McLaren is bringing four cars to the 33-strong field for this year’s Indianapolis 500, and the team arrives with a rare mix of history, momentum and unfinished business. The race on Sunday will again put Pato O’Ward, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Christian Lundgaard in the spotlight, with 88-year-old Johnny Rutherford back in McLaren orange as a team ambassador.
The numbers are the kind that make the team’s presence impossible to miss. O’Ward is heading into his seventh Indy 500 after coming within two corners of victory two years ago before losing to Josef Newgarden. He also won twice and finished second in the standings in 2025. Hunter-Reay is preparing for his 18th Indy 500, while Lundgaard arrives off his first IndyCar win with McLaren two weeks ago in the road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
For McLaren, the race carries a weight that has not changed since 1976. That was the year Rutherford delivered the team its last Indianapolis 500 victory, and it is still the only one in the modern era. Brown, who took over McLaren at the end of 2016, has spent years trying to turn the brand into a consistent force at Indianapolis while also rebuilding its broader motorsport identity.
O’Ward has been one of the clearest signs that effort is working. His run to the front two years ago showed that McLaren can contend for the biggest prize on the oval, and his season in 2025 added more proof that the program is no longer just a novelty entry. He said his experience with the team has been positive and described his time there as both a learning curve and the source of some of the best memories of his career. He added that there are challenges that have to be accepted when signing up for this race.
Rutherford, who is now 88 years old, said it felt perfect to be back with the team and called the reunion an opportunity to relive the experience and enjoy the company around it. He also said he has been there and done that, a reminder that McLaren’s past success still hangs over every attempt to win again.
Brown sees the team’s Indianapolis effort as something personal. He has said Indianapolis is kind of a second home and that the racing he grew up with was Indy car racing. He also pointed to McLaren’s strongest stretch under his ownership, saying the team is coming off the most successful year it has ever had in Formula 1, after winning both world championships last year. That turnaround has not erased the questions around Indy, but it has sharpened expectations.
McLaren’s path back to being a regular contender at the Speedway has been anything but linear. The team made a one-off Indianapolis 500 entry for Fernando Alonso in 2017 with Andretti, failed to qualify with Alonso in 2019 and bought into the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team three years after the Alonso entry. Each step was meant to move McLaren closer to the front, and this year’s four-car presence is the clearest sign yet that the program has scale as well as ambition.
What remains unresolved is the one thing McLaren cannot manufacture: a finish. The organization has not won the Indianapolis 500 since Rutherford’s 1976 victory, and no amount of progress elsewhere changes that. Sunday gives the team another shot, with O’Ward carrying the best recent chance, Hunter-Reay bringing the proven pedigree and Lundgaard arriving with fresh momentum.
