IndyCar race winner Pato O’Ward has encouraged fellow McLaren pilot Daniel Ricciardo to try driving on ovals, despite his reservations.
Ricciardo will this weekend make his last Formula 1 start for the foreseeable future, having agreed to an early termination of his contract with McLaren Racing.
The Australian insists that he is not done with F1 yet, having been linked to Reserve roles which he hopes would enhance his prospects of a return to racing in the world championship in 2024, but has also not ruled out a future switch to North American motorsport.
What he has been “close to definitively saying no” to is the idea of racing on an oval, whether in IndyCar or NASCAR.
O’Ward, who finished second in this year’s Indianapolis 500 for McLaren SP and drove one of the papaya cars in Practice 1 at this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, says Ricciardo does not have as much to fear as he thinks.
Asked by Speedcafe.com if the eight-time grand prix winner had come to him for advice on IndyCar, the Mexican responded, “He has not.
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“I did see online that he didn’t want to do ovals, which I respect, but I think Daniel would love it; I really think he would fit right in.
“Does he want to do it? Does he not want to do it? I don’t know.
“The car is very different, I can tell you that. The way F1 is versus how IndyCar is, it’s very different.
“But, I think he would love it; he loves America, so I think I think Daniel would fit right in.
“The superspeedways are very quick – we all understand they are more dangerous, right? – but I think there’s a lot of kind of like trash talk about superspeedways and ovals in general, and it shouldn’t be that way.
“Because maybe on TV it’s hard to explain, but it is a very cool, very different type of racing, and once you do them a little bit more and you kind of start getting comfortable with it, you realise how special they are and what they’re all about.”
O’Ward suggested that the consequences of a crash on an oval were overhyped, at least relative to what could go wrong in a Formula 1 car.
“They are very penalising when you’re going at those speeds, right?” he admitted of oval crashes.
“But, as it is in an F1 car, I mean, if you have an accident over 200 miles an hour, I don’t think the consequences will be much less; you’re still traveling at such high speeds.”
Former Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean opted initially to not race on ovals when he moved to IndyCar but, after skipping Texas and the Indianapolis 500 in his first season in the category, he went full-time this year.
That was a point also made by O’Ward.
“I feel like before everybody kind of goes, ‘I don’t want to try ovals’ – kind of closed mind – try it,” he said.
“Try it, because it’s a very, very cool experience. It’s quick, it’s very fast, but I don’t think he’d [Ricciardo] have an issue with it.
“I think it’s just a different learning, it’s a different craft that you have to master which ultimately makes the championship even harder to win because you need to you need to craft three different disciplines – superspeedways and short ovals [and road courses/street circuits] – and superspeedway is completely different to a short oval.
“I think Romain can attest [to that]. I mean, he started off not really wanting to do [ovals] and then he kind of tried one and he’s like, ‘This is cool.’
“I think you learn how it is to drive in it and how to play around with the towing and everything, and you learn to love it.
“I think superspeedways and ovals are a very beautiful thing.”
The four-time IndyCar race winner, including once at Texas Motor Speedway, also had high praise for two of the Antipodeans already in the series, now two-time champion Will Power and his still relatively new Penske team-mate in Scott McLaughlin.
“In terms of Will Power, love the guy; extremely quick,” commented O’Ward.
“I mean, probably the one of the quickest drivers in the history of IndyCar and I love racing against him.
“In terms of Scotty Mac, I haven’t really had as much years of racing against him, but I think he’s been a great addition to the series.”
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