McLaren CEO Zak Brown is ‘sure’ his Formula 1 team already have the perfect driver in line to replace Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri if either star ever wanted to leave Woking.
The Papaya squad are riding high after the Miami Grand Prix as Norris secured his first win in Formula 1. McLaren played the long game with his strategy and reaped the rewards with the safety car. Norris even out-paced Max Verstappen of Red Bull to win in his 110th Grand Prix.
His victory in the car parks of Hard Rock Stadium even further justified McLaren’s decision to give Norris a new contract this January. The 24-year-old agreed to stay in Woking through at least 2028. McLaren also tied Piastri up through the 2026 Formula 1 season last September.
Zak Brown ‘sure’ Pato O’Ward can replace Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri in Formula 1
McLaren sought to lock Norris down as the Briton was otherwise a free agent after the 2025 campaign. The Woking outfit also gave Piastri a contract extension last year after impressing during his rookie season. The 23-year-old even won the F1 Sprint at the Qatar GP in October.
But should Norris or Piastri decide they want to leave McLaren in the near future, Brown has given the brand’s IndyCar star Pato O’Ward his backing to switch to F1. McLaren’s CEO is not looking to make a change but has told Beyond the Grid that O’Ward is ‘for sure’ a candidate.
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Brown is also happy to keep O’Ward in IndyCar and not pay another Formula 1 team to run the 25-year-old. The American single-make series offers enough competition to prepare the Mexican for a potential F1 career, along with his tests in old F1 cars and outings in practice.
“Well, right now we’ve got two drivers we’re extremely happy with,” Brown noted. “I don’t think [paying a team to run O’Ward] is necessary because I think IndyCar is so competitive.
“I don’t see any reason why he can’t continue to race in IndyCar, win us a lot of races [and] hopefully win us a championship, Indy 500 and on and on. And if the opportunity presents itself, he’s in our TPC, our test car, he’s doing free practice ones, he did the young driver test.
“So, I feel he’s very prepared to hop into our Formula 1 car if the opportunity presents itself. I don’t think we need to put him in another team to get a lot more experience because, also, the opportunity might not ever come.”
Pato O’Ward is McLaren’s star IndyCar driver and Formula 1 reserve
O’Ward currently serves as McLaren’s reserve driver and is the first in line to race if Norris or Piastri are unavailable, barring any clashes with his IndyCar campaign. He has also contested end-of-season tests and got his F1 weekend debut driving in FP1 for the 2022 Abu Dhabi GP.
Brown promoted O’Ward to an official F1 reserve driver role for the 2024 season after four years with their IndyCar team. The Mexican was briefly a Red Bull junior in 2019 before the chance to join McLaren emerged after failing to secure enough superlicence points for F1.
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McLaren have since seen O’Ward win five races in IndyCar, taken five pole positions and also finished third in the 2021 standings. He also finished second in the 2022 running of the Indy 500 and vied for the victory again in 2023 before a late-race collision with Marcus Ericsson.
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