{"id":458487,"date":"2026-02-06T22:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458487\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T22:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:30:09","slug":"zak-brown-wants-mclarens-formula-1-indycar-stars-to-race-at-daytona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458487\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Brown Wants McLaren’s Formula 1, IndyCar Stars to Race at Daytona"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren is entering the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a Dallara-based LMDh racer<\/a> next year, joining General Motors as a brand competing in some form at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in the Indianapolis 500, and in Formula 1. And if Zak Brown has his way, all three programs could be highlighted with what would instantly be the highest-profile “Star Car” entered in the 24 Hours of Daytona in generations.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Road & Track, Brown mentioned the possibility of the team’s IndyCar and Formula 1 drivers sharing an extra GTP-class McLaren in the 24-hour race. Brown also noted that he has already talked to Arrow McLaren IndyCar drivers Pato O’Ward<\/a> and Christian Lundgaard about potentially getting behind the wheel of the team’s new LMDh prototype in some fashion, and that he would have done the same with fellow IndyCar signee Nolan Siegel if he were not out of the country racing other sports cars at the time of the team’s 2026 launch.<\/p>\n

“You get into 24 Hours of Daytona,” Brown said, “where you need extra drivers and you can run extra cars, that’s something that McLaren does very well. It’s a lot of fun\u2014we have fun with our racing. Could we see at Daytona one year, our IndyCar drivers, our F1 drivers come together, that type of thing? Absolutely.”<\/p>\n

There are a few roadblocks to getting that extra entry into action. Most notable among them is that McLaren has not actually committed to an IMSA program with its new LMDh car just yet, although Brown mentioned his “strong desire” to expand the program<\/a> at Daytona two weeks ago. Another potential hurdle is the demanding off-season schedule for Formula 1 drivers\u2014a problem Max Versappen brought up to R&T<\/a> while discussing his own goals of eventually competing in the race.<\/p>\n

O’Ward told R&T that Brown has been “pretty vocal” that he wants the IndyCar star to test the prototype and get a feel of it, and O’Ward added that the is “pretty keen on doing that.” It could turn into an opportunity at Daytona as soon as 2028 if McLaren chooses to go forward with its IMSA program … but the Mexican IndyCar star will not be adding Le Mans to his calendar until he checks one major box.<\/p>\n

“It is on my mind,” O’Ward said, “but I told Zak, I have no intention of doing Le Mans until I have one Indy 500 win<\/a> under my belt.”<\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Fred Smith’s love of cars comes from his fascination with auto racing. Unfortunately, that passion led him to daily drive a high-mileage, first-year Porsche Panamera. He is still thinking about the last lap of the 2011 Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren is entering the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a Dallara-based LMDh racer next year, joining General…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,183855,782,187670,784,578,576,577,1642,187669,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-458487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-collection-motorsport","11":"tag-content-type-news","12":"tag-contentid-22ea8bc2-bf06-4da4-8f5f-65bf40a97643","13":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","14":"tag-f1","15":"tag-formula-1","16":"tag-formula1","17":"tag-locale-us","18":"tag-shorttitle-zak-brown-wants-mclarens-f1-stars-at-daytona","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}