{"id":274290,"date":"2026-02-04T21:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T21:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274290\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T21:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T21:53:10","slug":"2026-preview-arrow-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274290\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Preview: Arrow McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This continues a series of 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES team previews on INDYCAR.com. The season starts Sunday, March 1 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (noon ET, FOX, FOX One, FOX Deportes, INDYCAR Radio Network).<\/p>\n

Starting Lineup: Pato O\u2019Ward (No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet), Nolan Siegel (No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet), Christian Lundgaard (No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet).<\/p>\n

2025 in Review: Arrow McLaren emerged as the clear \u201cbest of the rest\u201d behind Chip Ganassi Racing in 2025. While CGR produced the champion in Alex Palou and a third-place points finisher in Scott Dixon, Arrow McLaren placed two drivers in the top five with Pato O\u2019Ward finishing second and Christian Lundgaard fifth. O\u2019Ward scored two victories, at Iowa Speedway and on the streets of Toronto (photo, bottom), while earning the second-most top-five finishes (10) and tying for the second-most top-10s (12). Lundgaard enjoyed a breakout season in his first year with the team, doubling his career podium total with six. That production was especially notable given the car he inherited had produced just four podium finishes in its previous 81 starts. He ranked third in top-five finishes (six) and fourth in top-10s (11). Siegel finished 22nd in points after missing the second race of the Iowa Speedway doubleheader due to concussion-like symptoms. The 20-year-old still showed progress, doubling his career top-10 total to two and leading 11 laps. Siegel averaged a 14.8 starting position but a 17.3 finish, setting the stage for a pressure-packed 2026 campaign as he enters the final year of his contract.<\/p>\n

New for \u201926: Arrow McLaren is one of four teams \u2013 along with Meyer Shank Racing w\/ Curb-Agajanian, Chip Ganassi Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing \u2013 to retain its full driver lineup for 2026. The offseason, however, brought notable personnel changes. Veteran manager and executive Brian Barnhart departed to join Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as senior vice president of operations, while longtime mechanic Kyle Sagan also moved to RLL as pit stop manager. Arrow McLaren countered by adding one of the most respected engineers in the paddock, Olivier Boisson, who joins as head of damper engineering. Boisson brings extensive INDYCAR SERIES experience, having worked with KV Racing Technology from 2008-16, Dale Coyne Racing from 2016-21 and Andretti Global, where he became a race engineer in October 2021. Andretti established itself as one of the sport\u2019s premier street-course teams during that span, placing a driver on the front row for all four street races last season and earning two victories. Since 2022, Andretti has produced five street-course wins, second among all teams. Street courses have been an area of opportunity for Arrow McLaren. O\u2019Ward and Lundgaard averaged eighth-place finishes on those circuits last season, while Siegel averaged 20.5. The team has recorded two street-course wins since 2022, including O\u2019Ward\u2019s Toronto victory in 2025, signaling progress. Adding Boisson could further elevate that program and help Arrow McLaren close the gap to Ganassi. The team also strengthened its technical leadership by hiring Eric Cowdin as director of engineering last September.<\/p>\n

Keep an Eye on This: Lundgaard believes Arrow McLaren is positioned to remain ahead of Team Penske as Chevrolet\u2019s top team. Penske endured a difficult 2025 season, with its drivers finishing ninth, 10th and 12th in points, but aims for a significant rebound in 2026. \u201cThinking about Penske\u2019s \u201925 season, there was a lot of bad luck and a lot of unfortunate results,\u201d Lundgaard said. \u201cUltimately, I think we were still faster all year round. I don\u2019t see that changing. What they\u2019re doing and what we\u2019re doing \u2013 we\u2019re all pushing to move forward. We just have to stick to it and keep doing what we\u2019re doing, and I think we\u2019ll be in the same position.\u201d Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have won every series championship since 2013, but Arrow McLaren appears poised to challenge that streak, especially if its street-course performance continues to improve.<\/p>\n

Little-Known Fact(s): If Lundgaard or Siegel breaks through with a victory, how does O\u2019Ward respond? This has long been his team. O\u2019Ward has delivered the last nine Arrow McLaren wins, and the organization hasn\u2019t won with another driver since James Hinchcliffe\u2019s victory at Iowa in July 2018, when the team was known as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Last season marked the first true internal challenge to O\u2019Ward\u2019s status, and while he handled it well, a teammate reaching Victory Lane would introduce a new dynamic within the team.<\/p>\n

\"Pato<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Note: This continues a series of 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES team previews on INDYCAR.com. The season starts Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-274290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}