Double podium and grimace soup for Arrow McLaren

We have rarely seen such a demonstration from the Arrow team. McLaren. In qualifying on Saturday, Pato O'Ward edged out his teammate Christian Lundgaard. A 100% papaya front row that suggested a race victory on Sunday. Dominant, with 51 laps led out of the 65 of the race, the Mexican O'Ward had to settle for second place, ahead of Lundgaard. While the positive side is the performance found on a track where in 2024, Arrow McLaren had not weighed on the races of the exhibition round, the fact of losing once again to Álex Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing is hard to swallow.

"It sucks to lose like that at the end of the race. We obviously weren't perfect. There was obviously something we could have done better to give the No. 10 car more of a challenge.", O'Ward explained. “We ran a race with one set of softs and three sets of hards. I think it would have been any combination with two softs and two hards. I think we missed the boat with the No. 5 car. We can only understand why we chose that, and try not to make that mistake again. I mean, to be fair, it was probably one of the tracks where I personally felt like we didn't really have a fighting chance. We put two cars on the front row and we worked hard today. It seems like every time someone wins, it's always Palou. He's obviously figured it out. He's got a good team behind him. We just have to keep pushing. There's not really any other way.”

Uncooperative latecomers

While there was no real suspense regarding the return of Álex Palou, who was sometimes three seconds a lap faster than Pato O'Ward, the driver from Monterrey would still have preferred to receive a little help from other Chevrolets. Indeed, the backmarkers were not really as cooperative as the Mexican would have hoped. Whereas for him, Honda plays the team game, he was quick to point out that the brand with the bow tie does not seem to apply such measures. It is worth remembering that in IndyCar, latecomers can try to keep their place in the leader's lap, in case a neutralization occurs. Once the leader has passed, however, they must let the other drivers behind pass, given that they are no longer in the leader's lap.

“I don't like to complain, but it sucks being the leader. All the Chevrolet-affiliated teams are no help when a Chevrolet leader comes at them. Honda seems to work as a team really, really well because Louis Foster (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) was doing everything he could to keep me behind. Palou gets right behind him and lets him by on the first try. He would have passed us no matter what, but it would have been harder.”

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