Daniel Ricciardo isn’t the only McLaren driver who will be reaping the reward of a bet victory in the near future.
While the Italian Grand Prix winner is getting the chance to drive his hero Dale Earnhardt’s NASCAR at Circuit of the Americas this weekend, another member of the McLaren family is getting an even bigger opportunity.Pato O’Ward delivered the first victory for the McLaren SP IndyCar team in Texas earlier this year. The 22-year-old from Monterrey, Mexico took the championship fight down to the final round, where Ganassi rival Alex Palou prevailed.
But O’Ward still has the spoils of that Texas win to look forward to: A first test in a Formula 1 car. And this is no demonstration run in a prior-year car, but a full day at the wheel of the latest McLaren-Mercedes MCL35M at Yas Marina, just days after the season finale.
He visited the McLaren Technology Centre last week for a seat fitting and two days in the simulator to prepare him for the test in just under two months’ time. “This week is where it really started to sink in,” he told RaceFans in an exclusive interview afterwards.
“The initial impression is a massive amount of front-end grip versus what I’m used to in IndyCar,” he said. “The car is so much more nimble, lighter. The downforce is tremendous and just the capabilities of braking and everything is really impressive.
“So it’s definitely going to take some laps for me to get used to with it, but I’m really looking forward to it. It looks like a blast to drive.”
O’Ward is well-placed to put the experience of driving a current F1 car into context: Before reaching IndyCar he won the Indy Lights championship, raced in Japan’s Super Formula championship and made a one-off appearance in Formula 2 (as a substitute for the temporarily banned Mahaveer Raghunathan). How big is the step from IndyCar to F1?
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“I think it’s a bigger jump from IndyCar to Formula 1 versus Indy Lights to IndyCar,” he says. “Just because of the amount of downforce.
“It’s just so much more compressed and things happen so much faster. But man, it felt good in the sim. I can’t imagine what it feels like in the body. I feel like once I get a taste of it, I’m not going to be able to have enough of it, I’m going to become obsessed, I feel like.”
He will use the time between now and his test to get his neck in the best possible shape for the test. “I feel like I’ve got the leg strength and the upper body part, no problem,” her explains. “The IndyCar is quite a lot more physical in terms of driving it just because there’s no power steering and it’s a lot more busy in terms of how you have to hustle the car around.
“I am expecting my neck to feel like my head is going to fall off, though. So I’m trying to get that into a nice area, at least just to be able to drive. I think my neck right now is race-ready for IndyCar, but just in F1 it is quite a lot more stress on the neck, so I’m going to be working on that quite a bit.”
In his simulator run O’Ward had the chance to try the car on two circuits he is familiar with: The Red Bull Ring, where he raced in F2, and Circuit of the Americas, which IndyCar visited in 2019, lapping some 14 seconds shy of F1 times.
He also tackled the Hungaroring, a new circuit to him, with a sinuous middle sector which gave another sense of the startling performance levels of an F1 car.
“It’s so insane how the car is able to stop in such a short period of time in the heavy braking, but then how the car can stop quite fast while you’re basically already in the entry of the corner, it’s really, really impressive. These are the only cars in the world that are able to do that around the circuit just because of how much downforce and grip there is.”
“I’m going to drive it right before I leave for the race weekend, which then leads into the test,” he said. “I’m going to come back around early December, do a full day of Abu Dhabi.”
But with Ricciardo and Lando Norris locked into McLaren’s F1 line-up for the foreseeable future, O’Ward isn’t letting the possibility of a move into Formula 1 distract him from his IndyCar priorities.
“It’s going to be really cool,” he said. “I’m really excited to just learn and see if I can take back anything that will help me next year in IndyCar to try and make the team better, to try and make myself better and challenge for another title.”
Top image: McLaren via Twitter
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Kenny Schachat (@partofthepuzzle)
18th October 2021, 19:49
O’ward is a very talented driver. I hope gets a real chance to make it in F1.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
19th October 2021, 0:55
I really like the cut of this guy. His car setup seems insane, when Juan Montoya got to the team, he couldnt believe the setup!
I think he could be a great addition to F1. Would be great to see him do it in a Mclaren as well, but cant see it happening anytime soon.
joac21 (@joac21)
19th October 2021, 4:42
If Ricciardo continues struggling against landó I bet Zak would love to save a few millions and give Pato a chance
PT (@pt)
19th October 2021, 4:55
Winning at Monza wasn’t “struggling”.
Learon
19th October 2021, 8:18
Pointing at the exception doesn’t change the veracity of what joac21 is saying though.
PT (@pt)
19th October 2021, 4:54
If O’Ward feels such a quantum leap from IndyCar to F1, drives such as Grosjean should be feeling just the opposite having moved from F1 to IndyCar? Obviously he won’t say that right?
graham228221 (@graham228221)
19th October 2021, 6:41
https://www.racefans.net/2021/03/01/fruity-cornering-heavy-cars-impressive-tyres-grosjean-compares-indycar-to-f1/
Maisch (@maisch)
19th October 2021, 14:27
Quantum leap in downforce doesn’t necessarily mean the car is more fun to drive. Some seem to like the hard work, car control, sliding etc that the indy car is, some not. I think that’s why swapping between them is harder for some and easier some since the needed skillset is so different. Like a friend i have which is a fighter pilot but sometimes still miss the slow old “manual” school jets, because they felt much more involving than the computer controlled modern fighter jets :)
Unicron (@unicron2002)
19th October 2021, 7:11
I haven’t been this excited about a driver/team combo since the Montoya/Williams days. Makes me feel young again!
But personally I wouldn’t want to lose him to F1, he’d be stifled there. And he’s so exciting to watch chucking an Indycar around – Road course, street course, short oval, superspeedway, he looks on the edge everywhere.
Balue (@balue)
19th October 2021, 13:04
Maybe Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim will change his backing to Pato if Perez leaves F1 after ’22, although the name O’Ward might not be tickling his nationalistic fancy.