McLaren’s Zak Brown Talks IndyCar, Kyle Busch In The Indy 500, A Potential Fourth Indy Car And The Shakeup Of His Race Team

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has left quite an impact in a short period of time since he acquired Sam Schmidt’s IndyCar team in 2020. On a path to taking full control of the team, the man who helped shake up Formula One is prepared to do the same in the NTT IndyCar Series.

Brown explained his reasoning for changing leadership of his IndyCar team and touched on other topics, including Kyle Busch potentially running in the 107^th Indianapolis 500 to a select group of reporters including myself on Wednesday morning.

Brown was asked if he has had discussion with Nascar Cup Series star and former Cup Series champion Kyle Busch for next year’s Indianapolis 500?

“I have not personally spoken with Kyle Busch, but you can read into that someone in our organization has,” Brown said. “We want to make sure if we run a fourth car, we are in the mindset that we have someone who is experienced in the Indianapolis 500. It’s such an important race.

“Going for the championship point of view, we have three drivers that we want to have finish as well as possible. If we have a fourth car, we want it to be additive to the three cars. Bringing in someone who has not done it before potentially doesn’t add that value from an experienced point of view.

“He is under consideration but has lack of experience. He has an awesome talent, and would be huge, huge news for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Everyone is under consideration if we decide to do it, but experience is at the top of the list when we decide what is going to be most important to us.”

The team expands to three cars in 2023. Brown sounded quite optimistic that it will soon expand to four cars in the IndyCar Series.

“A fourth car at the 500 is very much under consideration and we wouldn’t be ruling out a fourth car in the future on a full-time basis,” Brown said. “It definitely won’t be in 2023, but as we expand the team and get into larger facilities, it’s something Gavin and I spoke about.

“We will be in a position to run a fourth car in the 500 for next year. If we decide to do that, we will make that announcement soon for maximum preparation. We are open minded to a fourth car for 2024 and beyond. We’ll make that decision middle of next year in time to be prepared to do that.”

He chose not to speak about the future of 2021 NTT IndyCar Series Alex Palou, other than he is currently a McLaren Formula One test driver while remaining with Chip Ganassi Racing.

“Everyone has reached an amicable solution,” Brown said. “We’ve now had Alex in our Formula One car, as we have Pato O’Ward. That will continue in the future, which we are quite exciting about.

“Other than that, we are laser focused on 2023 and glad to have the noise behind us and want to put our head down and get on with the job of the three drivers that we have, get Gavin Ward (IndyCar team principal) settled in and continue to see Alex Palou in our Formula One car from time to time.

“I don’t want to make any driver comments, I’ve spent the past three or four months doing that. Things will become clear in due course. I’ll leave it at that.”

Brown is quite optimistic that he will field a fourth car in next year’s Indianapolis 500 and, beyond that, fielding a fourth full-time entry in the NTT IndyCar Series.

Currently, Pato O’Ward of Monterey, Mexico is the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet. Felix Rosenqvist is the driver of the No. 6 Chevrolet. Alexander Rossi moves over from Andretti Autosport and will drive the No. 7 Chevrolet. All three will challenge for the championship next season.

It’s already been a busy offseason for Brown, who oversees all of McLaren’s racing activities including its famed Formula One operation.

Two weeks ago, Taylor Kiel left his role at Arrow McLaren SP as team president on September 20.

On October 4, the team announced Gavin Ward as the Racing Director and longtime racing executive Brian Barnhart as General Manager.

Ward officially joined the team in July as Director of Trackside Engineering after a successful relationship with Team Penske as Josef Newgarden’s Race Engineer. He was hired in early January, but a non-compete clause in his Team Penske contract was invoked and he was not able to begin with AMSP until July.

What did Brown saw in Ward that led him to hire someone he couldn’t utilize until the season was nearly over?

“That’s easy,” Brown said to me. “His track record. Experience. And he has worked for two of the best for two of the best racing teams in motorsports. At Penske’s organization, there isn’t one better in IndyCar, and the Red Bull Formula One team is an outstanding racing team.

“To have both Formula One experience because we draw on some of our Formula One resources, so Gavin will understand the capabilities and resources the Formula One team has. And, being at Penske, historically the best IndyCar team, having that background is exactly what we were looking for.

“We want to beat Penske and all the others. He knows what that organization looks like. Coming from Red Bull, he understands the benefit a Formula One team can bring and is very performance focused. He is very people focused and thought he would be a very good leader.

“The combination of all of that, made it an easy decision to recruit Gavin. We had to wait for him to join. What seems like an eternity for six months, six years from now won’t seem that long.”

Ward admitted it was difficult to have to sit out for six months before he could finally get back on the timing stand.

“It got more difficult once the season started, you are watches races on TV and wishing you could be there. I was feeling a little helpless,” Ward told me. “When I was able to get started at Mid-Ohio and settled with the team, I was really happy and super encouraged with the group that was already here and started to fit it.”

In the role of Racing Director, Ward will lead the technical performance team of Max Neyron (Director of Operations), Nick Snyder (Director of Performance) and Billy Vincent (Director of Competition), which will collectively drive the future performance of the racing team in the 2023 season and beyond.

The car communicator for Pato and the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet is still being finalized, while Vincent will stay in his role on the radio with Felix Rosenqvist for the No. 6 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet. Barnhart will be the car communicator for Alexander Rossi and the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet.

“I’m excited to join McLaren Racing as General Manager for Arrow McLaren SP,” said Barnhart, who at one time was President of INDYCAR. “The team has made incredible strides in challenging the top teams for the championship over the past two seasons.

“AMSP is full of talent, from their drivers to the mechanics and every position in between, and I’m honored to join them.”

By making sweeping changes to the IndyCar team, both Brown and Ward believe success will come soon, and often, at Arrow McLaren SP.

“I think we are really well place to achieve those goals, Indy 500 win, championship, we have lofty goals,” Ward said. “We are well-placed to achieve that in short order. We shouldn’t underestimate how much of a challenge that is. We are dealing with some teams that have been heavily invested in and stable for a long time. We’ve got a lot to do, but everyone is up for the grind, up for the fight here.

“We got into that top three group of teams that have been dominating IndyCar for 20 years. Now, we are going to try to get to the top of it. It’s a huge opportunity for everyone.”

This team is more “McLaren” influenced now than at any time since he joined forces with Sam Schmidt and Ric Petersen in 2020.

Don’t be surprised if this operation become Arrow McLaren after the first of next year.

“We have a long-term plan,” Brown said to me. “When we acquired the team, we lowered ourselves in gently because we felt it was already a very strong racing team and we could plus it up in time.

“Going to our third car with Alex and bring Gavin and Brian on, you can see our commitment to the team trying to be a race winner and a championship contender.

“We took another step forward this year and plan on taking an even bigger step forward next year.

“I want to emulate Penske’s results. He’s won a few Indy 500s and a few championships. It’s over to Gavin to get into the details of how we are going to do that and how Penske has done that and how close we are to that.”

Ward responded by saying the team is going to do its own thing, the best way to build a consistently performing and winning racing team.

Brown expressed there is a lot of excitement at the shop with the new hires and most importantly, clarity about the future.