Arrow McLaren Grand Prix at Road America Race Report

Let's celebrate with another podium!

Pato O'Ward qualified the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet on the front row, second position, and fought in the race to claim a P3 finish, his fourth podium of the season.

Alexander Rossi started fifth and ended the race 10th, and Felix Rosenqvist started 16th, fighting inside the top-10 and a major fuel save forced him back to P20.

Read what the drivers and Racing Director Gavin Ward said postrace from Road America.

Pato O'Ward, Driver, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, said:

"It was a hard-fought race for us. We were sort of like a ping-pong ball in the beginning, getting hit in Turn 1 and again in Turn 2. We got shuffled back, had to give up a couple positions, and then I think we were sitting ninth. Then we just fought our way forward, there was really no other thing to do. I’m happy with the result. It was a solid job by the team in the pits. Considering where we ended in the last couple races, I think this was a really good job."

Alexander Rossi, Driver, No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, said:

"I honestly don’t know. I think the balance was pretty good. I don’t know. I feel like its something to do with the straight line thing, but I haven’t been able to look at data yet. I had to use a lot of overtake to try and just keep position. Then at the end, the other cars had 15 seconds more than us. The straights here are really where we lost most of the spots in the final stint. But I think the car was good today.

"Throughout the whole weekend, the Arrow McLaren team did an amazing job. We did fantastic. After the test here, we carried a lot of momentum into the weekend. This is the first Sunday we’ve really struggled, so we’ll look into it. It’s not the end of the world, but certainly we’re going to have to find an answer for that guy that keeps winning."

Felix Rosenqvist, Driver, No. 6 onsemi Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, said:

"It was an eventful race. There were a lot of ups and downs. We got punted off by Rinus Veekay, which was kind of an unnecessary move on his side early in the race. But we did a good job at getting back and we were actually running P7 there before the last pitstop. Then, we have to check  exactly what it was, but we had something wrong with the fuel cell. It seems like we didn’t get all the fuel, and we didn’t get full-tank basically. So, we went to panic mode on the last stint to save a ridiculous amount of fuel, and we just fell like a rock through the field. It was unfortunate, but it was actually a pretty damn good race, so we’ll bring that with us and see what went wrong there.."

Gavin Ward, Racing Director, Arrow McLaren, said:

"Great recovery from Pato to get up on the podium after a pretty rough first lap. He got boxed out at Turn 1, got hit and then had to drop two places for a blocking call. But to recover and get on the podium I think was great. The team did a great job there to keep cool heads. I thought we were on for a little better with both Felix and Alexander today. We have to look at the fuel system issue on Felix's car as a team. It just seemed to struggle a little bit for raceability there with Alexander's stages. At times, the car showed a lot of pace. So there are a lot of positives, but this team is hungry for more and we’ll keep pushing for it."