Yahoo Autos O’Ward setting sights on running NASCAR’s Mexico race
IndyCar’s loss could be NASCAR’s gain.
Pato O’Ward, the series’ most popular driver, hails from Monterrey, Mexico, and has been pushing IndyCar’s owners at Penske Entertainment for years to organize a race in front of his adoring fans.
Unfortunately for O’Ward, IndyCar’s ongoing absence from the Mexican market, reinforced by short-sighted comments delivered by Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles, who positioned O’Ward as lacking the popularity to warrant a Mexican IndyCar event — which he attempted to walk back on Saturday — means the 25-year-old will need to look outside of the NTT IndyCar Series to make that dream happen.
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown told RACER from the Monza Formula 1 race that he would support O’Ward’s desire to compete in the NASCAR Cup event at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and thanks to the team’s relationship with Team Chevy and NASCAR powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports, whose Indianapolis 500 entry for Cup champion Kyle Larson was run by Arrow McLaren, there are a number of starting points for a conversation on getting O’Ward into a car at the home of the Mexican Grand Prix.
A conflict between the June 15 date in Mexico and next year’s IndyCar race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Gateway would make it impossible for O’Ward to take part in the 2025 event, but he’s looking to 2026 as the time to make it happen.
“I would love to,” O’Ward told RACER. “I’m really bummed. I wish we could have done it as soon as the first time, which is next year, but it’s when we go to Gateway, and obviously my priorities lie in IndyCar, but I would love to do the next one. That’s the race I would do absolutely. I don’t really have interest doing another race. I want to do that one, and I think it’d be cool.”
Fellow Mexican Daniel Suarez from the Trackhouse Cup team will be a big draw, and with O’Ward added in, NASCAR would have an easy time marketing the race.
“Me and Daniel racing together would be the best situation,” O’Ward added. “I got to meet Rick Hendrick, got to work with Kyle Larson, and I think he’d be really excited about the idea.”
Rather than asking his Arrow McLaren team to do the planning, O’Ward likes the idea of organizing a NASCAR Cup drive on his own.
“I don’t want to lay this on Zak’s shoulders,” he said. “I have enough authority where I can make it happen myself; I don’t want him to do all the work. It’d be a really good thing for Hendrick and for Chevy to hear from me, because that’s obviously where the very big interest comes from, going to the event, being part of it, driving the car. As soon as it was announced, my first thought was, ‘I need to as Zak if I can have Rick Hendrick’s number.’
“I love to race at home and it’s some of the best fans in the world. They’re so passionate. You see how successful the Formula 1 Grand Prix is there and it’s definitely a dream of mine to race in front of Mexican fans there.”
O’Ward’s many fans expended plenty of derisive words for Miles throughout Saturday, to the point where it risked overshadowing the first of two Milwaukee IndyCar races and the championship fight that’s taking place. Turning the page and finding a solution to get IndyCar to Mexico is where he’d like to see the conversation turn.
“I’m just one voice, right?” he said. “Seems like I’m the strongest voice today, because of where I’m from and what we’re talking about. But the reality is that I’m not the only one that shares this opinion. I want the series to become better, and rather than taking it as an attack, [IndyCar] should really look into ‘why?’ Why are people saying this, and why has, ‘Why aren’t we racing in Mexico?’ been a theme of conversation for the last three years? Maybe we should look into what [we] can do to make it better. Let’s find a way to make this happen. I like to make [things] happen. I don’t like to talk about it and never do anything.”
