“Pato looks like a one-man boy band; he charms like a British spy.” – FOX
And, Pato O’Ward is a contender to win every NTT INDYCAR SERIES race.
Now, can he perform consistently enough to contend for the season championship?
As the FOX commercial states, the Mexican driver is one of the next faces of this sport. Last year, O’Ward tied for the series lead with three race wins and nearly scored the biggest prize of them all, the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, only to have Josef Newgarden slip past on the final lap.
O’Ward was crushed not to win the “500,” but he is energized for the season that begins with Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding (noon ET, FOX, FOX Deportes, INDYCAR Radio Network). If he and the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet can smooth out the rough edges that have plagued their recent seasons, they can take a solid swing at winning the championship and the Astor Challenge Cup that goes with it.
A season title would enable O’Ward, as the FOX commercial touts, “to turn the sport upside down.”
But first things first: Becoming more consistent. His six top-three finishes last season were offset by six other races where he finished in the back half of the 27-car field. Series champion Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing had only two of the latter.
“I would say performance-wise, (our) good days were great, (our) bad days were horrible,” O’Ward said. “It just seems to be the name of the game for us the last few years.”
O’Ward certainly can be spectacular, as he was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he went to the last lap of the “500” with the lead. That was the second time he has finished second in the event, and if not for an up-front accident late in the 2023 race, he might be riding a streak of five consecutive top-six finishes.
But O’Ward has been better at places other than Indy. In fact, his seven series wins have been spread across the sport’s landscape. His first win came on a superspeedway (Texas Motor Speedway), another was on a bullring (Iowa Speedway), another on a flat oval (Milwaukee Mile). He has won on a pure street course (last year in St. Petersburg), scored wins on two permanent road courses (Barber Motorsports Park, The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course) and recorded another win on the Belle Isle circuit in Detroit.
O’Ward also has earned 26 top-three finishes in 88 races, a 29.5 percent average that is among the highest in the series. Among active drivers, only Palou (38.3 percent), Scott Dixon (35.3 percent) and Will Power (34.7 percent) have better career results. O’Ward has finished second in 13 career races, twice in the “500.”
Again, if O’Ward can improve his consistency, he will finish higher than fifth in the standings as he did in 2024. Previously, he finished third in points and has twice finished fourth.
“We’ve had too many of those instances where we’re just throwing away points,” O’Ward said. “Cleaning that up and making our bad days better will have a significant impact in how we’re looking at the end of the season.”
This will be O’Ward’s sixth season as a full-time series driver and eighth overall. In one way, he will have a different role at Arrow McLaren after the organization promoted Nolan Siegel to full-time status and signed Christian Lundgaard from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Siegel only recently turned 20. Lundgaard is 23. Together, they have 64 series starts, 24 fewer than O’Ward, who turns 26 in May. O’Ward acknowledged that he is in something of a different role this year.
“I’ve always had guys with quite a lot more experience than me,” he said. “But it’s called moving with time. That happens. … that just means you’ve got more knowledge in your memory bank that you can go back on and use to your advantage whenever you need it.”
Nonetheless, the marching orders are the same for O’Ward. Be fast, be a contender to win each race and, if possible, be consistent. Winning the “500” and the championship remain his goals.
“A season will always have its challenges,” he said. “It’s never going to be perfect; it’s not going to be how you always want it to be. But you have to be as close to perfect as you can if you want to be a champion. You have to be close to perfect in an Indy 500 in order to win that race.
“When you’re fighting at the top, there’s always going to be drama. There’s always going to be different highs and lows of emotions because that’s ultimately what makes (competition) so special and entertaining.”