F1i's Top 5 Moments of 2017: Monaco, via Indianapolis

Fernando Alonso, Indy 500 Rookie of the Year

We continue to tell the story of the 2017 Formula 1 world championship through the context of five defining moments. Today we revisit one day in May when Fernando Alonso skipped Monaco for a new, bold challenge...

It's one of global motorsports' cruellest ironies that two of the most famous races are irrevocably wedded to the same date and also separated by a vast ocean. Even with 21st century technology, no driver can take part in both the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 in the same season.

No Formula 1 team in its right mind would agree to release a star driver from the sport's most famous, important and lucrative race just to go and play around on an oval for a few weeks. But McLaren wasn't in its right mind by this stage of their collapsing partnership with Honda: if it kept Fernando Alonso happy, then they'd move Heaven and Earth to organise an Indy 500 program for him in association with Andretti Autosport.

If became one of the biggest motorsports story of the year, and a much-needed positive public relations coup for Alonso and for McLaren. The story ended with an ironic twist, when Alonso retired 20 laps from the end with a Honda engine failure, but he was still the hero of the hour. It rekindled Alonso's love of motorsport and he attacked the rest of the season with the energy of a racer half his age, while also eyeing up new extracurricular activities such as Le Mans for 2018.

Read on: Pressing the exit Button

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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.