It is an incredible time to be a member of the McLaren Racing family.
Yes, there is success on the Formula 1 side of things, and an upcoming return to the World Endurance Championship, but there is also a tremendous amount of success on the IndyCar circuit. Pato O’Ward has already secured a second-place finish in the championship standings, and with Christian Lundgaard having a shot at a third-place finish in the season finale, the IndyCar team could have two drivers finish in the top three.
Add in what young Nolan Siegel did this season, and you have a tremendous present, and future at Arrow McLaren.
At the head of the operation is former Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan, who moved into the Team Principal role this season after joining Arrow McLaren as an advisor after his final Indianapolis 500 in 2023. Kanaan moved into a Deputy Team Principal role following the end of the 2024 campaign, taking over as the Team Principal before this season began.
Ahead of the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, the final race of the 2025 IndyCar season, Kanaan spoke with SB Nation about the team’s drivers, their season to date, what a lap at Indianapolis is like, the team’s future, and so much more.
It was a fascinating discussion.
Arrow McLaren’s four drivers
As our conversation began, I wanted to ask Kanaan about Arrow McLaren’s drivers, all three of whom I was lucky enough to speak with ahead of the Indianapolis 500.
However, I also had to ask about a fourth driver, who was with the team during that race. None other than Kyle Larson, who was taking his second run at the “Double” this season with Arrow McLaren, trying to complete both the IndyCar Indianapolis 500 early in the day on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, before heading off to Charlotte later in the afternoon for NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600.
I asked Kanaan about what impressed him the most about Larson’s attempts at the Double.
”I mean the ability to switch from one car to the other, which is extremely difficult.
”I’ve done it before.
“The kid is the real deal, extremely talented, very tough to come to do a one-off with so many drivers here that are [full-time drivers],” began Kanaan.
“I have a lot of experience [with Larson] so I was always impressed with Kyle. We won the Daytona 24 hours, together. So I knew who we were getting, so it wasn’t news to me, but I think a lot of people were impressed.”
We then talked about the team’s three full-time drivers, beginning with young Nolan Siegel, who will wrap his first full season in IndyCar this weekend in Nashville.
“You know, a lot of ups and downs,” began Kanaan.
“Are we gonna say ‘Did you expect that?’ We didn’t know what to expect. There’s a lot of pressure on the kid. We knew that was going to be a big challenge because of the pressure, the name. You know, the situation on that car from previous years,” said the Arrow McLaren boss.
“So I would call it a rookie season with a lot of ups and downs and difficulties,” continued Kanaan. “Obviously, he’s staying. We’re going to work in the offseason to make it better. Next year, obviously, is going to be a crucial year for him.
“As far as results, I mean this year I told him we’re just gonna go and let’s see. If it’s good it’s good and if it’s not so good, we’ll make it better. So making progress, I think a lot of the things that happened this year was out of his control, so hopefully we’ll we’ll be able to put it all together.”
Siegel will start seventh on Sunday.
We then turned to Christian Lundgaard, who joined Arrow McLaren this season after several seasons at RLL. Lundgaard enters the final weekend of the season sitting fourth in the IndyCar standings, with a chance to jump up to third by the checkered flag on Sunday. He’ll start third in Nashville, two spots ahead of Scott Dixon, whom he trails by seven points for third in the championship.
“Been pretty strong,” started Kanaan when asked about Lundgaard’s season.
”I think he adapted to the team pretty quick. Obviously, that’s what we hired him for, to actually raise the game with Pato [O’Ward] and Nolan. So to me, it was impressive.
“Hopefully he’ll get a win by Sunday. I think that’s what he’s missing, but to come in from the struggles they had in the past to a team with a lot of pressure and deliver right away, pretty happy with him,” continued Kanaan. “To me, I hate to put expectations, but I knew he could do it, he could do this well, but it was always that question like how long is it gonna take for him to get used to the new team, and he had zero problem adapting, so I’m pretty happy with him.”
We then focused on Pato O’Ward, who already secured second in the IndyCar championship ahead of the Music City Grand Prix, and will start up front on Sunday, having secured pole position on Saturday.
O’Ward has never won a race from pole position, something he hopes to change Sunday in Nashville.
I asked Kanaan about O’Ward and whether it is a matter of when, not if, a championship will come his way.
“I mean Pato. It’s easy to talk about Pato,” started Kanaan. “I think one of the best drivers I’ve ever seen.
The Arrow McLaren Team Principal quickly shifted his answer from O’Ward to how he views his responsibility to help him.
”My responsibility is to try to give Pato a car that he can perform with the least amount of effort. Right now, it’s pretty equal, which is good. It’s part of it. That’s why we hired him, but yeah, it’s just a matter of when.
“But if I put a lot of pressure on myself on that, it’s because he cannot do it alone. He needs a team, and that is my responsibility. So, knowing how much talent he has, I put extra pressure on myself because I feel responsible for trying to give him the best of the best so we can go out and dominate.
”So, he definitely has the capability, that is an understatement.
“I think he has proven that. On his results, nothing that I can say or put into words about how talented he is.”
Answering reader questions
Whenever I am lucky enough to sit down with a driver or a Team Principal, I solicit questions from readers on social media.
There were several questions that readers wanted me to ask Kanaan.
The first focused on the facility the team is moving into ahead of the 2026 season. Arrow McLaren is moving into a facility formerly owned by Andretti Autosport, a 74,000-square-foot facility that the team will expand to 86,000 square feet before next season.
At the moment, Arrow McLaren operated out of a 33,000-square-foot facility.
Will this be a big boost for the team?
“To me, it’s a couple of things,” began Kanaan. “We are strict in space capabilities because when you’re limited in space, you have to outsource some things. Because if you don’t have a paint booth, or you don’t have a machine shop that can have more machines to build stuff, you have to outsource that. A lot of that is time which we don’t have. In racing, that’s gonna improve quite a bit.
”I think even the perception of the people. There is no secret, we’re not saying that we have to have a state-of-the-art facility to perform better, but it’s so different.
“When you buy a new set of shoes that you’re proud to wear or you have a new car or you buy a new house, it’s just changed that,” compared Kanaan. “And then I think, this team has grown from a one-car team to a two-car team to like three, four cars. From 30 people to 120. We are crammed.
”So, just that I think it’s gonna improve a lot of the quality of work.
“Is that gonna actually translate into results? We’ll see, but at least we’re going to have a proper environment to work in.”
Another reader wanted to know if, given Kanaan’s legendary career as a driver, drivers like O’Ward, Lundgard, and Siegel came to him for advice.
”Advice, yes. But on situations, it’s not like, ‘oh, how do I drive that corner?’
“I think I’ve learned a lot of that with Dario Franchitti being my coach at the end of my career when he retired, and he stayed at Ganassi, and I do exactly what Dario did to me,” continued Kanaan. “I ask the questions to make them think, and they go, ‘Oh, that’s true.’
“At this point, they’re more talented than me.”
”But they do [ask me for advice]. They know me. They get exactly what I think at the time, and they can take it or not. I never go to them and say, ‘You gotta do this.’
“At this point, they’re more talented than me.”
Another reader wanted to know if, given everything he has accomplished over his career, there was a series or a race that Kanaan wishes he had driven in.
The Arrow McLaren boss then gave an incredible answer about not living with any regret.
”I mean, I’m a racecar driver. I would have said I would have loved to race everywhere, but to be fair, to answer that question, I cannot say yes or no because I would like to race all of them. I’m not gonna single one out.
”Do you want to go to NASCAR? I would love to do Daytona.
”Do you wanna go to F1? Of course. And then you wanna go dirt racing? Of course I would, it’s a racecar no matter what.
”I don’t know why, but it’s just me.
“I don’t regret things. I think I over analyze things that didn’t go well, but I don’t dwell on it,” added Kanaan.
“So no, I was committed to IndyCar but also even before that I didn’t know if IndyCar was going to be on the table for me, so I committed to be a racecar driver, and being a racecar driver means anything that has four wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel, that’s what I wanted to do for a living.”
Being a race car driver, and what it takes at IMS
Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images
Over the years, every time I have been lucky enough to speak with a racecar driver, I wanted to make sure and ask them this question:
What is the hardest part of your job?
That single question, and the answers I have been lucky enough to have been given, have shaped so much of how I view the world of motorsports. They were a driving force behind this piece from a year ago, and I am already working on updating that story with what I have learned from my interviews from this season.
So I wanted to make sure I asked Kanaan that question, and he took his answer in a direction I did not expect.
“Good question,” began Kanaan, before a lengthy pause.
”I think for me, knowing the way I know myself, is to be okay that racing was my life. If racing was good, life was good. And if racing was bad, life was bad.
”And that’s very selfish of me.
”It didn’t make a difference when I was 18, 19, but now you grow a family with four kids and your wife. It’s not fair to them.
“I am the first one to admit that I didn’t know any other way, and I’m extremely grateful that they understood that, but yeah, the balance.”
Another question I ask anytime I get to talk to IndyCar drivers is this: What is a lap at Indianapolis Motor Speedway like?
Kanaan is uniquely qualified to answer that question for a few reasons, one of which is the fact that he has won the Indianapolis 500 before.
As descriptive as Kanaan was with the rest of his answers, this is the one he had a bit of trouble with. Because, well, in his mind, there is simply no easy way to describe what that lap is like.
“I would say you can’t pick any other laps. I would say a fast lap right and on the edge,” started Kanaan. “I won’t ever be able to express the pressure. The adrenaline. The tension. The pleasure. It’s such a mix of good and frightening feelings that you have to manage them at the same time, because if you make a mistake, you’re on the wall.
”I know there is a definition of that. We should create a word for the frightening, adrenaline, nervous, fear, anger, happiness, it’s all the above.
“I don’t think I can define it.”
Another reason Kanaan is uniquely positioned to describe that lap?
It has not been too long since he turned some laps at IMS.
Ahead of this year’s Indianapolis 500, Kanaan participated in a “refresher” test in case the team needed him to drive on Sunday. In anticipation of potential rain for the Indianapolis 500, and Larson having to leave early to head to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600, Arrow McLaren looked to Kanaan as a reserve driver for that spot. In the days ahead of the Indianapolis 500, Kanaan completed that veteran refresher test — completing 15 laps between 210 and 215 miles per hour, followed by 15 more laps over 215 mph — to show he was ready to drive if needed.
”Even when I’m 90 years old, if you ask me that question, I’m going to tell you I am, because I’m a racecar driver. And I’m always going to be, and I’m going to be fighting with my daughter, and my kids, and my grandkids that I can’t.
I asked him about that experience, and if he was ready to go if Arrow McLaren needed him.
Kanaan gave another incredible answer.
“You know, when you’re conditioned to do something for the longest time in your life, you do that for … actually I’m 50, I started when I was eight … 42 years of your life, and then you don’t do it for three years, you kind of start getting used to it. It’s from a human nature you try to, like, not forget, but you kind of block [it out]. Otherwise you’re not gonna leave from the past. You gotta move forward. I have a really cool job right now, intense,” started Kanaan.
”That brought everything back, and I had to fight with my mind for a couple of days after that. Not to wish that it was gonna rain again in the race, but also not to actually suffer from that, because that was my biggest fear three years before that when I retired.
”I was like, ‘What’s gonna be the Monday after and then from then on?’
”It brought a lot of memories back here.
”Even when I’m 90 years old, if you ask me that question, I’m going to tell you I am, because I’m a racecar driver. And I’m always going to be, and I’m going to be fighting with my daughter, and my kids, and my grandkids that I can’t.
”They want to take me out of the car, saying I shouldn’t be driving anymore, and I’m saying I’m a racecar driver.
“I’m going to be ready to race the Indy 500 any day you call me.”
Arrow McLaren’s present, and future
As our conversation wound down, I wanted to talk with Kanaan about McLaren Racing, the present at Arrow McLaren, and the IndyCar team’s future.
It is a thrilling time at McLaren. On the Formula 1 side of things, they are the defending Constructors’ Champions, they are well on their way to another Constructors’ title, and drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are the two leading contenders for the Drivers’ Championship.
McLaren Racing also announced an upcoming re-entry into the World Endurance Championship, where they will make their return to that series in 2027.
Then on the IndyCar side of things, they have two drivers inside the top five in the standings and a promising young driver in Siegel.
“I think it’s been extremely rewarding to have the entire organization doing well because in the past, either we did better and then those guys didn’t, or they did good and we didn’t. Now, it was finally a year that, obviously their championship is not anywhere near being done, but it’s quite obvious, probably what’s gonna happen is [McLaren F1 is] gonna keep it in the house. And having the best year of the team here, announcing the WEC, it’s all awesome news. It’s a trend and the momentum that we need to take advantage of,” described Kanaan.
“Racing can change in a hurry, especially on the F1 side.”
We also discussed Arrow McLaren specifically, and how he would describe the team’s 2025 campaign.
“I mean, you can look at both ways, right? I think we made some progress in many areas; at the same time, I think we still have a lot to improve. In a season that one car [championship-winner Alex Palou] dominated that much, it’s hard for me to see all the positives because it’s hard for me to say we had a great season, you know, in that aspect,” started Kanaan.
”But there was a lot of changes in the team. We concentrated a lot on making the cars reliable for finishing all the races. If you think about it, we had one so far, still have one race to go, but mechanically cannot finish with Pato [O’Ward suffered a mechanical failure in Portland and did not finish the race], otherwise [O’Ward] would have finished every lap of every race. It’s better.
”I know I’m extremely critical, this is not that I don’t see the positive out of it, but I think people that know me, I’m always looking for a step higher.
”So, positive season, but best season for the team? But my standards are a little higher than that. And that doesn’t mean in not a constructive way. I think we all have to have this mentality. We’re always gonna have to do better.
“So, yeah, I’m proud of the team, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
I closed out our discussion with a question about Kanaan’s expectations heading into 2026.
Again, the Arrow McLaren driver offered a fascinating answer. One that felt like another life lesson in a discussion filled with them.
“Mark, expectations are tricky because if you create them and you don’t achieve them, you’re going to have to be able to handle them in a good way, and a lot, a lot of times you don’t,” started Kanaan. “I wouldn’t call it an expectation, but if, if you want me to, I would say to be better.
“That’s my expectation. I can’t set a goal, the goal. I don’t think I need to mention. I think everybody in this team knows we got to be better, and being better. It means the results are gonna come, but we gotta be better,” added Kanaan.
“We gotta be better with our people. We gotta be more acceptable … it’s a high environment, how we’re gonna be able to take criticism or how we’re gonna celebrate a win,” continued the McLaren boss. “The expectation that I want from everybody in this organization is: Be better.
”And then they can define what that is for themselves, and then if they need some goals, I’ll remind them, but I think we’re racing, we have a championship, and a big race to win.
“That’s the obvious. I just talked to you for almost 30 minutes, and I talk about obsession, chasing winning, so that’s the goal.”
