The worst-kept secret in the NTT IndyCar Series paddock is days away from being confirmed with Arrow McLaren SP’s signing of Alexander Rossi to a multi-year contract. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner, who Andretti Autosport confirmed as leaving the team at the end of the season, joins young AMSP team leader Pato O’Ward, who recently signed an extension of his own. With its plans in motion to expand to three full-time cars, the only question remaining is who will drive the third car alongside O’Ward and Rossi when 2023 arrives.

AMSP’s Felix Rosenqvist is out of contract at the end of the season, and despite suggestions he’s been informed by the team that he will need to find a new home, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown told RACER this week those suggestions are incorrect.

Rossi brings 25 podiums, seven wins, and two championship-contending runs with a second-place in 2018 and a third-place in 2019 to an AMSP team in need of another front-running veteran. With fluctuating fortunes at Andretti’s team since 2020, Rossi’s desire for a change of scenery and mid-career reboot has been a regular topic of conversation for more than a year.

Having explored options with most of the biggest teams in the IndyCar paddock, Rossi found a perfect fit in the rising AMSP team where the 75-percent ownership acquisition by McLaren Racing, addition of significant engineering and mechanical talent, commissioning of a large new facility, and push to three cars in 2023 come at a time where the 30-year-old Californian can have significant impact on all areas of the team’s growth.

As RACER has previously written, AMSP is known to have an interest in another free agent, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay. If Rosenqvist isn’t retained, which could be a longshot, the scenario of O’Ward, Rossi and the Dutchman as AMSP’s new trio would present an exceptionally strong response to its bigger rivals.