NASHVILLE – McLaren is now the majority owner of Arrow McLaren SP in a transaction that will give the England-based McLaren Racing a 75 percent share of the team.
The announcement was made Sunday morning in Nashville, Tenn., site of Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.
Currently, McLaren Racing is in the second season of a partnership with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
The team will be governed by a new five-person board, comprising three McLaren Racing appointees together with Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson, chaired by Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing. Taylor Kiel, president of Arrow McLaren SP, will continue to lead and oversee the operations of the team, reporting directly to the board.
“Today’s announcement is a strong signal of our long-term commitment to IndyCar as both a racing series and a marketing platform for McLaren Racing and our sponsor partners,” Brown said. “I want to pay tribute to Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson who, together with the commitment and support of Arrow Electronics, have built a formidable team for us to keep growing and fulfil our common ambition of consistently challenging for wins, Indy 500s and series titles. Key to this is the continued leadership of Taylor Kiel as president of the team, who has been instrumental to the progress of the partnership so far.
“McLaren Racing believes IndyCar will continue to build our brand in North America, serveour expanding US fan and partner base across our racing portfolio and drive long-term value. The racing is second-to-none, with world-class competitors in both drivers and teams and a passionate, highly engaged fanbase.
“We see real potential for the series’ continued growth under the stewardship of PenskeEntertainment and will continue to play an active role supporting the sport’s success,growing the global fan base and implementing our sustainability agenda to deliver onenvironmental and social commitments, including progressing diversity and inclusion in theindustry.”
Former driver Schmidt created the team in 2001 after his driving career came to an end after he was left paralyzed from the neck down in an IndyCar crash at Walt Disney World Speedway on Jan. 6, 2000. Despite behind confined to a wheel chair with no use of his limbs, Schmidt created a powerful team that won seven drivers’ championships in Indy Lights, 13 pole positions, 27 podiums and nine victories in the NTT IndyCar Series.
The team’s two most recent victories came after being rebranded as Arrow McLaren SP.
“I’ve known Zak for 25 years, he’s a racer and this is a group of hardcore racers,” Schmidt said. “We started our partnership two years ago and it’s gone extremely well, both technically and commercially. Ric Peterson came in 2013 and moved the bar of the team up. Arrow came in a couple of years later and again we moved the bar up.
“With McLaren we’re moving forward again. As we’ve seen we’re now a regular contenderand ultimately for Ric and I, we are here to win races, win 500s and win championships.This next step ensures the resources to do that for a long time ahead.
“I want to say that we couldn’t have done this without Arrow and Lucas Oil. They reallywere the foundational sponsors this team was built on and we wouldn’t be here without them. McLaren is an iconic brand and we’re proud to be with them. We’re doing this to make the team better and ensure long-term success.”
Peterson joined the team as a co-owner in 2013.
“We always believed that to accelerate our progress in IndyCar, partnering with a team ofMcLaren’s capability and F1 experience was a key strategy to propel us forward, and so ithas proved,” Peterson said. “McLaren Racing now takes the baton and will combine the best of what they do with the best of what this team does to create something truly special.
“Sam and I are immensely proud of what we have built together through our partnershipover the past nine years and look forward to continue being part of this team as a partner with McLaren Racing to see Arrow McLaren SP go from strength to strength.”
Arrow Electronics has been a key partner of the team, with an ownership stake in the operation.
“As title sponsor to Arrow McLaren SP since the team’s very early days and a strategicpartner to McLaren Racing, we couldn’t be more pleased to see these two world-classorganizations come together as one going forward,” said Mike Long, CEO and President, Arrow Electronics. “Our partnership with Sam, Ric and Zak is built on a shared passion for innovation, winning, and the belief in the power of technology to make life better, as evidenced by our work on the Sam Car, Sam Suit, and the UK Ventilator program.
“We are very happy with both teams in Indy and F1 and believe we have some of thehardest-working and fastest drivers and crew in the sport, and we are only getting started.Arrow stands proudly behind the teams. We look forward to many more wins to come.”
McLaren returned to full-time IndyCar competition in 2020 after a 40-year absence to create Arrow McLaren SP, forming a strategic partnership with title sponsor Arrow Electronics and SPM, bringing technical and engineering expertise to the existing operation. In addition, McLaren has helped strengthen the team’s commercial portfolio with the addition of sponsors Vuse, Mission Foods, Darktrace, Tezos and QNTMPAY while supporting the team’s communications, social and content activities to help build its growing fanbase.
This year, Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist are the team’s two drivers. Juan Pablo Montoya drove a third entry for the team in the 105th Indianapolis 500 on May 30.
O’Ward is currently second in the NTT IndyCar Series standings, trailing leader Alex Palou by 36 points entering Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.