Alonso eyes Daytona 24 Hours as preparation for Le Mans

Fernando Alonso says he would consider racing at the Daytona 24 Hours in January next year as a preparation run for Le Mans.

The Spaniard extended his contract with McLaren yesterday, enticed by the prospect of racing a competitive car powered by a Renault engine next year.

Alonso's contract allows him to venture outside F1 as long as there are no clashes. While he has ruled out a return to the Indy 500 in 2018, Le Mans is still on the cards.

"The first priority was to finalise the F1 deal and now that is done, I will look at the other options," he said on Thursday in Austin.

• Alonso reveals McLaren contract is multi-year deal

"For the Indy 500 it was a nice experience, I felt very competitive but it was a big challenge that I took from zero, from no testing, not any similar race before it.

"If I want to prepare Le Mans, maybe there are other possibilities to prepare Le Mans a little bit better than I prepared the Indy 500."

McLaren executive Zak Brown, who happens to own the United Autosports sportscar team, says he would be more than happy to accommodate Alonso at Daytona next year.

"If Fernando wants to do Daytona and we have a seat available, we would put his name on it happily," said Brown, whose team's driver line-up for the Florida classic already includes Paul di Resta and McLaren junior Lando Norris.

"We’ve started joking around about it, and we saw where jokes got us last time," added the American.

Alonso said however that it was still early days with regard to racing at Le Mans, and that no contact with any team had yet been initiated.

"If the opportunity comes, I will try to exploit that opportunity," he said.

"If that is something that makes sense, as we did with the Indy 500, we will try to do it."

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