Arrow McLaren Press Release

Indy 200s at Mid-Ohio Race Two – Race Report

Posted on by Patrick Stephan
|Photographer: Taylor Robbins|Event: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio|Circuit: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course|Location: Lexington, Ohio|Series: NTT IndyCar Series|Country: United States|Session: race|Season: 2020|Team: Arrow McLaren SP|Car: Dallara DW12 UAK18|Car: Chevrolet|Number: 5|Driver: Patricio O’Ward|
Pato O’Ward – No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Qualified: 21st, No Time
Started: 21st
Finished: 9th
“We started 21st and made our way up a few places at the start, but then everything kind of went sideways from there. We came into the pits for the first stop and guys were getting released, which put us into a position where we couldn’t turn into the box quite as tight as we wanted to. This meant the fuel probe couldn’t quite connect and we couldn’t get fuel into the car. This led to us having to go all the way to the back and pit for more fuel. We had to make everything up on track after that. We had such strong pace and I truly think if we had started up front, we would have been better. I made a very stupid mistake in qualifying that really put us on the back foot and I tried to earn back as much as I could today by giving it everything I had. At the end of the day, a top 10 finish isn’t bad from where we started.”Oliver Askew – No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Qualified: 14th, 1:33.4681
Started: 14th
Finished: 15th
“The No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP team made good progress during the weekend. Today was the first time I had to fuel save this year, which was an adjustment, but I felt like I gave it my all. Looking forward to getting back to the Indianapolis Road Course, where we qualified in the Fast Six earlier this year. I think the entire team has a lot of potential and I’m looking forward to capitalizing on that.” 

Taylor Kiel
Managing Director, Arrow McLaren SP

“Oliver had a decent qualifying effort so he was able to stay in the middle of the pack the whole race and hold position. Pato qualified in the back and made it pretty hard for himself but he had a really good start and we gained six positions, putting ourselves back in the game. The strategy was coming to us for the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet but on the first stop, we didn’t get into our box well enough. There was a lot of traffic going on and he didn’t hit his marks like we needed him to, so we couldn’t plug the fuel in. That cost us a lot but nonetheless, we went back to the back and made our way ultimately to P9. I’m really proud of the toughness that was on display today from both the drivers and the entire team, to make the most out of a really tough weekend.”
Gil de Ferran
Sporting Director, McLaren Racing

“When you consider where we started, particularly with Pato, finishing in the top 10 is a really strong result. Especially because we had some traffic in the pit lane which delayed our first stop and dropped us to the back of the pack again after a strong start. When you take that into account, to come home with a top 10 result, it was a positive day. Oliver had a better day today as well but he struggled a little bit this weekend. As we leave here, there’s some work that we need to do after this weekend. Do some analysis and some digging to understand where we can improve, and hopefully finish the year on a strong note.”