Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, driver of the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, sas that he wants the team to succeed this year and this is something that he has said to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.
The team has a new Team Principal in Tony Kanaan following the departure of Gavin Ward and O’Ward says that he feels that there is a lot that the Brazilian brings to the role.
O’Ward has a new teammate in Christian Lundgaard who joins the team from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and speaking to Paddock Eye during INDYCAR Content Day, the Mexican said he hasn’t spent time with Lundgaard yet but he is looking forward to working with him and seeing what he can bring to the team from Rahal.
I mean, he’ll bring knowledge that he learned over at Rahal. I haven’t been so attentive, I would say, with the off-season because there really hasn’t been a lot of testing. I think there’s only been like one oval test that he did, which obviously very different car for him and stuff. But I haven’t really kind of dug into it too much until we kind of really start going and start working together.
But I’m an open book. He will be able to see what I do and Nolan does. We’ll be able to see what he does. I think it’s important that — different to, for example, to Formula 1, in INDYCAR you can cater to your liking a little bit more in terms of car setup and stuff.
I’ve always been on my own island. Everybody whines about how I like my car. I’ve always kind of been a loner in terms of where I like my things. I’m curious to see if he likes it, if he doesn’t like it.
But yeah, just seeing how everything kind of usually falls in INDYCAR, he’ll probably have his own kind of direction, and what’s most important is just making sure that all three cars are fast because a lot of times we’re each in kind of our own island and we all have the same issue, and you know there’s a fundamental thing there rather than actual