Fans will see a different but familiar face during F1’s FP1 at the Mexico City Grand Prix as IndyCar star Pato O’Ward takes the wheel of the MCL38 in front of his hometown fans.
Pato O’Ward’s career hasn’t always been smooth sailing, especially in the early days but that clearly didn’t stop him as he gets to live out a childhood dream. A look at his career so far between both series might answer why he is one of the top NTT IndyCar Series drivers on the grid and how O’Ward’s appearance in the Mexico GP was a long time coming.
What should’ve been
O’Ward’s career could’ve looked completely different if a controversial decision from the FIA hadn’t been made.
In 2018, O’Ward signed with Andretti Autosport to compete in the Indy Lights championship. Winning nine out of 17 races, O’Ward won the drivers championship at the second-last race of the season in Portland, beating runner-up, and fellow IndyCar driver Colton Herta.
The following year, he continued to make a huge step toward making his dream of making it to Formula 1 a reality by joining the Red Bull Junior Team. He managed to get in a race at Red Bull Ring in Formula 2 and three races of the Super Formula Championship as a replacement for other drivers.
He was right there but a ruling by the FIA to allocate fewer Super License points for O’Ward’s victory in the Indy Lights championship hindered his ability to secure the 40 necessary points to compete in Formula One in 2020.
Arrow McLaren
His release from Red Bull made him available for an IndyCar series ride with Arrow McLaren in 2020. And as they say the rest is history.
Prior to the contract, O’Ward had appeared in eight IndyCar races, one in 2018 and eight in 2019, with two different teams. But this was his first opportunity for a full-time spot and boy did he take advantage of that. In his first full season he managed a pole, six top-5’s and 10 top-10s finishing fourth in the championship standings with 416 points.
And he’s only gotten better.
O’Ward emerged as a title contender that following year. He earned his maiden IndyCar victory in the second race at the Texas Motor Speedway. He became the first Mexican driver to win an IndyCar race since Adrian Fernandez in 2004.
Since then he has consistently been in the fight for the championship never finishing lower than fifth behind the winner, aside from 2022 where he finished seventh. He has racked up seven wins, and 25 podiums and has finished 2nd in the Indy500 twice.
Although he hasn’t been close to the title. With his talent, natural speed and cat like reflexes, he is bound to become an IndyCar Champion in the near.
McLaren Racing
Winning that first race in Texas helped advance O’Ward’s career because it granted his first taste of an F1 car after he made a deal with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. He managed to participate in several development tests in the team’s 2021 car including the 2021 young driver test in Abu Dhabi and he also drove in FP1 at both the 2022 and 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekends.
But all of those tests were just guest appearances, not as a reserve driver, because he wasn’t eligible.
And that’s due to the clear under-representation IndyCar has in the FIA points system. His 4th place finish in 2020 and 3rd place finish in 2021 earned him only 30 points and after a point-less 2022 season it seemed he would’ve has to wait another year but thanks to a great 2023 and a COVID-19 rule he was finally able to be a part of the F1 reserve driver in 2024.
As part of F1’s requirement to run a young driver in two FP1 sessions per season the Mexican driver was going to hop into the MCL38 at some point after the IndyCar season ended.
And in September it was announced that he would make an appearance in FP1 at the Mexico City Grand in front of his home crowd
“I cannot wait, this really is a dream come true for me – being able to jump into an F1 car in front of my home crowd. I can’t thank Andrea [Stella], Zak [Brown] – the whole team – enough for this amazing opportunity.”
Stardom Called Into Question:
O’Ward’s popularity was questioned earlier this year when Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles informed IndyCar officials that neither the series nor O’Ward had the appeal to attract a significant audience for a race in Mexico. Miles also noted that it was evident O’Ward’s popularity was not as high as that of Fernandez.
But that’s simply not true, take it from his former teammate Alexander Rossi.
Reasons I can think why @PatricioOWard is actually as famous as he thinks he is while I’m sitting on couch.
1. Has fan bases so loud that when they chant we can’t actually complete an engineering debrief. In Portland of all places.
2. Needs his own merchandise tent because…
— Alexander Rossi (@AlexanderRossi) August 31, 2024
Among IndyCar drivers this season, O’Ward has the second-highest number of social media followers. O’Ward boasts 711k on Instagram, surpassing IndyCar’s total of 682k followers. The support continues in person with sold out merch and meet and greet lines out the door. That’s the result of him working on building his personal brand and fanbase throughout the years.
This participation of FP1 in Mexico is in front of his home crowd. This is a dream come true and vital moment in O’Ward’s career. Hopefully this shows IndyCar upper management that Mexico cares about IndyCar and O’Ward enough to have a race there.
Pato O’Ward will be on track in the McLaren MCL38, Friday, October 25th at 2:30PM ET, on ESPN.
