McLaren reserve driver Patricio O’Ward has announced that he is to take part in FP1 for the team at next month’s Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix.
O’Ward, who is part of the Woking squad’s reserve driver pool and also currently sits sixth in the IndyCar standings for Arrow McLaren, will take to the Hermanos Rodriguez Circuit in-front of his home fans on the Friday before the race.
In an announcement made on McLaren’s X account, O’Ward said: “I cannot wait, this really is a dream come true for me, to be able to jump into an F1 car in-front of my home crowd.
“I can’t thank Andrea [Stella, Team Principal], Zak [Brown, CEO], the whole team enough for this amazing opportunity.
“The car’s been a rocket this year so trying to do my part and help them as much as I can for the rest of the year.”
O’Ward also confirmed that after this weekend’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, he will fly to Europe to “start all of [his] Formula 1 duties.”
The 25-year-old has been with Arrow McLaren since 2020, and is the team’s leading driver in the IndyCar series this season, with three wins in St Petersburg, Ohio and Milwaukee respectively.
His first F1 test came at the end-of-season rookie’s test in Abu Dhabi in 2021, a drive he was promised by Brown if he managed to win at least one IndyCar race that season, which he duly did in Texas.
Last year, O’Ward was one of the first drivers to be signed-up for McLaren’s Driver Development Programme, and partook in two tests, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and subsequently in FP1 in Abu Dhabi at the final round of the season.
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