Two days shy of a year after announcing a substantial revamp of its IndyCar management team, Arrow McLaren has changed the titles and functions of three of its most senior executives.
On Monday, the team announced that Gavin Ward, who served as Arrow McLaren’s racing director for the 2023 season after joining midway through the 2022 season as its director of trackside engineering, will step into a newly formed team principal role that “better reflects Gavin’s overarching responsibility of the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team,” according to a team release.
Ward now reports directly to McLaren Racing’s CEO, Zak Brown.
“Last year at this time, the club experienced huge changes and growth, and we needed to act quickly to recruit and prepare for the forthcoming season. We’ve utilized the last few months to examine our working methods, identifying where we excel and where we need to improve,” Ward stated in the announcement. “I’m excited about these changes. This team has terrific personalities and a lot of talent, and it’s all about playing to people’s strengths and allowing the team to run quickly and effectively.”
Brian Barnhart, who was appointed last year as team general manager to take over Ward’s primarily on-track responsibilities, will continue in that job while supervising Arrow McLaren’s commercial operations and administration duties. He will now report to Ward.
Arrow McLaren’s special advisor Tony Kanaan has been designated the team’s sports director, taking over a post Ward previously held before being promoted to command the entire squad. According to the statement, the post increases Kanaan’s responsibilities, which was previously limited to race weekends when he made his final IndyCar start in the Indianapolis 500 in May. He’s going to “work closely with the drivers, help build and strengthen partner relationships and serve as a resource for the team to stay performance-focused in it’s day-to-day work,” according to the group.
“My role as special advisor was really an opportunity for me to test the waters of being on the other side of a team as a leader and no longer a driver,” Kanaan stated in the press release. “I discovered rather fast that this side isn’t too horrible.
“I really like it, actually and thought I have more to contribute in the day-to-day, outside just race weekends.”
Insider: How the departure of Alex Palou will affect Zak Brown and Arrow McLaren.
Less than a month ago, Arrow McLaren completed its first season with three full-time cars, expanding its Indianapolis-based personnel by 40% to accommodate the new entry, driven by Indy 500 victor and ex-Andretti Autosport driver Alexander Rossi. Arrow McLaren, together with incumbents Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist, scored a team-best eleven podiums in a year in which it improved its consistency in finding pace and reduced the human and mechanical faults that marred its 2022 campaign.
The team, however, failed to win a race, marking its first winless season since 2020, the year McLaren Racing began integrating with Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson’s program before eventually purchasing a controlling stake in 2021. up August, the team was taken aback when prospective new driver and 2023 IndyCar champion Alex Palou turned down a three-year contract with the company he signed a year previously, which would have locked up the two-time champion for 2024–26.
In August, the IndyCar team and its parent company McLaren Racing filed separate lawsuits against Palou and his racing entity ALPA Racing USA LLC in U.K. Commercial Court, hoping to recoup the tens of millions of dollars the teams believe they are owed for the driver’s F1 testing program expenses, pre-paid salary, and other associated losses. According to court filings, the individual lawsuits against Palou and ALPA Racing have been consolidated into one.
After two years of uncertainty about his status with the team due to Palou’s ongoing contractual saga with McLaren and his home at Chip Ganassi Racing, Rosenqvist decided to start over at Meyer Shank Racing in 2024, leaving Ward, Brown, and Kanaan to sign second-year driver David Malukas off the free-agent market to pilot the No. 6 Chevy alongside O’Ward and Rossi in 2024. In addition, the team will welcome 2021 NASCAR champion Kyle Larson for an Indy 500-only ride in 2024, in collaboration with Larson’s NASCAR outfit, Hendrick Motorsports. Larson will drive a car for the first time later this month during his 500 rookie test.