McLaren 'has made Alonso into a racing monster'!

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McLaren executive director Zak Brown says that the team has made Fernando Alonso into "a racing monster".

The monster was initially unleashed when McLaren backed Alonso's entry in the 2017 Indianapolis 500. Next year, the two-time world champion will ender the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Alonso will drive in the endurance race for United Autosports, co-owned by Brown. One of his team mates will be young McLaren development driver Lando Norris.

"We'd had some light conversations," Brown told Sky Sports F1. "We talk about different racing all the time.

"I was with Fernando and Luis [Garcia Abad] his manager and he said 'I want to do Daytona'.

"I turned around to Luis and said, 'He's serious isn't he?' And he said, 'Oh yeah.' So I didn't have to ask twice," Brown added.

It's all part of Alonso's ambition to complete the Triple Crown. He's already won the Monaco Grand Prix, and has tasted his first run on ovals in the Indy 500.

The next target is the Le Mans 24 Hour race, and Daytona is the perfect preparation. It's held in January before the Formula 1 season gets underway, meaning there is no scheduling clash.

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Alonso was forced to pull out of this year's Monaco race in order to compete in Indianapolis. Jenson Button made a one-off return to the race-seat filling in for the Spaniard.

There's also no F1 clash with Le Mans in 2018, should Alonso get a seat at a competitive team for the world famous event.

"Clearly he has got an interest in Le Mans and wants to go back to Indy," Brown confirmed, while adding that another Indy bid was not on the cards for 2018.

"I was a little surprised in how definitive [he was about Daytona]. But the way Fernando works is he thinks things through quite a bit and then he makes a decision.

"It's clear he had given a lot more thought to it than I anticipated. When he said he wanted to do it, he was very definitive.

"We've created a monster," he laughed. "A racing monster!"

Alonso told reporters in Mexico at the weekend that his "plans for motorsport are much greater than anyone can think." He added that he by the time he retires, he wants to be regarded as racing's best all-round driver.

"I want to be the best driver in the world," Alonso said. "To do that you need to win in different series, compete in different cars.

"Sometimes you need to go out of this small world of Formula 1," he added.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.