MCLAREN COMMITS TO FULL-TIME INDYCAR ENTRY
F1 squad enters new partnership to form Arrow Mclaren Racing SP
Mclaren will join the Indycar Series full-time for the 2020 season, partnering with Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson’s established team to create Arrow Mclaren Racing SP.
After the humilation of its failure to qualify at the Indianapolis 500 this May when it returned with an independent project for Fernando Alonso, two years after he starred with the joint Mclaren/andretti Autosport entry, Mclaren made clear that finding an experienced partner team was likely to be key to its long-held Indycar ambitions being fulfilled.
Double CART Indycar champion and 2003 Indy 500 winner Gil de Ferran will lead the management of the new programme, which will run two Chevrolet-powered cars.
A Mclaren statement said de Ferran would “helm a dedicated group from Mclaren Racing, independent of the F1 team”.
Mclaren CEO Zak Brown described the Schmidt tie-up as giving Mclaren “the right synergy as a strategic partner” and added “we come to Indycar in full respect of the sport, our competitors, the fans and the task ahead”.
The likely Mclaren Indycar driver line-up remains unclear. Brown recently underlined that Alonso was “top of our list” for any such project, but admitted that the double Formula 1 world champion had so far been reluctant to commit to a full season in America.
SPM’S current lead Indycar driver James Hinchcliffe is under contract for 2020 but has strong links with its outgoing engine supplier Honda and had initially seemed set to lose his seat due to the Mclaren-induced switch to Chevy power – with other Honda Indycar teams making moves to expand for Hinchcliffe.
But in a social media post after the announcement, Hinchcliffe intimated that he might prioritise the chance to be part of the Mclaren project over his
Honda ties and stay on.
His present team-mate Marcus Ericsson is thought unlikely to continue into the Mclaren era, but Ericsson’s sometime Sauber F1 partner Felipe Nasr – the reigning IMSA Sportscar champion – recently tested for Schmidt and has been tipped as a strong Mclaren option.
Formula 2 title contender Nicholas Latifi, whose father Michael is a Mclaren investor, has been linked to the Indycar team too but is also believed to be closing on a chance to replace Robert Kubica in the Williams F1 line-up for 2020.