CAN ARROW McLAREN SP GET THEM IN A QUIVER?

Once we got used to seeing the large two-storey Arrow hospitality unit regularly appearing at IndyCar races, before the pandemic made such luxuries superfluous in 2020, it was easy to forget the humble beginnings from which the squad now known as Arrow McLaren SP had grown over the previous two decades.

The rise was not meteoric: there were definite flat spots, usually as a result of partnerships that had their roots in expedience rather than expectation of excellence. Counterbalancing that trait along the way, team founder Sam Schmidt, whose underlying ambition and business smarts could rarely be questioned, doesn’t tend to shy away from making difficult decisions. Consequently, the team’s form never dipped for longer than a season, and the general trend was always upward.

Now, little more than a year after Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport formed a partnership with McLaren, the team truly does appear to have entered a new era. In fact, the biggest question now is whether Arrow McLaren SP is going to turn IndyCar’s Big Three – Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport – into a Big Four, or if it will replace Michael Andretti’s team in that top trio. In 2020, it came very close to achieving the latter. Either way,