Jim Ayello | IndyStar

Scott Horner/IndyStar

Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

INDIANAPOLIS -- For IndyCar fans hoping to consistently see the familiar orange livery of a McLaren car zooming around tracks across North America, start cheering hard for Fernando Alonso and the team’s much-maligned Formula One program.

While McLaren CEO Zak Brown has repeatedly stated his intentions to eventually bring the historic team back to the Indianapolis 500 and to IndyCar full time, he can only envision it happening once his F1 program recovers its lost luster.

During a media teleconference Monday, Brown said he has high hopes for his F1 program next year but knows McLaren has a lot of catching up to do before rejoining the series elite.

While this season’s championship leader, Lewis Hamilton, has racked up 306 points, McLaren’s two cars have scored a combined 23. Alonso, a free agent Brown expects to re-sign soon, has as many DNFs (10) as he does points.

“We do have a desire for McLaren to race in Indy cars in the future … (but) we need to make sure when we get involved in activities beyond our Formula One program that first, it doesn’t detract from our Formula One efforts,” said Brown, one of the people chiefly responsible for brokering the deal to bring Alonso to the 101st running of the 500. “Second, we (have to) be competitive, and third, it has to be commercially viable. With all that we have going on right now, spending much time thinking about (IndyCar) would detract from our Formula One efforts, so I’d say we’re years away from fielding an IndyCar team.”

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Brown doubted McLaren will sport its own program at next year's 500 but said he was open to teaming up with an existing effort, as he did this past May with Andretti Autosport.

He added that 2019 is a more reasonable time for McLaren to run its own 500 program, before saying he hopes Alonso won’t have reason to return to Indianapolis for a while.

If McLaren resigns Alonso and is competitive -- something Brown foresees happening next year as his team switches from the troublesome Honda-powered engines to Renault power -- he cannot envision a scenario in which he or the Spanish superstar would want to skip the Monaco Grand Prix again, as Alonso had did this year to race the 500.

So who would drive McLaren’s effort upon return?

Brown isn’t thinking about that right now, but said it would have to be someone who could generate as much as excitement as Alonso did.

“When we go back to Indy -- and I think it is when, not if -- we need to go with the same amount of competitiveness and fanfare that we created this year,” Brown said. "And we set a high bar, so that won’t be easy. We’re not interested in going to Indy just to go to Indy. We have to go with shot to win and in a high-profile manner.”

Though it is still years down the road, Brown speculated about what a full-time McLaren IndyCar program might look like. He envisions a two-car team with one driver a big-name veteran, and the other a young hotshot.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone with IndyCar experience,” Brown said. “Look at someone like Fernando. He didn’t have IndyCar experience, but he showed that with his caliber of driving, that he can adapt quickly.

“Whatever McLaren does, it has to be with races and championships in mind, whether that’s a young driver, a veteran or potentially a combination of the two.”