Arrow McLaren 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Race Report
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Race date: Sunday, May 25
Round: 6/17
Total laps: 200
Total race distance: 500 mi/804.7 km
Length: 2.5 mi/4.0 km
Number of turns: 4
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position: 3rd
Finishing position: P4
Championship position: 2nd, 191 points
“We’ve seemed to have had every single result in the top five over the past five years except for the most important one. Congratulations to Alex; I’ve got to get on whatever he’s eating or sleeping on because he’s on a run that I’ve never seen before, one I don’t think this series has seen before in 50 years. It’s impressive what they’ve done. My race was a lot of up and downs I would say. The restarts were chaotic, and we were just three cars too far back. We made four or five spots in the last pit stop sequence. I think we were just one pit stop sequence short or one restart. Everybody you could see was stuck.”
Christian Lundgaard, No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position: 8th
Finishing position: P9
Championship position: 4th, 177 points
”I would say I’m happy, but disappointed for not getting a better result. At the end of the day, the car came back in one piece and we only lost one position in the race. I don’t think we had enough pace today to fight for a win even if we were in the position. We still finished in the top 10 and are staying steady. We’ve only finished in the top 10 this year, outside of the Sonsio Grand Prix. We’re building a great campaign for the championship, and at this point that’s where we’ll focus.”
Nolan Siegel, No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position: 24th
Finishing position: P16
Championship position: 20th, 79 points
”Terrible end to what should have been a good day. We made our way forward every stint like we planned on, and nobody on the team made any mistakes, except for me on the last lap. I’m very disappointed and upset with myself, and want to make it right in Detroit next week.”
Kyle Larson, No. 17 HendrickCars.com Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position: 19th
Finishing position: P27
“I hate that I caused that crash, especially for everybody at Arrow McLaren and Hendrick Motorsports. There were a lot of people here to see a better result than that. We’ll shake it off and head over to Charlotte to try and win that one. I put a lot into making this effort possible, so just bummed out really. We’ll try to mentally move on quickly and get to Charlotte. Physically, I’m fine, just very disappointed. I think the best therapy is to get back behind the wheel. Thankfully, I only have a few hours until I’ll be back, and once we crank the engines up hopefully I’ll forget about it.”
Tony Kanaan, Team Principal
“At the end of the day, only one person leaves this place happy. We fought all day as a team. Pato was pretty strong, but it looks like at the end there, we didn’t have enough. With the nature of this race, look at Marcus Ericsson, look at Malukas. No one could do anything. But I’m proud of this team. As far as Championship points go, we’re still pretty solid. Obviously Alex Palou is unstoppable right now. It reminds me of when Dan Wheldon won in 2005 exactly like this. The first three races finished second and then won the 500. But again, I’m proud of the team. There was a great turnout of fans for the sellout, great turnout of our team partners. I think we’re living up to the papaya army dream. We’ve been setting the standard at every event with how we show up and build even more Arrow McLaren fans. It’s about more than just the racing; it’s about what we’re building here. But also, I’m a racer. If I don’t win, I’m mad, and I knew today I was going to be either really happy or mad. But we move on. Detroit is next week, and we’ll show up ready to fight again.