LE MANS, France — McLaren boss Zak Brown says Fernando Alonso has shown his qualities as a team player in preparations for his Le Mans 24 Hours debut.
Alonso and his teammates in the No.8 Toyota car will start from pole position thanks to a lap from Kazuki Nakajima in qualifying earlier this week. Although there is a lot of attention around Alonso’s participation this weekend the Spaniard will not be the driver lining up on the grid ahead of the race.
“He’ll be fine with that,” Brown said. “His ego doesn’t get in the way of his driving, and he’s a team player.
“He likes to win, and he knows he’s never started Le Mans and his teammate has, they’ve got the most experience at the start. He’ll be fine with that.”
Brown, who is here overseeing the progress of his own team, United Autosports, which has two teams participating in the second tier category, says Alonso has approached this weekend in a similar fashion to his debut appearance at the Indy 500 last year.
“The great thing about him is that he comes into new environments knowing I’ve not done this before. He doesn’t come in going ‘this is how we do it in Formula One and I’m a two-time Formula One world champion, therefore I know everything’. That’s not his approach at all.
“At Indy and Daytona he comes in, he listens, he talks, he contributes, but he blends in nicely. So I think he knows how to settle in to the environment and learn. He’s got two good teammates.”