IndyCar: Youthful McLaren Spreads to the States

The signs of McLaren’s continued revamp has clearly spread outside of it’s F1 team as they today announced young-guns Patricio O’Ward and Oliver Askew as the men to pilot their two IndyCar rides in 2020.

McLaren have merged with existing IndyCar team Schmidt Peterson Motorsport to make Arrow McLaren SP and it was thought that previous SPM driver James Hinchcliffe was secure as the lead driver for 2020.

Before today’s announcement, the word around the IndyCar paddock was that it would be either O’Ward or Askew to partner the Canadian but with O’Ward getting out of his Red Bull junior contract early, suddenly both drivers became available.

This bold move has caused much conversation and debate from everyone involved in the series with Hinchcliffe’s close friend and fellow driver Conor Daly stating on Twitter:

“I’m a big fan of young drivers getting a proper shot. Always will be. But there is just something about the way this all went down that makes my stomach churn.”

Daly’s view has been shared by a large majority of IndyCar fans on social media as the announcement is likely to see the fans’ favourite out of a ride for 2020.

But this move does highlight the shift in focus for McLaren as a whole.

Two young, fresh and exciting youngsters which very much replicates their current driver line up in F1.

We forget Carlos Sainz is still fairly young at only 25 but five years in F1 is a long time and his blooming bromance with rookie teammate Lando Norris, 19, has brought much positive publicity and performances to the Woking-based team in 2019.

So, if it works in F1, it’ll work in IndyCar, right? Not necessarily.

The key difference between the two is that Sainz had four years of F1 under his belt when he stepped into the McLaren for the first time, and Norris had been part of the team for two years prior to getting the call to be an F1 driver for this year.

This IndyCar team though has much less time under their belts. O’Ward only part-time last year for Carlin after his Harding contract had to be ripped up with sponsor issues and Askew having never raced an IndyCar before.

It would’ve made sense to keep hold of Hinchcliffe as planned for his experience and how at ease he is with media but McLaren are making good progress in F1 with bold calls and they may well do it again in the States.