Pato O’Ward – Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio – Photo by Chris Owens

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio

Pato O’Ward’s first INDYCAR victory of the 2026 season at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course not only re-asserted his standing as de facto team leader at Arrow McLaren.

It also was a de facto shut-the-bleep-up retort to his critics.

“People need to chill,” O’Ward said after scoring his 10^th series victory at the facility in Lexington, Ohio. “It’s just, the championship is long. There’s plenty of racing to go. I sure as hell am not getting worse.”

O’Ward snapped a streak of 14-races without a podium with his victory over teammate/pole-sitter Christian Lundgaard in The Honda Indy 200 Presented by the 2027 CR-V Hybrid, Race 11 of the NTT IndyCar Series season on July 5th.

O’Ward and Lundgaard _ a two-time winner this season as a lame duck _ gave Arrow McLaren its first 1-2 finish in the series and immediately returned the media spotlight on the popular Pato. O’Ward had not registered a top-three finish this season through 10 events, despite being fifth in the championship standings. Pato’s best results had been three fourth-place and three fifth-place finishes…amid a rising drum beat of social media noise.

“Being the quarterback of my little No. 5 car team, I to try and lead and to try and really maximize what our potential can be,” said O’Ward, a 27-year-old native of Mexico with family ties to San Antonio, Texas. “You know, I feel like…I don’t really get rattled. I know a lot of people _ and there’s been so much noise _ people writing me off already. But the people that actually watch and actually know what they’re watching, they truly know what’s going on and they really do see that a lot of the times it can be something that’s out of your control.

“Honestly, this year there’s been quite a bit of that. That’s the nature of this sport. It’s not going to be the last time, and it’s not going to be the first time. I’ve had plenty of years here where they’ve been up and down, up and down. But the most important part was everybody was writing me off, ‘Oh, what a horrible year.’ I’m still fifth in the championship and this is my first podium. Rack up two or three more, and I’m fighting for the championship. I still am.”

Lundgaard and O’Ward started the 90-lap/203.22-mile race on Mid-Ohio’s 2.258-mile/13-turn natural terrain layout on the front row, and they effectively held their positions throughout a caution-free race except when they pitted. But on Lap 42, O’Ward capitalized on Lundgaard’s wide exit off Turn 2, swiping the lead and holding it the rest of the way.

“I mean, I think the team gives us all the tools the best they can,” said O’Ward, brushing off the notion he receives preferential treatment from Team Principal Tony Kanaan. “I wouldn’t put myself as I get the best of everything. I truly feel like we’re all very equal, and we all have as good of a shot as anybody else.

“I keep working hard. I obviously enjoy my life outside of racing, as well, which is very important. And along with that, you’ve got to enjoy it with your guys. You have to. You never know when it’s your last time, your last win together. You never know. It’s so important to do that because that’s truly why we do this. We do this to win and to compete, but we also do this…what makes it so much sweeter is actually the people that we get to share it with after making these strong relationships within the team.

“For me, obviously (McLaren) papaya (orange) is a second family, and they will remain to be. I always try and give the best I’ve got. There’s not once where Tony has come to me and he’s like, ‘I need you to try harder’ because I know he knows exactly how much I expect from myself and how perfect I want to be. That’s how I do everything _ jobs, investments. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. That is what you want to do.”

O’Ward led a race-high 45 laps in his signature No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet en route to his second win at Mid-Ohio and first in the series since the Toronto street race last summer.

“It’s great. It’s great that the first podium of the year for me is a win,” O’Ward said. “We’ve had performances, and I think this was a textbook showing of execution. I want to give it to my guys in the pits; they were phenomenal. I know they’ve been working so hard because this year that has been a bit of a challenge, and I know they’re working so hard to give me the pit stops that they gave me.

“I really want to recognize that because they make or break my race. They truly allowed me to fight my way and keep my position as we were fighting on track.”

O’Ward’s race craft was at its best during a calculating pursuit of Lundgaard that led to the winning pass. Lundgaard drifted a bit wide on the exit of Turn 2, allowing O’Ward to size him up and get a better run down the long straightaway that serves as the race’s starting point. By the time they arrived at the tricky, right-turning fourth corner, the cars were side-by-side with O’Ward on the outside. They touched at least twice at corner-exit. O’Ward had the preferred line into Turn 5 _ and used it.

By the time the Arrow McLaren pair charged into Thunder Valley, O’Ward had the lead. Later, Pato used a key pass of series rookie Dennis Hauger of Australia to create additional separation leading into the final pit stop. O’Ward stayed out as Lundgaard, along with two other challengers, pitted. Pato then ran two laps longer to pad his lead.

O’Ward’s winning margin of 0.9877-seconds secured his second Mid-Ohio victory in the past three years. Pato’s 10 career victories are almost divided equally by circuit _ four on ovals, three on street circuits and three on road-courses.

“Yeah, like I said, the pace has been so close between Christian and I,” O’Ward said of Lundgaard, a 24-year-old native of Denmark and driver of the No.7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. “We’ve basically matched each other every single session. It’s been the weekend that obviously the team wants to have every single weekend.

“I was positioning myself to pounce on an opportunity whenever he would make a mistake, so I was banking on that he was going to make one, and he did. That’s what ultimately gave me the opportunity, and I took full advantage of it. It’s always more fun to do it on track over a pit stop sequence or something.”

O’Ward said he trusted that second-year teammate Lundgaard _ who is destined for free-agency at season’s end _ would race him cleanly.

“You can really tell who you can race side-by-side with or who’s going to tell you, ‘No thanks,’^” O’Ward said. “Obviously, Christian is one of the best in the series. Like obviously (Alex) Palou is not an Arrow McLaren driver but I think if I was in that situation with him, he would also respect me like that. I think you can say that about a lot of other guys, like (David) Malukas. I don’t think it really makes a difference.

“But for the team’s instance, we obviously don’t want to take both cars out. We knew that we were going to race hard, and it was either his or mine. I ran a cleaner race.”

O’Ward reiterated he was not worried about his lengthy winless/podium streak.  “I’ve been in this business for a long time,” O’Ward said. “I know there’s plenty of other guys that have had many more years than I have, but I’ve got plenty under my belt to understand how things flow. The bad luck doesn’t last forever, but the good luck also doesn’t.

“Today was a simple showing of execution, and even coming off of Road America, I had so much pace. I’ve had so much pace in the last two road-courses. Sadly, Road America we weren’t even able to fight because we got hosed by a yellow. But this weekend it was an all-green race. Physical _ oh, my God _ really physical. Really hot in there. But that’s why we train so hard in the offseason.

“Yeah, honestly, that’s it for me. I knew my win was coming. Whether it was going to be in the last couple races or in the middle, I don’t know. But obviously I made it happen.

“The reality is I’ve really strived for perfection from my side every single race weekend. I don’t want to make mistakes. I want to be clean. I want to be smart. I want to put the car and pick my battles and I really feel like I’m driving better than ever. I don’t think the results this year have really shown how I feel inside of the race car because one thing or another.

“But the most important thing in this business is you need to be comfortable and confident of what you can do and about what you can control. Sometimes you can’t control everything. Sometimes you will do everything perfectly and things won’t work out. I don’t think it’s a reason to lose motivation, lose hunger. I know it was just a matter of time for things to kind of click, or at least not go against us.

“Obviously, it’s sometimes on the extremes. You might have horrible luck or you might have insane luck. We haven’t had that insane luck yet, so maybe we do, and it would be nice to keep racking up some more. But yeah, it’s just great to get this first win of the season for me.”

O’Ward was informed that he is 94 points behind Palou _ the four-time/reigning series champion from Chip Ganassi Racing _ with seven races remaining. Is catching the mercurial Spaniard realistic?

“Yeah, obviously it’s do-able,” O’Ward said. “I think at this point last year I was somewhere there, as well, and if it’s not first in the championship, a repeat of a second would be great. It’s not the end of the world. We’re obviously still working hard. We’re still getting better.

“When you see the two biggest goals that any race team in INDYCAR has _ it’s winning the Indy 500 and winning the INDYCAR championship _ we’ve been very close on both. We’re going to keep working hard.”

The series will return to left-turns-only in Lebanon, Tenn., on Sunday, July 19. The 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway tri-oval will play host to the 400-mile Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at 5:30 p.m. (EDT), immediately following the World Cup Final match on FOX.

Rookie Enzo Fittipaldi completed a flawless weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on July 5th, leading every lap for the second straight race to sweep the INDY NXT by Firestone double-header.

Fittipaldi crossed the finish line a massive 12.7469-seconds ahead of HMD Motorsports teammate Jack Beeton to earn his fourth career series victory and second in as many days. Fittipaldi’s victory margin was the second-largest in INDY NXT history at Mid-Ohio, trailing only Jack Harvey’s 17.3403-second victory in Race 1 of the 2014 double-header.

Driving the No. 67 HMD Motorsports entry, Fittipaldi was untouchable all weekend. The Miami resident topped Friday’s practice, earned both poles _ including a track-record lap Saturday _ led all 65 laps across the two races and also posted the fastest lap in each event.

“I’m just so happy,” said Fittipaldi, the 24-year-old grandson of two-time Formula One World Driving Champion, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and 1989 INDYCAR champion Emerson Fittipaldi of Brazil. “What a weekend, absolute domination from all of HMD. It’s crazy. First practice, double-pole and double victories, so it can’t get any better than this.”

SEE: Race 2 Results

Series rookie Beeton of Australia finished a career-best second in the No. 45 HMD Motorsports entry, improving on Saturday’s third-place finish. Nikita Johnson finished third in the No. 21 Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR entry, preventing HMD Motorsports from sweeping the podium for a second consecutive day.

After HMD Motorsports claimed the top four finishing positions Saturday, Johnson charged from fifth on the grid to third after finishing seventh in Race 1.

J.M. Correa climbed from ninth to finish fourth in the No. 68 Cusick Morgan Motorsports entry, while Tymek Kucharczyk of Poland completed the top-five in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports car in the caution-free race. Correa now has three top-seven finishes in the last four races, with the lone exception coming after contact with the Turn 12 tire barrier on Lap 21 of Saturday’s race.

Beeton moved into second on Lap 2 after rookie Alessandro de Tullio of A.J. Foyt Racing attempted to pass Fittipaldi around the outside of Turn 4. De Tullio ran off-course at corner-exit, rejoined in eighth and recovered to sixth before slipping back to eighth at the finish.

Fittipaldi became the sixth driver to sweep an INDY NXT weekend at Mid-Ohio, joining Great Britain’s Harvey (2014), Santiago Urrutia of Uruguay (2016), Pato O’Ward of Mexico (2018), Oliver Askew (2019) and Kyle Kirkwood (2021).

The dominant performance also vaulted Fittipaldi from third in the championship standings, 27 points behind entering the weekend, to a 17-point lead over Kucharczyk. Johnson sits third, 20 points behind.

“Just all race managing the tires,” Fittipaldi said. “I’m always good at long-distance races and managing tires. It’s kind of my specialty. I use my tools to my advantage, so a lot of work with the brake bias and the bars every lap, every corner, just keeping the car where I wanted it to be.

“Obviously the car was very fast today. I think it was a combination of many things and our pace was rapid. I did a 1:09.9 (lap), which was only about five-tenths off my qualifying lap. I don’t know how many miles were on the tires, so I was quite happy with that.”

The series will return on Sunday, July 19, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. Coverage will begin at 1 p.m. (EDT) on FS1, FOX One and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls.

NTT IndyCar Series Point Standings _ 1, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing, 404; 2, Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Global, 348; 3, Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren, 339; 4, David Malukas, Team Penske, 338; 5, Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren, 310; 6, Josef Newgarden, Team Penske, 270; 7, Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing, 265; 8, Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, 262; 9, Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, 224; 10, Marcus Ericsson, Andretti Global, 222; 

11, Rinus VeeKay, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 219; 12, Marcus Armstrong, Meyer Shank Racing, 219; 13, Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 218; 14, Will Power, Andretti Global, 209; 15, Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing, 194; 16, Alexander Rossi, Ed Carpenter Racing, 190; 17, Santino Ferrucci, A.J. Foyt Racing, 179; 18, Louis Foster, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 159; 19, Dennis Hauger, Dale Coyne Racing, 148; 20, Nolan Siegel, Arrow McLaren, 145;

21, Christian Rasmussen, Ed Carpenter Racing, 143; 22, Romain Grosjean, Dale Coyne Racing, 143; 23, Caio Collet, A.J. Foyt Racing, 132; 24, Sting Ray Robb, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 108; 25, Mick Schumacher, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 108; 26, Derek Daly, Dryer & Reinbold Racing, 24; 27, Takuma Sato, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 20; 28, Jack Harvey, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, 8; 29, Jacob Abel, Abel Motorsports, 6; 30, Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian, 5;

31, Ed Carpenter, Ed Carpenter Racing, 5; 32, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Arrow McLaren, 5; 33, Katherine Legge, HMD Motorsports with A.J. Foyt Racing, 5.

FOX SPORTS’ 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES BROADCAST SCHEDULE/(RACE WINNER)

Note _ All times Eastern

Sunday, March 1 _ Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)

Saturday, March 7 _ Phoenix Raceway, Avondale, Ariz., (Josef Newgarden, Team Penske)

Sunday, March 15 _ Streets of Arlington, Texas, (Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Global)

Sunday, March 29 _ Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Ala., (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)

Sunday, April 19 _ Streets of Long Beach, Calif., (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)

Saturday, May 9 _ Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road-Course, (Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren)

Sunday, May 24 _ 110^th Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval, (Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian)

Sunday, May 31 _ Streets of Downtown Detroit, (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)

Sunday, June 7 _ World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill., (Josef Newgarden, Team Penske)

Sunday, June 21 _ Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wis., 2 p.m., (Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren)

Sunday, July 5 _ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, (Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren)

Sunday, July 19 _ Nashville Superspeedway, Lebanon, Tenn., TBA

Sunday, Aug. 9 _ Portland (Ore.) International Raceway, 4 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 16 _ Streets of Markham, Canada, Noon

Sunday, Aug. 23 _ Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C., TBA

Saturday, Aug. 29 _ The Milwaukee Mile Race 1, West Allis, Wis., 2:30 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 30 _ The Milwaukee Mile Race 2, West Allis, Wis., 1 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 6 _ WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, Calif., 2:30 p.m.

Note _ Dates and times subject to change.

2026 INDYCAR NXT BY FIRESTONE SCHEDULE/(RACE-WINNER)

Sunday, March 1 _ Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., (Nikita Johnson, Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR)

Sunday, March 15 _ Streets of Arlington, Texas, (Max Taylor, Andretti Global)

Saturday, March 28 _ Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Ala., (Nikita Johnson, Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR)

Sunday, March 29 _ Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Ala., (Alessandro de Tullio, A.J. Foyt Racing)

Friday, May 8 _ Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road-Course Race 1, (Enzo Fittipaldi, HMD Motorsports)

Saturday, May 9 _ Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road-Course Race 2, (Tymek Kucharczyk, HMD Motorsports)

Sunday, May 31 _ Streets of Downtown Detroit, (Enzo Fittipaldi, HMD Motorsports)

Sunday, June 7 _ World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill., (Myles Rowe, Abel Motorsports)

Saturday, June 20 _ Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wis., Race 1, (Lochie Hughes, Andretti Global)

Sunday, June 21 _ Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wis., Race 2, (Matteo Nannini, Cape Motorsports powered by ECR)                                                                             

Saturday, July 4 _ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, Ohio, Race 1 (Enzo Fittipaldi, HMD Motorsports)

Sunday, July 5 _ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, Ohio, Race 2 (Enzo Fittipaldi, HMD Motorsports)

Sunday, July 19 _ Nashville Superspeedway, Lebanon, Tenn.

Sunday, Aug. 9 _ Portland (Ore.) International Raceway

Sunday, Aug. 30 _ The Milwaukee Mile, West Allis, Wis.

Saturday, Sept. 5 _ Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, Calif., Race 1

Sunday, Sept. 6 _ Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, Calif., Race 2