Arrow McLaren has officially taken ownership of what will be its new IndyCar race shop, and plans to move in fully before the 2026 season.
Over the next six months, the team will extensively renovate the property, which sits on Zionsville Road just 10 miles away from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The renovations will add an impressive front lobby that will showcase the team’s accomplishments, a new fitness center, a second floor mezzanine, and of course a refinish of the exterior to match the team’s branded colors.
The changes will increase the overall floor space from 74,000 to 86,000 square feet (6,875 to 7,990 square meters).
Arrow McLaren is currently operating out of a 33,000 square foot (3,065 square meter) facility, meaning the new location will nearly triple the available space.
“We’re proud to begin the renovation and grow our footprint right here in Indianapolis,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown.
“The investment is a big step in our long-term growth, and this new facility will provide our team with state-of-the-art tools, equipment and space to keep pushing forward.”
The team’s new facility was used by Andretti Global until recently, and Arrow McLaren decided to purchase the property when Andretti began building a new location for themselves.
The deal came together over two years ago, with Arrow McLaren abandoning their own plans to build a new facility when it learned this one would be available.
Multiple other race teams are changing facilities in the near future, including Ed Carpenter Racing which announced earlier in the month that it will also begin building a new headquarters that is set to open in early 2027.
Arrow McLaren has gradually invested more and more into IndyCar over the past few seasons, growing its investment with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports such that it now has full ownership of the team.
It also built a dedicated mobile race command semi-trailer dubbed Strategy Control that travels to every race since the start of 2024 and helps gives the team every advantage available.
How are McLaren able to afford Indy at all, let alone build new facilities? IndyCar loses money every year, and the teams (and especially drivers) make next to nothing in comparison to top racing series. There has to be some sort of tax benefit or something of value for a team like McLaren (who have been in the dumper financially since Brown joined in 2017). I also wonder if it’s some sort of scheme to get around F1 test bans and budget caps to secretly produce test parts or use extra wind tunnel time, because the big F1 teams are likely not abiding by any of those rules simply because it’s impossible to govern an actual budget cap or testing when a large team has facilities all over the world, and laundry lists of subsidies to shove money around until it disappears.