After a strong 2025 season, Arrow McLaren and their drivers are eager to keep progressing and carry that energy into 2026.

During the content day in Indianapolis, drivers Nolan Siegel, Pato O’Ward, Christian Lundgaard, and Ryan Hunter-Reay reflected on last year, discussed their off-seasons, and looked ahead to the next steps they plan to take in 2026.

Nolan Siegel

Throughout the off-season, Siegel thinks they’ve made “good steps” towards what they need to improve on from 2025. He and his team know what they need to do, and now it comes down to “executing that” in the upcoming season. 

Throughout the break, Team Principal Tony Kanaan had been honest about Siegel’s performance last year and admitted his expectations. “He needs to finish in the top 10 in the championship, and if not, I don’t think I can keep him.” 

Now, whilst Siegel hasn’t had an opportunity to discuss this with Kanaan, he shared that it “doesn’t change anything”. The Arrow McLaren driver also acknowledged that IndyCar is “super competitive”, but that doesn’t change his outlook of performing at his best at each race. 

2026 is a contract year for Siegel, and he’ll be aiming to retain his seat with the team. But that doesn’t increase the pressure he feels: “If you perform, you have a job.” Ultimately, he has clear goals and knows what he needs to fix. For him, these have increased his confidence, and he is “very optimistic for 2026.”

Pato O’Ward

O’Ward is returning for his sixth season with Arrow McLaren. He is coming off a career-best finish of second in the standings, but he wants more.

And he’s not willing to use the “garbage truck” from his Fox commercial. He wants to “beat Palou and slow him down a little more”, as “it’s been too easy for him.”

And Pato knows exactly what he and the team need to try to achieve that.

“We can’t have the little slip-ups you might see from us. We’ve never had a year where there haven’t been any slip-ups. We’re still striving for that perfection and still striving to see that.”

Christian Lungaard

Reflecting on 2025, his first year in the No. 7 car, where he finished a career-best fifth in points and achieved six podiums, Lungaard considers it a “bare minimum” for 2026, a season he looks forward to in order to “continue the progression, keep learning, and keep improving.”

He has completed that initial season with the team, establishing his own race benchmark and a better relationship with his engineer, which leads him to believe “we’re only going to be stronger as a 7 car independently.”

Now, he is utilizing that experience and the momentum as he approaches this season, confident that, “If we begin where we ended in ’25, I believe there’s a lot of positive outcomes ahead in ’26.”

Ryan Hunter-Reay

After a tough Indianapolis 500 in 2025, which ended in a fiery fuel issue after showing strong speed by leading 48 laps after starting 24th. All he wanted was redemption. And now he gets to do it with Arrow McLaren.

This is an opportunity that he is not going to waste, one is not enough for him, “because of all the missed opportunities I’ve had. I have a very strong desire to fix that.”

Speaking to The Girls Who Eat – Motorsport, Hunter-Reay shared what he’s most excited about.

“I look forward is that first real diagnosis from me, diagnosis run of an Arrow McLaren INDYCAR when driven in anger in traffic. Kind of going through that first day of testing.”

Arrow McLaren in 2026

Arrow McLaren emerged as the leading Chevrolet team last year, thanks to its drivers’ strong performances. Meanwhile, the favoured Team Penske encountered some bad luck.

Penske will definitely take a step up from last year, but Lundgaard is optimistic that, despite that, Arrow McLaren will find itself in a similar position in 2026: “We have to just stick to it and keep doing what we’re doing.”

Pato shares this sentiment but in a bigger way; he feels they are merely one step away from clinching “that 500, winning a championship.” He believes that this crucial step is just “getting it done.“

See more articles on drivers’ goals and teams’ outlooks for the 2026 IndyCar season here.