McLaren not charging F1 partners for Indy 500 exposure

McLaren executive director Zak Brown has confirmed that the team is not charging its Formula 1 partners for branding on Fernando Alonso's car in the Indianapolis 500, going some way to making up for the recent lack of exposure resulting from the team's struggles.

Alonso's entry to the Indy 500 with McLaren has been the biggest story in motorsport over the past two months, with the British marque returning to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time in almost 40 years.

Alonso's car features branding for many of McLaren's F1 partners, and Brown confirmed on Thursday in Monaco that they are not being charged for the privilege.

"They're all mega excited by [the Indy 500]. it's something that we're doing as part of our larger motor racing program to deliver for our partners," Brown said.

"So there isn't anything that we charged incrementally for. I think they're good partners, you need to recognize when you're delivering and when you're not. We're not delivering on track, which directly impacts their exposure.

"And so this is a great way to offset that loss of exposure that we're generating now in Formula 1 with tremendous amount of exposure.

"We felt that was the right thing to do. Commercially it is to make sure we deliver to our partners what the exposure that we promised we'll generate."