The GMR Grand Prix of the Indianapolis road course did not result in a win for Arrow McLaren, but even so, the team still had the best result of any on the grid.
Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi finished on the podium, and their team-mate Felix Rosenqvist ended his day in fifth.
Having a single team occupy more than half of the top five positions is nearly unheard of in IndyCar, where individual driver performance factors so heavily into the results.
Speaking after the race, Rossi admitted that road course pace does not translate to speed on the 2.5-mile oval, but the confidence gained will help the team massively for the Indy 500 challenge ahead.
“This is a momentum game,” said Rossi. “We talk about it a lot. Performance here [on the road course] doesn’t translate the other direction [to the oval], but it’s good mentally for everyone.
“You know you’ve got the ability to have the results across all three cars. When everyone is relaxed and just doing what they know how to do, the confidence in their abilities is when the performance comes.
“I think it’s hard to win these races. I think the #10 car was just stronger. A stronger car will really make any strategy look good.
“I think it’s all pride in the fact that it’s three cars in the top five. Obviously for Pato it’s probably frustrating. I’ve been in that boat before. You just got to enjoy the seconds, because that’s what counts at the end.”
The result was Rossi’s first podium since switching from Andretti Autosport to Arrow McLaren this season, but it was the third time O’Ward has stood on the second step of the podium.
All four of the team’s drivers, with the addition of Tony Kanaan for the 500, finished in the top five of last year’s Indy 500. A single team could hardly ask for a better lineup for the biggest race of the year.
Now with a bevy of momentum and confidence, the team that has brought Formula 1 mentality to IndyCar has even more reason to be optimistic for the rest of the Month of May.
