Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet came extremely close once again to scoring his first career NTT IndyCar Series victory on Sunday in race two of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday.
The Mexican started the race from fourth and came home just ahead of Team Penske’s Will Power.
Speaking following the action he said:
We are so close. The No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet was very strong right out of the gates. We are knocking on the door. We are very close and we are going to keep pushing. I know our time will come so we just have to stay there. It would be great to say I had something for Josef if it had stayed green but whenever I got close, it got tough. With 10 laps to go, I was pushing and pushing but I just couldn’t quite do it. It was harder to pass today than it was yesterday. The track was quite a bit hotter, which made it tougher with big trains of cars
Oliver Askew in the No.7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet started the race from 13th and finished the race in 17th. Speaking following the action he commented saying:
We just got passed by too many cars at the start. That made it really tough to get through the field. I feel like we had the car to maybe get into the top-10 or top-5. The No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet was fast in clean air, when we had it. Just disappointed with the start that made our race really difficult from there. Looking forward to hopefully getting back on a road course in a couple weeks
Arrow McLaren SP Managing Director Taylor Kiel commented on the race saying:
“It’s too bad we don’t have three races this weekend. It was a really good run by Pato. He drove great all day. Really good strategy calls by all of us on the stand, and man, the pit stop guys did an excellent job again. A really solid weekend all-in-all and really good points. I’m disappointed for Oliver with the rough start. Passing here is very difficult so it was an uphill battle for him. The team is headed in the right direction, we are knocking on the door for the first victory as a team, and I’m excited to get going hopefully in a few weeks at Mid-Ohio. Hats off to Chevrolet today, locking out the top-four.
McLaren Racing Sporting Director Gil de Ferran said:
It was another strong race for Arrow McLaren SP. Oliver obviously had a difficult start and it compromised his race from there on. He showed good pace throughout the race and made up a few spots after the start. Pato, again, showed his tremendous skill and nerve behind the wheel by driving an extremely well-judged race. Again congratulations to our strategy team and the guys in the pits that not only called a perfect race, but did extremely well on the pit stops. Close once again, but a really great weekend for the whole team. We continue on, head down, and try to improve each and every weekend