After slow start to IndyCar season, Arrow McLaren tries to get back on track at Indianapolis 500

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Pato O’Ward picked up his first trophy in nearly two years when he arrived at Arrow McLaren’s team lounge in Indianapolis Motor Speedway last weekend.

No, it wasn’t the victory celebration O’Ward had planned for his first IndyCar win since July 2022, but it was unusual: He won by default when Josef Newgarden was stripped of his March season-opening win on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, because IndyCar officials discovered in April that Team Penske had cheated.

O’Ward’s inherited win is the highlight of the team’s season heading into IndyCar’s biggest race, the Indianapolis 500, as the slumping McLaren team celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first of its two Indy wins with Johnny Rutherford.

“I think sometimes there’s a confusion as to what reality is,” O’Ward said Wednesday as rain delayed the second straight day of practice on the Brickyard’s 2.5-mile oval. “Yes, we’re McLaren, we’ve got fancy shirts and we’ve got a fancy truck, but we are not Ganassi or Penske. We’re not. I think we’re going to get there, but I truly think we’re the underdogs.”