Why McLaren Is Serious In Its IndyCar Assault

Calum Gill 09:22 12/08/2021

McLaren has furthered its commitment to its IndyCar team, by purchasing a majority 75% stake in the Arrow McLaren SP team.

Since this relationship began at the end of 2019, the team has improved massively from its Schmidt Peterson Motorsports guise. It has - for the first time since its 2013 run with Simon Pagenaud - become a championship contender. After that, the team scored only one finish better than 10th with any of its cars in the championship before McLaren came in and helped to raise the level. It did that in numerous ways but the obvious ones were with its knowledge and personnel.

Their approach to IndyCar racing has been unorthodox to say the least. One of those being having a factory-based team on race weekends at the McLaren Technology Centre, in their dedicated IndyCar unit. McLaren Group CEO Zak Brown explained how it the factory unit will work, and it's plans for the future: “I’m sure it won’t stay the same, we want to contribute more,” Brown said. “IndyCars used to, for the most part, when you run a race, it’s the majority of the shop that goes, and you don’t really dial back to base. 

"In Formula 1 as you know, you’ve got your racing team on site and you’ve got a lot of people back at the base so we’re quite used to running a race weekend with people in the city, and people back at the factory. So I’m sure that’s something that we can contribute. We do have people from McLaren that are in the States, but that’ll be ultimately something for Taylor where he’s been working with two entities to act like one team."

There can be no questions over the quality of personnel at the team though. At the head of the team, Taylor Kiel presides over the goings on, whilst rest of the team is littered with big names and respected hands throughout its pyramid. Craig Hampson is one of the most highly rated engineers in the paddock and he works across both cars in R&D, while Andrew Jarvis was a big score for the team when he wanted to move to the States having engineered Lando Norris through his first F1 season. 

Arrow McLaren SP have had a mixed bag of results this year, with two victories by Patricio O'Ward at the XPEL 375 (Texas 2) and the second race at the Detroit Grand Prix (pictured above) in the No. 5 entry. However, drives from those in the No. 7 car - Felix Rosenqvist, Oliver Askew and Kevin Magnussen - have not matched those by O'Ward, with that car's best finish being 12th by Rosenqvist in St. Petersburg. The best finish though by one of O'Ward's teammates was 9th, achieved by Juan Pablo Montoya at the Indy 500. Montoya raced in a two-race entry, with both races coming at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the month of May.

With a factory unit, more investment and more learning from crew mechanics, there is no reason why Arrow McLaren SP cannot start to challenge the more established IndyCar teams, such as Andretti Autosport, Chip Ganassi Racing, and Team Penske.

The team’s car is so unpredictable though. It can be series-leading on one street circuit like in Detroit, but nowhere on another - like in St Petersburg. It can be great at switching on its tyres, but awful at burning them quickly in a stint. The oval set-up looks fairly well nailed but there are only three of those on the calendar, so the focus for this team now has to be on having a more predictable car, and one that’s easier to drive.

O’Ward is the team’s talisman moving forwards and has constantly delivered results in an unpredictable car. So this team has a lot of excitement for what O’Ward and it as a collective can produce when they’ve got the car in a window. “I think Taylor has done an outstanding job and Pato was leading the championship for one race,” adds Brown. “It’s an unbelievably competitive racing series. If you look at Scott Dixon, who is a world class driver, his bad days aren’t that bad.

“And I think that’s probably an area that, if we can bring some more consistency, we clearly have the pace, we get poles, we win races, but some of our off days are a little too far down the grid. That’s hopefully what we’ll be able to bring to the team, is to give Taylor the resources and support he needs whether that’s on investment in assets for the racing team and technology, or people, likely it’ll be a combination of. But it’s an unbelievably difficult championship. You see that one day a guy’s on pole and the next race is 15th and I think that just shows how tough the competition is. So it’s going to be consistency that wins you championships. We have the pace, and we need to bring some more consistency, for sure.”

The team will keep the Arrow McLaren SP name, as well as its current drivers for next season. Previous owners Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson have moved to a role on the board, that will make decisions about the direction of the team.