106th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Arrow McLaren SP Race Report

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Date: Sunday, May 29

Round: 6/17

Race laps: 200

Total race distance: 500 miles/804.67 km

Length: 2.5 miles/4.02 km

Number of turns: 4

Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Starting Position: 7th

Finishing Position: 2nd

Laps Led: 26

Championship Standing: 2nd, 213 points

“First of all, I’m really proud of the team. They gave me a really good car. I was so happy with the handling and we executed everything perfectly. We hit the fuel perfectly, we made no mistakes, and positioned ourselves perfectly to have a shot at it.

“We got done with that last pit stop, Felix undercut us, I then stopped and started to catch up with him, but Marcus [Ericsson], out of nowhere, came out with some insane speed. He got past me like I was standing still then caught Felix within two laps. I knew when the restart happened I would have one shot, I’d have to go flat and it still wasn’t enough. So sadly, they had the faster car. We need to do a better job to beat them, but I’m really proud of the job we did today, it’s my best result in the Indianapolis 500. It’s a tough pill to swallow after a good race.”

Felix Rosenqvist, No. 7 Vuse Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Starting Position: 8th

Finishing Position: 4th

Championship Standing: 9th, 154 points

“Like always, there’s mixed feelings at Indy if you don’t win the race, but it was a good day. I think this was a huge statement for us as a team to be able to be up there all race, all month with the GP as well. It’s a totally different energy in the team to previous years, I think we’re gaining confidence, and we saw that in the middle of the race, when we came in to pit in P8 and came out in P4. That got me so pumped. I feel like that was a turning point for us, when we prove that we can make up four places in the pits, in the biggest race in the world, that’s super cool.

“The team, along with our partners Chevy, did a great job all month to give me a great car. I’m really happy for everyone in the team. Obviously I wanted more, but we’ll build on this and try and get some wins over the rest of the season.”

Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 6 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Starting Position: 8th

Finishing Position: 4th

Championship Standing: 30th, 44 points

“Today was a good day. I’m a little disappointed, I felt like we should have had a little bit more. We struggled a little bit with the car in the long runs but overall I’m happy. We passed like 19 cars today, had a lot of fun and raced a lot of people. When you start so far back, you just run out of laps. I want to thank everyone at Arrow McLaren SP for the hard work. They have come a long way since last year, which is really exciting.”

 Taylor Kiel – President, Arrow McLaren SP

“It’s a good day for our team, but of course it’s always tough when you don’t win. There’s only one person that leaves here happy at the end of the event. But it was a really good day, flawless execution across all three cars. The pit stops were fantastic, the drivers did what they needed to do, and the engineering team and mechanics have put in thousands of hours trying to get us in a position to do what we did today. That’s something that I’m certainly very proud of.

“Our partners at Chevrolet did a great job all week. We’ve had a gap to the Hondas here in years past, and we’ve certainly closed that up. Chip Ganassi Racing did a great job this whole month and we were just a little bit of a step behind each day. So, we’ve got some work to do, but nonetheless, we put ourselves in a good position and executed well. We’re leaving here proud, if maybe a little bummed out, but ultimately, we scored fantastic points for both the No. 5 and No. 7 cars, Juan did exactly what we needed him to do. We’ll now turn our attention to Detroit.”