McLaren's IndyCar star reveals how they rely on F1 team's support without busting cost cap

Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard recently came out on the DIVEBOMB IndyCar podcast and reflected on his first season with the Papaya team. While discussing the move from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to McLaren, Lundgaard revealed how his current team relies on the F2 team for support.

Christian Lundgaard made his IndyCar debut with RLL and raced with them for a few years before making the move to Arrow McLaren. The Danish driver was questioned on what differences he felt between how RLL and McLaren operate.

Lundgaard detailed that both teams are professional when it comes to work, while suggesting how the mechanics in the American open wheel racing series are consistently changing teams. However, the Danish driver did suggest that Arrow McLaren’s connection with the McLaren F1 team creates a different kind of professionalism with a lot more people in the engineering department.

While McLaren's F1 team operates from the Woking based state of the art factory, Arrow McLaren operates from the US and acquired what used to be the former Andretti Global shop earlier this year. Yet, Lundgaard detailed how the IndyCar team has a few engineers in the Woking factory solely working on the American open-wheel racing series.

When further questioned about the link between Arrow McLaren and the McLaren F1 team, Christian Lundgaard explained,

“You know, obviously it is a fine line because there is very limited things that we can do with the F1 team. One, because we can go into a bracket that hurts the F1 team in terms of the cost gap, which we obviously have no interest in doing. We have a few people that are based in the UK at the factory that is basically just designated to the IndyCar team,” (4:40 onwards)

“And of course we have data floating around that obviously helps us vice versa. So it is using the people and helping each other as much as we can,” he added

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Zak Brown on how the new IndyCar facility in Indianapolis will help Arrow McLaren grow

Arrow McLaren currently operates from a 33,000-square-foot shop but acquired Andretti Global’s former shop in Indiana and has started renovation of the same. The team plans on moving to the new facility in 2026, which is 86,000 square feet, almost triple the size of the current facility.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown came out and detailed how the new facility will help the IndyCar team grow, as he said,

“We’re proud to begin the renovation and grow our footprint right here in Indianapolis. The investment is a big step in our long-term growth, and this new facility will provide our team with state-of-the-art tools, equipment and space to keep pushing forward.”

The collaboration between McLaren’s F1 and IndyCar is not only down to data, but Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward also fulfills the reserve driver duties for the F1 team.