McLaren’s latest IndyCar hire sends a clear message as ‘bulk of the car is built around Pato O’ Ward’

The new McLaren signing, Christian Lundgaard, made his Arrow McLaren debut at the Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg on March 2nd. The Danish racing driver recently spoke about how the car is mostly built around Pato O'Ward.

Lundgaard qualified in 5th place for his maiden qualifying with the papaya team. He finished the race on Sunday in 8th place which made him the highest finishing driver amongst the other two cars of Arrow McLaren.

However, while speaking to Eric Smith, Indycar staff writer, Lundgaard admitted that all three of the McLaren's are developed keeping O'Ward's driving style in mind.

"We’re continuously working on and trying to make the car work for me because at the end of the day the bulk of the car is built around Pato. It’s a little bit of a different driving style. He can handle the unpredictability of the car where Nolan and I both want something in a sense that’s a little bit easier to drive so we can extract the pace.We can do it on one lap, but we can’t do it continuously.” Lundgaard said.

Pato O'Ward has completed five full seasons with the papaya team and this season he is the senior driver at the team. O'ward has 25 podium finishes, seven wins,and five poles throughout his career with McLaren. O'ward is also McLaren Formula one team's reserved driver.

The #7 car driver, Lundgaard, previously drove for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing from 2021-2024. This is just the beginning for the Danish driver at the papaya team.

Christian Lundgaard will be hoping to improve at the upcoming Thermal Club Grand Prix on March 23rd.

Tony Kanaan reveals McLaren Formula One team shares its data with Arrow McLaren.

Tony Kanaan at Indianapolis 500 Champions Portrait Session - Source: Getty

The new team principal at Arrow McLaren, Tony Kanaan recently revealed how the team wo teams tend to exchange data in with eachother. The teams at Formula One are at liberty to build their own cars, however, Indycar being a spec series doesn't have that freedom.

In a recent interview, Kanaan revealed how the sister teams share technical data 24 hours a day.

"24 hours a day. (We exchange) software, fuel software, simulator... car simulator for the drivers, and engineering. There are many things that we have in a regulation, armored. But (because) they (F1) have an open regulation, we use experience and manufacture of some parts that they do it in two days. Here we don't manufacture anything because Indy has more limitations. You purchase from the company that sells the parts, and the things you make, it is not worth having machines to manufacture. For example, three anti-roll bars - we import those and we are lucky to have the guys in Europe who send us what we need," Kanaan said.

The McLaren Formula One team won their constructors championship in 2024 with 374 points in 23 races.