'I want to build a dynasty': How Gavin Ward is transforming Arrow McLaren's culture
While juggling the budget of what many expect to be the highest-spending team in IndyCar, Gavin Ward now must wrestle with the dueling desires of a team principal who wants to win now and see his latest project turn into a dynasty.
Long labeled a spec series, in IndyCar the teams that typically win … well, win. And they do it often. The series that had a ‘Big Three’ for decades has, in recent years, felt more like it’s only two.
Ward has been tasked by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, one of the most powerful men in racing worldwide, to change that dynamic. And within the bowels of Arrow McLaren’s cramped headquarters on the northside of Indianapolis, Ward sees himself in some of his newest hires. He remembers the almost uncontrollable drive of a 20-something wielding an engineering degree from Oxford who was willing to dig himself an early grave if it meant the Red Bull Formula 1 team could win a few more races.
A year ago, the 39-year-old Canadian, just a few months into his racing director role, was charged with keeping the circus of nearly 120 employees and three full-time IndyCar programs crammed inside a building barely fit for two running with some level of synchronicity.
But after watching his old home (Team Penske) compile 14 wins, including an Indy 500, and a title since his exit in 2021, while his new home went winless in 2023? It may very well be the toughest, most unique challenge of Ward’s career.
“This all feels really different. You feel a lot more composure in the shop,” Ward told IndyStar this week. “We put a lot into this offseason, trying to gel as a team and get our systems in place. But there’s still aways to go.
“We’ve got a lot to do, but we feel pretty good that we’ve taken another step.”
How Ward balances results and people
And those steps this offseason have come in the form of diving deep into the team’s simulation modeling around short ovals – particularly looking for qualifying pace – and tinkering with their damper program when it comes to IndyCar’s rough-and-tumble street course schedule. At both types of tracks last year, the team found the occasional podium, but results at Long Beach, Toronto and Nashville – where their best results were 7th, 8th and 8th, respectively – point to a deeper issue that could hamper a hopeful title fight in a series where last year’s champion finished no worse than 8th.
Anywhere.
But in many ways, Ward explained, Arrow McLaren’s collective Achilles heel in 2023 came down to execution. Some of Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi and Felix Rosenqvist’s lumps came at the hands of other drivers, and there were moments, too, with mechanical gremlins. But there were other moments, too, where bungled strategy decisions or an overly-aggressive move from inside the cockpit kept Arrow McLaren mired well off the championship-challenging pace of Ganassi and Penske.
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Ward warns of taking any one result too emotionally, but therein lies the pitfalls of a team that, since O’Ward’s legitimate title pursuit in 2021, has had top-level success in this series firmly within reach.
“I almost get triggered when I hear people say, ‘We’re here to win! We’re going to win championships and the 500, and our goal this year is to win every race!’” Ward says, with the bravado-laden twang of a college football strength coach.
And then his voice drops to a whisper.
“Yeah, OK, we’re all here to win. We’re here to compete, but how do you do that? You get there by focusing on getting better every week, and the wins take care of themselves,” Ward continued. “There are 117 people that work for us, and we had two cars running 1-2 after the last pitstop of the Indy 500 (in 2022), but at that point, the number of people who can actually affect that result is pretty small, and everything was done by a heck of a lot of people.
“So should we all feel bad about that because it didn’t go our way? I don’t really think that’s a healthy way to run a race team. You’ve got to detach yourself a little from results. I wouldn’t prescribe to a full detachment from results, because that just sounds like not giving a (expletive), and that’s not healthy either. You just want to try and find a balance.”
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So devoted to the mental, physical and emotional well-being of his employees, the team principal says he challenged the series to institute a week-long blackout window during the four-week break from late-July to mid-August due to NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage. A young father of two, Ward says he was deeply impacted by new teammates who’ve spent well over a decade in the sport, but never have been able to take a summer family vacation.
One Arrow McLaren employee said to Ward within the last week after an offseason the team was on-track for more than 20 days of testing: ‘We’re going into Race No. 1, and I feel like I’m already in midseason…’
“And that’s a little concerning for me,” Ward admitted. “The wildcard of some level of unknown with the hybrid and what’ll be involved come that time of year has stopped us from being able to say, ‘Nope, we’re shutting down for a week. Everyone go plan a holiday.’
“I’m a little disappointed that we got some pushback from other teams (on a balckout week), if I’m brutally honest, because I feel like we’re all in this together and we could all make that decision. But we are where we are, and we’re still going to try and do the right thing for our guys.”
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'I want to build a dynasty'
And so Ward presses on, one of the youngest team officials in the sport whose jovial exterior exudes a gentle confidence and trust, unique to a gruff, grinding sport. But there are times where Ward questions just what the level of greatness he hopes to achieve in this sport requires. He prides himself in the way O’Ward, the team’s young star recently locked down via an eight-figure extension through 2027, seemingly transformed overnight from IndyCar’s most brash, abrasive competitor into a measured young Mexican comfortable with accepting top-5s on Sundays.
Despite going winless a year ago, O'Ward's seven podiums were a career high.
Ward’s message to the team early in 2023 was precisely that: “Top-5s every weekend are what’s going to win a championship." Then, he watched Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou dominate with five wins and a worst finish of 8th, helping clinch a title before the finale.
“And it made me wonder if we went a little too cautious,” Ward admits now. “A lot of people in IndyCar talk about average finishing position, but the points aren’t linear. The chunkiest steps in points are for 1st and 2nd, and even (Palou) said their mindset was, when a win was on the table, they wanted to go out and get it."
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For Ward, success looks like being in the right place at the right time in the closing laps on Sundays, led by a combination of qualifying speed, pitlane execution, sharp strategy and a quick-witted driver in the cockpit whose risk vs. reward calculator can’t be overcome by the pressures of a win sitting within their grasp.
The rest is … well, Ward’s mathematical brain doesn’t like to call it luck.
“(Racing) can be quite stochastic,” says Ward, who may very well be the only soul on Sunday’s St. Pete grid with that $5 word (it means randomly determined) on the tip of his tongue. “There’s a lot of permutations out there, so there is a level of, ‘Will it roll your way or not?’ And that’s why, going into a year, (I'm) asking, ‘What’s your goal?’
“I’m trying to build sustainable performance as a race team – something that doesn’t chew them up and spit them out. (When I was with Red Bull in 2010), I was at that point where I wondered if I’d get another shot at a championship, and I told myself, ‘I’m going to work myself right into the ground. I don’t care. I know this isn’t sustainable, but I’ll throw everything at this year.’ I don’t want us having to do that. I want to build a dynasty that can compete for many years, and that takes stability, and it takes taking care of people.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: How Gavin Ward hopes to turn Arrow McLaren into a 'dynasty'
