Brown: McLaren Indycar team 'years' away

Oct.17 - "Years" will pass before McLaren fields a team in the full Indycar season.

That is the view of the British team's executive Zak Brown.

This year, McLaren paired with existing Indycar outfit Andretti to field Fernando Alonso in the Indy 500.

But with the team expecting to be more competitive in F1 with Renault power next year, it is believed a follow-up project in 2018 is unlikely.

"If I remain in formula one it's because I believe I can win next year," said Alonso.

"So I will be in Monaco because I don't want to lose any points there."

As for a full-time McLaren entry in the full Indycar championship, executive Brown played down that likelihood for now.

"We need to make sure when we get involved in activities beyond our formula one programme that it doesn't detract from our formula one efforts," he said in a teleconference.

"Second, we have to be competitive, and third, it has to be commercially viable.

"With all that we have going on right now, spending much time thinking about Indycar would detract from our formula one efforts, so I'd say we're years away from fielding an Indycar team," Brown added.

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