IndyCar insider speaks bluntly on Pato O’Ward’s ‘legit’ worries about Chevrolet drivers

Arrow McLaren driver Pato O'Ward finished second in the Thermal Club Grand Prix on March 23. After the race, O'Ward raised his concern about the Chevrolet-powered IndyCar drivers not helping their fellow drivers. IndyCar insider David Land spoke about the same via his podcast.

While speaking on his podcast, Unverified, Land addressed O'Ward's comments about Chevrolet-powered IndyCar drivers not getting out of the way when they are laps down.

"I have it at very good authority that Honda is very good at pulling drivers out of the way and Chevy's not. Pato (O'Ward) expressing that is legit. He is not just being mad about that; that's a real thing. That's a real difference between perhaps the manufacturer philosophies cause I know one of the things that I know about chevy and how they operate is that they are very competitive and I think maybe they have a different philosophy which is it's every man for himself or atleast the teams get to decide who they support who they don't. And at Honda, if you are facing with an H on your car you are racing with all of the H's out there," he said (12:40 onwards).

In the post-race press conference at the Thermal Club Grand Prix, Pato O'Ward spoke about how the Honda-powered cars help eachother out. He said:

"I mean, I hate to whine about it, but it sucks to be the leader. All of our Chevy affiliate teams are worthless with helping when a Chevy leader is coming up on them. Honda seem to work as a team very, very well because Foster was doing everything in his power to keep me behind. Palou gets right behind him, and he just lets him cruise by."

Pato O'ward put up a good race until lap 51, when Arrow McLaren took a gamble with their strategy that didn't work. In addition, held up by lapped traffic, Alex Palou gained on O'Ward and eventually finished first.

Pato O'Ward speaks about Penske CEO's comments about IndyCar in Mexico

Despite being Mexico's IndyCar star, Pato O'Ward has never raced in his home country. While speaking to IndyStar last year, Penske Entertainment's CEO, Mark Miles, discussed a potential race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez race track.

"They said, ‘If you want us to rent you the place, we’ll rent you the place, but we don’t want to partner because we think it’s too early. You’re not well enough known yet to be in Mexico City. What that means is they have a view that we’re not well enough known, nor is (O’Ward) yet, to populate an event at that track," he said.

Responding to this, O'Ward spoke about how it's all about making the sport and experience better for the fans.

"I believe the purpose of going to Mexico is to help everyone and help everything (in IndyCar) grow. My mentality has always been, ‘How can I be better? How can we all be better and get bigger and make this a better experience for other people? We’re in entertainment, man."

Pato O'Ward has been in the sport since 2018 but has only raced at this home country track while fulfilling his reserve driver duties for McLaren F1.