McLaren in sight: Monaco and the Indy 500, an epic weekend.

The Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500: A Sunday of Passion for McLaren

The Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 are two of the most iconic races in the world of motorsport. For much of this century, both competitions have been held on the same day, creating a special day for racing fans.

This match turned the last Sunday of May into a celebration for speed lovers. In the United States, fans could enjoy Formula 1 cars on the streets of Monte Carlo while drinking coffee and croissants, with enough time to fire up the grill and enjoy a barbecue before the green flag was raised at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).

The distance between both races, about 7,242 kilometers, prevents a single driver from competing in both. However, what about a team?

Since 2020, McLaren has participated in both the Formula 1 and IndyCar championships. Although the teams operate separately, based in Woking, England, and Indianapolis, respectively, they are connected by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, who often leads the papaya team’s efforts in both paddocks.

For the past three years, Brown has faced a crucial decision: Where to be on race day? Monaco or Indianapolis?

This dilemma will soon be a thing of the past. As part of the Monaco agreement with F1, which extends until 2031, it was agreed to move the principality’s date to June, which means that the recent Sunday was the last time, in the foreseeable future, that the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix would be held on the same day.

To commemorate the farewell to this historic day, the Alofoke Deportes team delved into the intricacies of McLaren to get a close look at how the team faced this unique challenge, which coincided with the last Sunday of May.

Formula 1 as Inspiration for Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS – Lots of work, furtive glances at the television, and the characteristic papaya orange color. On Sunday, at 7:45 a.m., Indianapolis time, the lights went out 7,333 kilometers to the east, on the French Riviera. While the Monaco Grand Prix came to life, the Arrow McLaren IndyCar garages had already been in full swing for almost two hours.

“Certainly, we are paying attention to what is happening there, where the boss is,” commented Tony Kanaan, director of the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team, while Brown was in Monaco. “But only to a certain extent. There is a lot of work to be done here. So the televisions are on.”

Tony Kanaan, director of the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team

Kanaan pointed from the team’s concrete arches, located in the front row of the legendary Gasoline Alley at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, towards an office door across the hall, closed with a simple black sign taped to the glass: “ARROW MCLAREN INDYCAR TEAM. TEAM MEMBERS ONLY!” Inside, a constant rotation of people dressed as papayas, from sponsor executives to crew members who had just been working on their four Chevy-powered Dallaras, and another Indy legend, Johnny Rutherford, who won two of his three Indianapolis 500 victories driving for McLaren in the 1970s. All were looking for a cup of coffee, a few minutes of rest, and a good look at what was happening on the streets of Monaco.

“We are always aware of what our friends at F1 are doing, always,” said Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren driver, on Sunday morning, hours before his sixth participation in the Indianapolis 500. “What they do and what we do is very different, but it’s still motorsport. You see where they were not long ago, and now they are there.”

Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren driver

On the television screens around him, images of Lando Norris were visible, who had just made the first of his two mandatory pit stops.

“They are leading the way in their situation and we are still chasing to be the best,” said O’Ward. “We will get there. And they want us to get there.”

Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren driver

Kanaan, amidst handshakes from fans shouting “TK!” and interruptions from crew members with questions about the machines in various states of disassembly around him, hurried to praise the multidisciplinary efforts of those in the Star Wars backdrop that is the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking.

According to Kanaan, “This is an organization that works around the clock. While we sleep here, they work there, and vice versa. The engineers work in F1 and Indy. If there’s a car on a track anywhere, McLaren’s race control and those engineers are watching and monitoring. Always.”

Especially on this day, with the two most important open-wheel races on Earth running back-to-back.

“It’s amazing to be a part of this, especially for a guy like me because I love everything,” explained Kyle Larson, who, when Max Verstappen was leading Norris, got out of his RV and stood next to the McLaren that had been lent to him to drive around Indianapolis whenever he was in town for the no-fender half of his second attempt at the IndyCar/NASCAR double-header from Indy to Charlotte. He even had a HendrickCars.com sticker stuck on the door. “But what I’ve learned from being with these guys with this team is that they love everything too. Racing is racing. And we all want to race or we’re watching races. If something from F1 can improve the IndyCar team or vice versa, Zak will do it.”

Kyle Larson

For decades, anyone requesting that the IMS media center televisions be tuned to F1 in the morning and NASCAR in the evening was met with the equivalent of one of those big red X’s and the “Family Feud” buzzer.

Even now, on Sunday, one had to search to find Monaco on a television. The monitors mounted on the walls of the Arrow McLaren garages only showed the pre-race program of the circuit. When the F1 event reached its halfway point, the team’s four pit stalls were finishing their installations in the pit lane, and even amidst an infinite number of screens, there were only a few with Norris’s race open in a window.

But inside that closed-door office and the massively modern McLaren hospitality center that towered over the inside of Turn 1, the images transmitted from Monaco were everywhere.

“It used to be that there was no crossover, at all,” said Rutherford, who began driving McLaren’s IndyCar effort in 1973 through the end of the decade. The only time McLaren F1 and IndyCar captured races on the same day was 49 years ago this month, when Rutherford won in Trenton, New Jersey, and James Hunt took the Spanish Grand Prix.

Johnny Rutherford

Under Brown’s leadership, that inter-series spirit has returned, observing and helping in everything. Last month, McLaren was close to evoking that day in May 1976, when Oscar Piastri and Norris finished 1-2 in China, but O’Ward and his teammate Christian Lundgaard had to settle for 2-3 after starting on the front row in Thermal, California.

“People laughed when I said we just wanted to copy what they’re doing in F1, but I was serious,” Lundgaard clarified on Sunday, standing in the space between the Arrow McLaren garages and the office converted into a viewing room in Monaco. That room, and the hospitality center, had recently erupted in cheers when Norris secured his second victory of the season.

Christian Lundgaard

Now, the people from both sides crowded around Lundgaard, O’Ward, and rookie Nolan Siegel, still enthusiastic about Monaco and excited for Indy. It was 11:15 a.m. in Indiana, 5:15 p.m. in Monte Carlo. Fans, sponsors, family members, and crew began to applaud as they marched with their racers out of the garage, under the iconic Gasoline Alley sign and towards the main straight, where Larson was already waiting.

McLaren did its job in Monaco. It was time to get to work in Indianapolis.

Celebrating in Monaco

MONACO – Brown was hesitant on Saturday morning about whether to board a plane that night to fly to Indianapolis. The dilemma facing the McLaren CEO vanished the moment Norris crossed the line to claim McLaren’s first pole in the principality since 2007.

“I think Zak is happy he doesn’t have to go to Indy,” Norris joked in the television media pen shortly after, when asked about the meeting with a jubilant Brown in parc ferme after getting out of his car.

Lando Norris

Walking through the paddock right after those celebrations with Norris, Brown had already decided he would stay in Monte Carlo.

“Yes, I just decided it now,” Brown told Alofoke Deportes as he walked towards the McLaren hospitality center by the harbor, holding hands with his wife Tracy.

Zak Brown

His logic was quite simple.

“Chance to win [Monaco], I’ll stay. If we don’t have the chance to win, I’ll go [to Indianapolis],” he said. “My worst nightmare is not being in one or the other for a win.”

Zak Brown

Norris starting from the pole and Piastri directly behind in third on a circuit with as contrasting a reputation as can be obtained with the unpredictable Indianapolis 500 turned out to be a show too tempting for Brown to miss. His McLaren team has given him many winning moments in the last 12 months, and Norris delivered another, one that he and the CEO have dreamed of for a long time, with a brave and dominant victory in tense circumstances on Sunday.

As is often the case in F1, attention truly turned to the Indianapolis 500 only once the proceedings in Monaco were over and the celebrations concluded. The contrast between the two events is numerous, but one is the build-up: Indy has a slow burn of almost a month for the main event, while Monaco follows F1’s three-day race weekend schedule.

In today’s Monaco paddock, following the race held in Indianapolis may seem like an afterthought, even if many are desperate to see it.

The F1 calendar did not lend itself to a simple viewing of the race for most McLaren team members. With Monaco sandwiched between Imola and Barcelona in a triple-header of races in three weeks, many of the team members were at Nice airport waiting to board when the 500 reached its final moments. Most had to settle for a gathering around a phone or an iPad. Although most of the team members Alofoke Deportes spoke with wanted to sit and enjoy the spectacle, time simply doesn’t allow it; a Sunday night flight offered an extra full day at home, a valuable and rare commodity amidst the busy F1 calendar.

“I will watch the race at the hotel,” Brown told Alofoke Deportes.

Zak Brown

When asked if he was a good spectator in those kinds of circumstances, he laughed.

“No. No. Horrible”.

Zak Brown

It probably wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. After second places in two of their last three 500s, O’Ward was Arrow McLaren’s first finisher in fourth, with Lundgaard and Siegel in ninth and 16th, respectively, when Larson crashed on lap 92.

To make matters worse, it was Álex Palou who won his first 500. The three-time IndyCar champion is the subject of a $30 million lawsuit from McLaren for breach of contract.

At least Brown can console himself with the knowledge that his decision to stay in Monte Carlo was the right one. Watching the race held across the Atlantic was a little easier for those who call Monaco home.

“I’ll probably watch it on my couch at home,” said Piastri, the F1 championship leader, during Sunday’s press conference before turning to Norris and Charles Leclerc, both residents of the Principality, alongside him. “Unless I get an invitation. You’re welcome to come if you want, but yeah, probably on my couch. And I’ll keep my answer short because I want to go watch it.”

Oscar Piastri

The Australian is always happy to be a spectator when it comes to the famous event. “Not for me,” he told Alofoke Deportes about ever trying the Indianapolis 500.

Regarding Norris, he said he had achieved a dream on Sunday night, proudly stating that one day his children will be able to say that their father won the Monaco Grand Prix. He doesn’t foresee them ever having anything to say about the Indianapolis 500, however.

“It’s something I’ll never do, I can say that right now,” Norris said on Sunday night. “I won’t do it. I just have no interest in doing it. It’s not my thing. It’s not what I enjoy. I have a lot of respect for these guys. There are a lot of incredibly talented drivers there in the United States, and some of them could do very well in Formula 1.”

Lando Norris

With a cheeky grin, he added: “But yes, I also like to turn right. So, that’s the key.”