Indy win "critically important" for McLaren - Brown

The Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix will take place on Sunday at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but McLaren Racing Chief Executive Officer Zak Brown will not be there. He’ll be at Indy.

It has been 50 years since Johnny Rutherford drove a McLaren M16 to victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This time around, the team will field four entries – Pato O’Ward (No. 5), Nolan Siegel (No. 6), Christian Lundgaard (No. 7) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (No. 31) – in pursuit its fourth Indy 500 victory.

“The Indy 500 is what I started watching earliest,” said Brown. “I think the first 500 I saw was in 1980, with Johnny Rutherford winning. I actually didn’t go to my first Indy 500 until 1996 when Buddy Lazier won. I’ve probably been there 20 times since. For me, Indy is the most famous, most iconic race in the world. I kind of grew up around IndyCar, so I was IndyCar first from being involved in the sport.”

Brown was moved into the Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team back in 2021 when McLaren Racing announced its initial purchase of a 75 percent stake in Schmidt Peterson Motorsports .

“We kind of started with a strategical alliance, and then it turned into minority ownership and then we ultimately bought the entire thing,” explained Brown.

“With the team, when you’re strategic partner, you have a little bit of influence. When you’re minority owner, you have a little more influence. When you have majority ownership, you have a lot of influence. When you have 100 percent ownership, you can do what you want.

“Ultimately, that’s where we needed to get to, because until you get to at least the majority state, you can’t do everything you want. The team that we bought, we knew was a better jumping-off point than starting from scratch. Today, we finally feel like we’ve got everything in place, and I think the results last year were the best year of results the Arrow McLaren team ever had. We had 12 podiums, and I think that shows how much progress the team has made.

“We’re coming off a win at the last race and I think we are not quite yet at the, call it the Penske or Ganassi level, but I think we’re very close and not very far away.’

Brown is emphatic about how much another 500 win would mean to the organization. 

“Critically important to win,” stated Brown. “We’re here to win.

“We have finished second twice in the last few years. We got passed on the last lap last year. I kind of feel like we could have two or three Indy wins under our belt at the moment, and we have none that are within the last 50 years. We definitely have some unfinished business.

“I think we’ve got four cars that can win. We have two drivers that are very experienced. One of the reasons why we brought Ryan Hunter-Reay in was not only because we think he’s capable of winning, but he’s also capable of bringing some experience to Nolan and Christian, who are less experienced. This is an important thing to get that combination right. The unfortunate part for us, but the exciting part for the fans, is that there are about 12 cars that can win. There might be 15 cars that can win. I’m glad we’ve got four in the mix. That’s good odds, but this is not a walk in the park.

Brown continued on to address how Arrow McLaren will approach the race.

“I think we’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” he said. “We’ve been so close. We’ve led a lot of laps. We just haven’t led the last lap. I think it is business as usual. You’ve got to be there with 20 laps to go. We’ll work together. You’ve just got to kind of be there inside the top five, the top eight with 20 laps to go. Ultimately you’re not going to win this race on the first lap, as the saying goes. I think it’s about having all four cars in the mix with 20 laps to go.

“We’re the only team to have won the Triple Crown. We want to do it again, all in the papaya era. Formula 1 is going great. We’re in the middle of testing. IndyCar is great, but we’ve got a lot of unfinished business.”