McLaren left reeling after “abysmal” Barber weekend

McLaren branded their performance in last weekend’s IndyCar race “abysmal” as none of their three cars finished inside the top 20.

“Lots to learn from today,” said team principal Gavin Ward. “Abysmal results for all three Arrow McLaren cars.”

Pato O’Ward endured a conspicuously poor afternoon, spinning out of fourth place at turn five on the second lap while pursuing Christian Lundgaard.

“I got really tight with Lundgaard and tried to avoid hitting him,” O’Ward explained. “I didn’t really have much room and then hit the kerb, spun and went all the way to the back.”

He was overtaken by team mate Theo Pourchaire after the final restart, but O’Ward then collided with the other McLaren driver on the last lap of the race.

“Apparently, I have some sort of magnet to my team mates the past couple of weeks,” said O’Ward, who crashed into the third McLaren of Alexander Rossi a week earlier in Long Beach. “It absolutely sucks and at this point we need to re-focus and make sure it never happens again.”

O’Ward also tangled with Pietro Fittipaldi, incurring a penalty after sending his rival into a barrier on the sixth lap of the race.

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The RLL driver was unimpressed with O’Ward’s failed attempt to overtake him at turn 11. “It was a high-speed corner, there was no room there for two cars,” said Fittipaldi. “He just kept expecting people to just move out of the way and obviously there was no room.

“I tried giving him as much room as I could. You’re basically flat out through that corner. He just slid up and I got hit and went straight into the wall.”

McLaren’s misery was compounded by Rossi’s retirement on the 61st lap when his car shed its left-rear wheel following a pit stop.

Pourchaire, who made his second start as a substitute for David Malukas, said the final caution period worked against him.

“We tried a very aggressive strategy with the fuel-saving,” he explained. “It was probably going to pay off, but unfortunately there was an incident with about five laps to go. I thought I was pretty good while fuel saving to keep the same pace as Ericsson and Palou. Things were going well, but it was not the best day for the team.”

McLaren is yet to confirm when Malukas will make his belated debut for them. He injured his right wrist in a pre-season accident which has kept him out of the cockpit since then. Malukas recently removed the branding from several of his social media profiles, adding to the speculation over his future.

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