The Driver Situation at McLaren Is Messy

Team name. Driver name. Series name. Those are the three ingredients you’ll find in almost every announcement of a driver signing in motor racing.

(Above: McLaren's Pato O'Ward leads Alex Palou, who is apparently signed to both McLaren and Chip Ganassi Racing right now.)

In its constant search for innovation, the McLaren Racing team has taken a new, limbo-based approach to signing drivers that strips away one of the three pillars. We’ll soon know whether it’s a stroke of genius or the inspiration for a massive lawsuit.

With concurrent programs in Formula 1, the NTT IndyCar Series, Extreme E, and, starting next season, Formula E, the U.K.-based McLaren outfit led by CEO Zak Brown has announced two driver deals of late without the series name or stating exactly where those drivers will compete.

The first example came in June with Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar driver Felix Rosenqvist, who joined the team in 2021. Rosenqvist went through a rough year-and-a-half before finding his form in recent months, and as a reward a new multi-year contract commits the Swede to McLaren Racing for a few more seasons, but not to any series in particular. Where will the little dynamo call home in 2023? Monaco? Indianapolis? England? He has no clue.

Brown alone will decide before the end of year as to whether Rosenqvist will stay in IndyCar or be deployed to Formula E. And to be clear, the 30-year-old driver willingly entered into the hazy agreement. As much as I try to grasp the parallel of a quality Major League Baseball player signing an extension with his team that offers no guarantee that he’ll stay in the MLB, my brain veers towards tonic immobility while trying to process the new two-pillar tactic. I’ve never seen anything like it.

As he sits and waits for his future to be decided, Rosenqvist is doing all he can to convince his boss that IndyCar is where he belongs after coming off a third-place finish on Sunday in Toronto. He’s won races in both series and would be an asset to McLaren in IndyCar or Formula E, but nobody wants to trade going 240mph at the Indianapolis 500 for farting around in parking lots in underwhelming electric open-wheelers.

But that’s not the McLaren contract that holds the racing world’s attention.

It’s last week’s double-stacked announcements from Chip Ganassi Racing and McLaren as both teams placed future claims on Alex Palou, Ganassi’s reigning NTT IndyCar Series champion. That’s two teams with two contracts bearing the kindly Spaniard’s name. Once again, there’s no precedent for this kind of imbroglio in the world of IndyCar racing.

Ganassi nailed the trifecta by citing the team name, driver’s name, and series’ name in its press release. It even added a duration by specifying it would be keeping Palou, who joined the team on a two-year contract in 2021, through 2023.

Less than four hours later, McLaren issued an announcement of its own, a missive that read like it had been reviewed many times by in-house counsel, and the timing of its dissemination did not appear to be coincidental. It followed the team’s new two-pillar practice by listing McLaren Racing, Alex Palou, and no series, but did match Ganassi by declaring the driver’s services would be rendered exclusively in 2023. Say hello to contractual polygamy.

Palou, the soft-spoken 25-year-old who shot from obscurity to the peak of IndyCar achievement in a 12-month span, is the last person fans would expect to be embroiled in a contentious war among racing titans. But after electing to sign separate contracts on Ganassi letterhead and another with McLaren listed at the top, there’s no way to paint the confusing scenario as a tete-a-tete among teams. This is a creation of his own making.

Wedged between the timeline for the Ganassi and McLaren announcements, you’ll find a series of out-of-character Tweets from Palou where criticisms and an accusation were leveled at Ganassi. Along with claiming he did not provide or approve the quote used in the Ganassi press release that said he was happy to return, Palou also revealed he informed the team of his desire to leave at the end of the season.

Those Tweets, published minutes before McLaren’s stunning press release was distributed, gave the appearance of a coordinated effort between the team and driver. Not to be outdone, there was a fourth communications event for the day as a few hours after the McLaren announcement, the Ganassi team responded with a new statement reaffirming Palou was indeed under contract for 2023.

And now we buckle in for the uncomfortable decisions to follow as the dispute is expected to head to court. Lawsuits and countersuits between the teams would be a predictable outcome, but would it stop there? Would Ganassi go after Palou, who just finished sixth for him in the Toronto race, in court as well? And would that take place before or after the current season ends in September? Has a driver—in any series—raced for a team while being sued by that team?

Each question breeds more questions in this stupefying power play executed by Palou and McLaren.

Assuming this goes to court and reaches a verdict, if McLaren wins, does Palou replace Rosenqvist? It would certainly fortify its IndyCar team, but Palou is known to want a crack at F1, and in its release, McLaren said it would commence a testing program for its new driver after he leaves Ganassi.

Rumors were rampant last week that beleaguered McLaren F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo would be rerouted to IndyCar, but the Australian quashed that notion in a social media post as he reaffirmed his intent to complete his F1 deal that runs through next season.

Colton Herta recently conducted his first F1 test with McLaren; he’s under contract with Michael Andretti’s IndyCar team through 2023. As Andretti and Brown are great friends and business partners, where might Herta’s future lie if the Andretti Global F1 team fails to launch? Would the Californian be in line to take Ricciardo’s place if he continues to impress McLaren’s F1 leadership in future tests?

It’s believed Rosenqvist’s IndyCar teammate Pato O’Ward, who tested with the McLaren F1 team late last year, is in the frame to do more F1 running, which would add to the logjam of IndyCar drivers vying for an F1 race seat that might not materialize.

And what happens if a court rules in Ganassi’s favor? Minus Palou, McLaren has an easy backstop in IndyCar with Rosenqvist and the pairing of Lando Norris and Ricciardo in F1 next season to maintain status quo. Losing a lawsuit would come with bruises to its reputation, but little more.

How, though, among the hypotheticals, would a returning Palou be received by the Ganassi team? Especially after attempting and failing to engineer a divorce with the help of a rival team? That’s the scary part. Would vengeance or forgiveness be selected from the menu of options?

The offer of a buyout to take Palou’s contract would seem like a reasonable route to follow, but Ganassi doesn’t need McLaren’s money. Does Palou end up on the sidelines, paid his salary but benched as a result of his disloyalty? Or would Ganassi, despite a favorable ruling, part ways with his champion driver and search for a gruntled replacement?

A happy return to Ganassi seems like the least likely outcome of all the possibilities in play. En masse, free-agent drivers are angling to replace Palou in the event he’s ousted from the car. The hiring, firing, or parking of drivers is the secondary item of consequence here; the direction ahead will be dictated by the men wielding the greatest influence.

Brown and Ganassi could double for the characters Bobby Axelrod and Mike Prince from the show ‘Billions.’ Their fiery need to beat each other could end up fueling all that happens in the clash over Palou.

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