Arrow McLaren prioritizing in-year gains to match Penske, Ganassi

Ward, who worked for Red Bull Racing in Formula 1, then was Josef Newgarden’s race engineer at Team Penske before joining Arrow McLaren as director of trackside engineering, has assumed the role of the team’s racing director in a year of expansion and change.

“To succeed in IndyCar requires exceptional collaboration amongst drivers, engineers, crew. It's interesting with how tight it is in this sport, we kind of have to raise the bar as a team working together. I think that's my big emphasis actually right there.”

At a time when IndyCar has expanded to 27 full-time entries and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is also booming, it has been a common refrain from team principals and managers that it’s extremely hard to find good staff. Yet Arrow McLaren has been able to expand to three full-time entries, adding Alexander Rossi to Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist in the driver line-up.

“It's a fight for talent out there, there's no hiding that right now,” agreed Ward. “Very happy with how our recruitment has come together in the off-season. We've had to get a little bit creative.

Gavin Ward, Arrow McLaren Chevrolet

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

“I think that's actually how we always looked at it. We didn't look at just wanting to bring in people from the IndyCar paddock to fill the slots. We always kind of wanted to bring in a good mix. We've got some great hires from other racing series.

"We have a great mechanic from World of Outlaws, a great mechanic from Williams F1. We brought in engineers from [NASCAR] Cup. We have an engineer from Boeing, one that has a Salesforce background.

“We’re happy with the amount of diversity we've brought in there. Also a little bit of promoting from within. Chris Lawrence stepping up as engineer for Felix [Rosenqvist]. Really happy to give him that opportunity and recognize his success and contribution with this team.”

Ward later added: “The growth we've had is huge. From an infrastructure point of view, we've been building everything up, testing out some new systems here… It's quite difficult to grow and develop at the same time. I think we did a big sprint to get the right people in place. Now it's all about building our processes, people working together well, gelling the team.

“The culture is strong. I have no issues with that at all. We're trying to hit that fast forward button, trying to do things in a number of weeks that might naturally take a bit longer here to get full stride, but also build the systems in the team so that not only are we going to hit St. Pete with competitive racecars, but aim to be able to continually bring performance through the year to try and really fight the Penskes and Ganassis out there.”