Associated Press (AP) — Pato O’Ward scored his first IndyCar victory a year ago at Texas Motor Speedway. His reward was a Formula One test with McLaren.
Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, once again at his “de facto” home, the Mexican’s future has suddenly clouded over. He has a contract with the Arrow McLaren SP team until 2024, but the young man admits that he is probing the labor market.
“To be very honest with you, I’m completely focused on what I’m doing right now, which is driving and trying to have the best season that I can,” O’Ward told The Associated Press on Wednesday, when asked about his future. “My group of people are just looking at what my future is going to look like. Yeah, that’s pretty much all I can tell you for now.”
O’Ward was evasive when asked what had changed in the romance between the 22-year-old and McLaren.
“It’s a good question,” he said.
But his sudden interest in free agency seems odd. Sunday’s race at Texas is just the second in a 17-race season in which O’Ward is expected to challenge for the title.
He has been with McLaren since the end of 2020, when the team hired him. Red Bull Racing had released him after his youth driver program.
The signing was a smart move by McLaren boss Zak Brown, who shed veteran James Hinchcliffe to give O’Ward a seat on his team.
In two full seasons, O’Ward has helped Arrow McLaren SP elevate its program and compete with the elite teams in IndyCar. O’Ward, who lives in both the Mexican city of Monterrey and San Antonio, Texas, won a pair of races last year and finished third in the championship.
But O’Ward hasn’t held back his desire to try his hand at F1, and McLaren could finally take him to the world’s premier motorsport series. The team hired American Colton Herta over the weekend as a member of its test program.
Herta and O’Ward are friends, former teammates and current IndyCar championship contenders.
And perhaps now they are also rivals in the fight for a place with McLaren in F1.
Is this what has soured O’Ward’s current deal?
“I think we’re all going to have to wait and see what the answer is, to be frank with you. I don’t want to lie to them,” she stated. “I don’t want to lie to anybody and say ‘no, no no’ or ‘yes, yes, yes.’ Let’s see how things turn out. I think it’s too early in the season to really see what’s going on.”
Herta’s signing did not put him ahead of O’Ward in McLaren’s testing programme. Brown said last month, at the IndyCar season opener, that he wants to test several young drivers.
He denied that he was going to use O’Ward in F1 to the detriment of the IndyCar programme.
“What we won’t do is compromise the IndyCar team at all,” Brown said in St. Pete. “I would never take Pato from IndyCar to F1 without having a great solution, because IndyCar is just as important as Extreme and Formula One. This is not a training ground for Formula One.”
Brown had promised O’Ward a tryout in F1 when he won his first IndyCar race. Last May’s victory in Texas earned him a December day in the car in Abu Dhabi.
O’Ward does not have a contract to do anything else with the F1 team and McLaren has the right to match any offer the Mexican receives from another team.
But there are currently no IndyCar teams that offer a path to F1, and only a handful consistently compete with winning and championship chances. O’Ward said Wednesday that he’s not sure how he fits into this puzzle.
“I think everything is a possibility. For now, I’m not aware of me being a part of that,” O’Ward said of McLaren’s test programme. “I am currently under contract with McLaren. As in everything, there are scenarios in which I could stay where I am and others where I could be in a different place.
In theory, O’Ward can move to another team from next season, should McLaren choose not to match any potential offer. But McLaren could retain him under its existing deal that runs until 2024, and the team wants to extend the current deal.
Either way, O’Ward’s apparent discontent would not be a recipe for an IndyCar title hunt.
Taylor Kiel, the series’ team president and O’Ward’s racing strategist, said Wednesday the sides will seek to resolve any conflicts.
“Look, in my opinion, this is just a blip on the radar. We have already internally addressed any of the rumors or whatever,” she said. “The external noise, everything that surrounds situations like this, is part of the sport. It’s up to us to make sure we have the house in order. When news comes out, we will give it to you”.
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