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Fernando Alonso's chances of winning this weekend's Daytona 24 Hours on his sportscar debut have all but been dismissed by McLaren and United Autosports team boss Zak Brown.

Brown insisted that United was going into the opening round of this year's IMSA SportsCar Championship more in hope than expectation of winning the race.

He suggested that a podium or top five was a realistic goal for the team, which is running a pair of Ligier-Gibson JSP217 LMP2 cars.

"There is some strong competition; I think on ultimate pace we will be a little bit off," said Brown.

"A top-five or a podium [would be realistic], but I would be surprised if we are going away with any watches [awarded by race sponsor Rolex to the winners] come Sunday.

"Fernando is here to win. We are all here to win, but you have to be realistic,"

"It would be misleading if I said we have the same chance as Cadillac and Acura, because we don't."

Brown conceded that the high-speed nature of Daytona did not play to the Ligier's strengths.

"Among the LMP2 cars we have got a disadvantage to the ORECA, and the Daytona Prototype international cars always excel around here," he said.

Alonso qualified the Ligier he is sharing with McLaren Formula 1 test and reserve driver Lando Norris and Phil Hanson in 13th, less than a second off pole.

The two-time Formula 1 champion was happy with his time, but he said the team needed to "improve the brakes and find a bit more speed".

Alonso also hoped that the Ligier-Gibson package could be more competitive in the race than in qualifying.

"Hopefully in the race we can make up a bit of ground," he said.

Stroll believes he can fight for victory

Fellow F1 driver Lance Stroll and team-mates Daniel Juncadella, Robin Frijns and Felix Rosenqvist ended qualifying as the fastest of the LMP2 cars in the #37 Jota Sport-run Oreca-Gibson 07.

Asked if he believed whether his Jackie Chan DC Racing entry could take the fight to the DPis, Stroll said: "Yeah I do. It's not about outright pace here, it's about staying out of trouble.

"So I think if we execute the pitstops, the driver changes and all that sort of stuff as well as possible, we'll be there at the end fighting for victory."