonso’s history with Honda could force him to run with Chevrolet power units in IndyCar, and whether any Honda deal would not bring him into direct conflict with Toyota, with whom he holds a WEC contract through to the end of June 2019. The answers were non-committal – as expected – which spoke volumes.

But Alonso has been trading some interesting tweets with NASCAR star Jimmy Johnson about driving in NASCAR, and it just might make sense for Alonso to drive for Toyota in NASCAR part-time in 2019, and give IndyCar a go in 2020 after his Toyota WEC contract is expired.