Alonso teases Indy 500 helmet; Wednesday test set to be streamed - MotorSportsTalk

Anticipation continues to build for Fernando Alonso’s debut on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, with his maiden test set for Wednesday in the jointly entered McLaren, Honda and Andretti Autosport car.

Alonso, who was en route to the U.S. earlier this week after failing to start the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi, has posted a couple Instagram pictures of note.

The first is his surname on an avenue in Indianapolis; near the track, drivers expected to compete in this year’s 101st Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil all have their own street names. “Alonso Avenue” is linked below.

View this post on Instagram

👍🇺🇸

A post shared by Fernando Alonso (@fernandoalo_oficial) on May 1, 2017 at 1:36pm PDT

Today, the buildup saw Alonso tease most, but not all, of his Bell helmet for this year’s Indianapolis 500. He posted portions of it on his Instagram story, and then combined all of those into one picture.

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Retro is the way forward . Helmet. #indyHelmet #alonsoIndy500

A post shared by Fernando Alonso (@fernandoalo_oficial) on May 2, 2017 at 11:27am PDT

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has also announced Alonso’s test, set from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, will be live streamed. In a late addition, it will be on the NBC Sports App as well as the below details.

Details from an IMS release are below:

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A fully produced live show will be televised online from 9:30 a.m.-noon, with an announcing team of 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner and 1978 Formula One World Champion Mario Andretti and NBC Sports Network’s Verizon IndyCar Series talent Kevin Lee and Robin Miller. Coverage of the test will continue from 1-5 p.m. with a live stream without commentary.

Both the live show and stream will be available at these online outlets:

Indycar.com
IMS.com
IndyCar YouTube
IndyCar Facebook

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Alonso’s No. 29 Honda and livery will be revealed in the morning on social media, per an Andretti Autosport team representative, before the test occurs.

And before Alonso gets in the car, Marco Andretti will shake the car down. Andretti told NBC Sports at Phoenix how he got selected for the opportunity.

“It’ll be fun,” he said. “They know I can get up to speed; I’m always sort of the one picked to do that kind of thing. Basically, I’ll make sure he has a real comfortable balance for his first run.”

Andretti will be coming from today’s one-day open test in Madison, Ill., just outside St. Louis, at Gateway Motorsports Park where he and most of the full field is testing today.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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