Arrow McLaren 2023 Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey Race Report

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

Race date: Sunday, September 10

Round: 17/17

Total laps: 95 Laps

Total race distance: 212.6 miles/342.2 km

Length: 2.24 miles/3.60 km

Number of turns: 11

Alexander Rossi, No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet 

Starting Position: 15th

Finshing Position: P7

Championship Position: 9th, 375 points “I think we learned a lot this year. There were a lot of very positive things to draw upon. It was just a year of a lot of weird things. Today’s race was a perfect example. We had to manually jack the car up for the last two pitstops. It’s the little things like that that we need to work on, but ultimately the team grew massively. On the No. 7 side, I feel like we improved tremendously throughout the year and have a lot of things to learn from when we see all these tracks again for the second time together next year. We’ll focus on the positives, try to improve on the negatives and go into the off-season.” 

Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet

Starting Position: 9th

Finshing Position: P9

Championship Position: 4th, 484 points

“Our race was looking so strong, and that was a very disappointing end to what could’ve been a great result. We kept our nose clean, did a nice job on track, and the team nailed it in the pit stops. It’s frustrating having our day thrown away by other people’s mistakes. “It’s been a strong season for us and performance has been consistent. We still need to clean things up here and there, but I’m proud of the job that I’ve done. We’re going to come back next year even stronger and see where we can stack up, racing hard and pushing for wins.”

Felix Rosenqvist, No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet 

Starting Position: 1st

Finshing Position: P19

Championship Position: 12th, 324 points ”What a ride. It really was a roller coaster for my final drive with Arrow McLaren. We started on pole with a mega car and a strong first half of the race. Then Marcus came into me and our day was ended from there. The No. 6 crew fought hard to stay in the race, but it’s a shame considering the potential we had going for us. I have to thank the team and especially my crew for the speed we had all season long. To have two poles and two podiums in the wild season that we had, I’m really proud of us and I leave with my head held high. It’s been really special racing with Arrow McLaren, and now I’m excited for what’s to come in 2024.”

Gavin Ward, Racing Director, Arrow McLaren

“It might take a while to figure out exactly what happened in this race. There were an awful lot of caution laps, and we had a bit of a roller coaster of emotions there through the race. For a little while it looked like we were perhaps going to get a little lucky, finally get that win with Pato. As it panned out, we got pretty unlucky.

“I’m just gutted to see Felix get punted there, again by Ericsson. Then Alexander got hit from behind which broke his air jack, which then added a lot of time to his pitstops, so we had to get creative about how we were going to get to the end with the least amount of stops and lose the least amount of time with that problem. So to get him to finish were he did is a pretty decent result.

“I think the most positive thing we can take out of today is that Chevy brought home the manufacturer championship which we were pushing really hard to help make that happen. Chevy put in a lot of hard work all year long, and we’re putting a lot of hard work in already for next year. I can’t wait for the off-season. I can’t wait for next season.”