How McLaren is striving towards IndyCar's elite
The second year of McLaren's full-time IndyCar return is looming, with Patricio O'Ward and Felix Rosenqvist leading its line-up. Strong team personnel and work behind the scenes means that 2021 could be the year it joins the established elite
Once we got used to seeing the large two-storey Arrow hospitality unit regularly appearing at IndyCar races, before the pandemic made such luxuries superfluous in 2020, it was easy to forget the humble beginnings from which the squad now known as Arrow McLaren SP had grown over the previous two decades.
The rise was not meteoric: there were definite flat spots, usually as a result of partnerships that had their roots in expedience rather than expectation of excellence. Counterbalancing that trait along the way, team founder Sam Schmidt, whose underlying ambition and business smarts could rarely be questioned, doesn't tend to shy away from making difficult decisions. Consequently, the team's form never dipped for longer than a season, and the general trend was always upward.
How McLaren is striving towards IndyCar's elite
The second year of McLaren's full-time IndyCar return is looming, with Patricio O'Ward and Felix Rosenqvist leading its line-up. Strong team personnel and work behind the scenes means that 2021 could be the year it joins the established elite
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About this article
| Series | IndyCar |
| Drivers | Patricio O'Ward |
| Teams | McLaren |
| Author | David Malsher |