As for the full-time team, Brown has seen some positive signs in the development of both O’Ward and Askew.
“I think our expectations coming into this season so far have been met with two rookie drivers,” Brown said. “That’s going to bring up a lot of excitement. They’re going to have a lot of speed. But with two rookies, you’re potentially going to have some learnings, whether that’s them in the fence or just having some bad weekends.
“I got to say I’ve been very impressed with both of them,” Brown continued. “They’ve both shown speed, both had podiums. Pato almost won. I think Oliver could have been in a position to win in Iowa. Pit stops have been good, reliability has been good. We came into the season going, ‘We know we have two very fast drivers who are going to hopefully demonstrate that, and I think they have. There would probably be some tough weekends.
“Given COVID, we’re probably at a larger disadvantage than most, lack of track times. Definitely Texas was throwing drivers into the deep end. I think they’ve shown a lot of maturity.”
O’Ward enters Sunday’s 104th Indianapolis 500 fourth in points. Askew is 12th, but has shown signs of brilliance in his rookie season.
“I think he’s done an excellent job,” Brown said of O’Ward. “I’d be very happy for him to finish where he is right now. I think he’s shown the speed, that he’s capable of winning races, as is Oliver. We haven’t really kind of set expectations or trying to pursue a certain finishing result.
“But there’s no reason why he couldn’t finish third. I think we just got to take it one race at a time and see where he ends up at the end of the year.”
Brown and McLaren have gone with a youth movement in terms of full-time drivers in both Formula One and the NTT IndyCar Series. The team is building for the future while hoping to achieve some success in the present.
McLaren continues to believe the best is yet to come.
“I’ve seen a lot of similarities about how Pato and Oliver are working together, tackling their rookie season as we did with Lando (Norris) and Carlos (Sainz) in Formula One,” Brown said. “Carlos is not being a rookie, but we went with a young driver lineup, and that’s working really well in Formula One.
“The integration of McLaren people and technologies into the team has gone very well. I think we benefited from COVID in that sense because we were trying to integrate our people and technologies on the fly while racing and testing. When the world hit the pause button, that actually gave us an opportunity to focus more on that while not racing. I think that’s been one of the few benefits, if you’d like, of the COVID situation.”
Brown understands the highs and lows of racing. McLaren has had better years, but by redoing its program and going with younger drivers, it can help pay off with more success in the future.
But Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 is about the present, and that is why Brown believes Alonso has the racing savvy to understand how to work his way through the field on Sunday.
“I think someone like Fernando has a tremendous amount of experience in racing,” Brown said. “He has some experience at Indianapolis, but not much more than Pato and Oliver.
“I think Fernando knows you got to be there at the end, you got to let the race come to you. It’s not a sprint race. I think his approach to how he goes motor racing is something that Pato and Oliver are learning from.
“There’s less he can teach them around Indianapolis because his experience isn’t that much greater, et cetera, oval racing, but how you approach a race weekend, how you spend time with your engineers, what you focus on, when to be patient, when to be aggressive. All three of them are getting along very well.
“I think our cars will be good enough to run at the front, but I think the same could be said for about 20 cars when you look at where Penske is. I think the Chevy teams are going to need to work their way to the front. I think that will be difficult to do on track. I think it will be through strategy and pit stops that you got to kind of creep your way up.
“Hopefully by 400 miles you’ve got a bunch of Chevy teams near the front of the field. Then the last 100 miles, that’s when someone like Fernando and our two drivers, their aggressiveness, should make the race pretty exciting.”