Arrow McLaren making big engineering upgrades for 2024

McLaren Racing will continue to infuse its Arrow McLaren NTT IndyCar Series program with Formula 1-inspired technology when the new season gets under way in 2024. The addition of a new engineering transporter filled with capabilities McLaren CEO Zak Brown and team boss Gavin Ward didn’t want to fully reveal was confirmed in a private meeting with the media on Saturday in Monterey.

“We’ve got a pretty cool engineering truck coming next year,” Brown said. “So we're continuing to upgrade our equipment, our facilities, trying to give the team as many tools as possible. [Upgraded] engineering will obviously tie directly to team performance.

“So you'll see something that is pretty cool and state of the art. It's gonna give the engineers and drivers a better, more complete environment to work in. It will be something more like what you can see in a Formula 1 paddock from an engineering truck.”

Having lost a few steps to Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske this season, Arrow McLaren heads into the final race of the year chasing its first win of 2023. Major investment in greater trackside engineering resources is one area where Ward believes the team can claw back some of the gap to IndyCar’s two top teams.

“We can't be naive to the infrastructure we're up against,” he said. “Penske has got a wind tunnel program, Ganassi runs cars through a tunnel on a mountain in Pennsylvania for a month a year. [We're] not the only team that's putting something in. We've got an opportunity to [flesh] that out -- that established investment they made 10-20 years ago -- [and] the sport's moved on. What does the sport need now? That's where we're going to invest.”