Fernando Alons🍸o believes he could have been in contention for a spectacular pole position on his Indianapolis 500 debut after suffering a speed sapping overboost issue on his 'Fast 9' run.

The two-time F1 world champion had already made headlines by making it into nine-car the pole position shootout session with seventh in Q1 but skipped a row ahead after hܫis Q2 runs with a fine 231.300mph effort.

Less than 1mph shy of pole man Scott Dixon in the Chip Ganassi car as Honda-powered machines dominated with four cars inside the top five, Alonso believes he could have had a shot at pole position had the occಞurrence of an 'overboost' issue - which applied the brakes on the exit of turn fou𓆏r on his second lap - not cost him precious speed and momentum.

"Unf⛄ortunately on lap two we had an overboost problem out of tur🐭n four, so it was hitting the brakes, so I lost 1mph so I think we could have been fighting for pole today without that problem.

"Once you secure the top nine it doesn't make a huge difference to the race or total result but the car felt great. Without this boost problem we would have been much qꦫuicker."

Regardless, the result represents a fine reward for the Andretti team after Alonso required an engine change❀ ahead of Q2, with the Spaniard revealing it crew members of all six entries to get him back on course.

"I did enjoy it the session - at one point this morning I didn't know if we were able to go out beca♎use we changed the engine. I am happy we are here and competitive.

"[The team were] Amazing! The whole team were working on my car, a crew from all six cars were working on my car to make it happen so I put the best❀ lap together for them."

Alonso will start in the presence of two of his Andretti team-mates when the Indianapolis 500 gets underway next week, with last year's winner Alex Rossi securing third on the grid and Takuma Sato in fourtꦯh.