Taylor Kiel, Managing Director, Arrow McLaren SP 

“The test went well. I think overall it was a good day for the team. We finally were able to get on track with both cars, see where we stack up against the field, and it was a good day. We had some issues toward the end but we worked through it. It was good to see the team come together, with all the new faces that we have, and work through an issue. That’s what testing is for. 

Overall, I’m pleased. We have good pace in the cars and the drivers worked really well together. Our team has worked really hard all offseason so to finally be able to get on track was important and was a good thing for us. Overall, we are happy with the day.”

Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet (P10, 1:47.7151, 67 laps completed) 

“I think once we passed lunch, when the track started to dry out, we started putting down some decent laps and started to gather some useful information. We were very fast in the dryish-wet conditions and it felt quite good. The first few runs on slick tires felt alright and we started working from there but towards the end of the day I started struggling with Sector Three. I’m not sure why but we will go now and analyze everything so we can come back and be on top of it during the race weekend. 

As a team, we made some steps forward. We learned some things because we changed quite a few things on the cars throughout the day but we need to improve. We need to be quicker. It looks like the Penske’s were very, very fast and we just have to get better for race weekend but for a start, it’s somewhat decent. There’s some things that I have to work on myself, I don’t think I did a job that I’m happy with to be honest. I didn’t really put one specific strong lap together. It was good to get back in the car but I’m ready to continue improving and go racing.” 

Oliver Askew, No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet (P7, 1:47.5611, 76 laps completed)

“Today was really good. Unfortunately, we didn’t get all the testing in that we had planned coming into this test because of the rain but it’s the same for everyone. The team still worked really hard to prepare a different run plan and execute it, and I think we did that. I felt good in the car. I like this track, it suits my style. Honestly, I think if we were to come back tomorrow, I would be able to go quicker because I’m still getting used to the car, the atmosphere, how the car likes to be driven, but I’m quite happy with the lap time today. With more experience, I can find a couple tenths and be within the top-5 which is awesome.

I felt like the car was pretty good. The engineers and everyone worked really hard. We focused a lot on pit stops, which obviously isn’t a strong suit of mine never having done pit stops before coming from sprint racing. I think we checked all the boxes that we could. We did some of the most laps out of everyone. Physically, I felt good. We will take the next couple days to analyze where we can do better and keep progressing. That’s the most important thing right now.”