Watch: McLaren shows the horrible state of its tires after Thermal Club IndyCar GP

Arrow McLaren shared the horrible state a tire from one of their cars was left in, after the Thermal Club Grand Prix in California on March 23. The Papaya team had a positive outing in Thermal, with two of their drivers finishing on the podium on Sunday.

The weekend started brilliantly for AMSP, as they managed to lock out the front row in the qualifications on Saturday. The #5 car of Pato O'Ward grabbed the pole with the #7 car of Christian Lundgaard just behind him.

In the race, the reigning champion Alex Palou, who started from third, managed to get both McLarens and win his second race of the 2025 season in as many races. However, O'Ward and Lundgaard still managed to finish on the podium to consolidate a solid result for the team in orange.

After the race, Arrow McLaren's Instagram page posted videos and images from the weekend, including a video of a used tire from the race on slide 2. The tire was completely grained and had tire rubber and track debris, which the driver presumably picked up during or after the race. The post caption read:

"West Coast vibing. ✨"

Many drivers were asked to pick up tire rubber left out on the track, which is known as 'marbles', after the race, to slightly increase the weight of the car, in case their cars were weight-tested after the race. When tires pick up such rubber, they can look uneven and lumpy, just like the one shown in the shared image.

The team managed to get a brilliant result out of the Thermal Club GP but will surely be disappointed with how the weekend ended after a complete domination up until the final 10 laps of the race on Sunday. O'Ward led 51 out of the 65 laps of the race, but Palou managed to take the lead when it mattered the most and came home first yet again in his Ghip Ganassi car.

---

McLaren was on track to emulate an almost 50-year-old feat on Sunday

Christian Lundgaard's driving at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg - Source: Getty

If McLaren managed to win the Thermal Grand Prix, it would have been the first time since 1976 that they claimed a win in IndyCar and F1 in the same weekend. James Hunt won the Driver's titles in F1 in a McLaren that year.

FOX Sports reporter Bob Pockrass pointed out these details via a post on X, which he claimed were mentioned to him by the people at the Papaya team.

"According to the Arrow McLaren folks, they say the last time they won a Formula 1 race and an IndyCar race on the same weekend was May 2 1976: Johnny Rutherford won the champ car race at Trenton; James Hunt won F1 in Madrid"

On May 2, 1976, Johnny Rutherford won in Trenton, and Hunt won the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid on the same day. While Hunt went on to win the F1 championship that year, Rutherford finished second in what was then known as the USAC Championship.