“They’re not friends”: Tony Kanaan drops bombshell revelation on Pato O'Ward’s dynamic with McLaren teammates

The Arrow McLaren IndyCar team is running a driver line-up of Pato O'Ward, Nolan Siegel, and Christian Lundgaard in the 2025 season. In line with this, team principal Tony Kanaan has dropped a major update.

Ahead of the 2025 Detroit Grand Prix, Kanaan, via an interaction with IndyCar on FOX, made it known that O'Ward and his teammates are not friends.

"Their vibe, they are not friends, which is fine, I mean Christian wants to beat Pato; it's Pato's team, quote unquote. They are extremely respectful, Nolan is a rookie so he is there like trying to learn as much as he can, but between Pato and Christian, it is very healthy and productive for the team. Are they friends like I was with Dario or Dixon? No," Kanaan said (0:10 onwards).

In the ongoing 2025 IndyCar season, Pato O'Ward is currently the lead driver of the team in the drivers' standings. He is in second place with 194 points, whereas Christian Lundgaard is in third with 181.

Arrow McLaren youngster Nolan Siegel, on his end, is way down in P19 with 82 points.

Pato O'Ward's take on his P18 starting position for Detroit GP

Pato O'Ward has so far had a pretty up-and-down 2025 season of America's highest class of open-wheel racing. He has found it difficult to come up with consistent results, be it in qualifying or the main Grand Prix.

As a consequence, he is way behind in the drivers' standings in comparison to the leader, Alex Palou. The Chip Ganassi driver is sitting pretty at the top with an impressive 306 points in comparison to O'Ward's 191.

While the Arrow McLaren driver did manage a third-place finish in last week's Indy 500 (May 25), he had a horrendous qualifying session for the Detroit Grand Prix (P18).

In line with his shocker of an outing around the street track, he added the following:

"It's been a really difficult and challenging weekend. We'll just have to see what tomorrow could bring," O'Ward said via Arrow McLaren.

Pato O'Ward has been competing in the IndyCar series since the 2018 Grand Prix of Sonoma. He has come close to winning the drivers' title on a few occasions, but has yet to finally do so.

In last year's 17-race campaign, the 26-year-old was able to put on board 460 points in the standings that proved good enough for a P5 finish. In the process of doing so, he secured three wins and six top-five finishes.

Keeping in view that he is currently in second place in the 2025 drivers' standings, it will be fascinating to see whether he can hold onto it until the end of the campaign. In relation to this, the 2025 Detroit Grand Prix holds tremendous significance for him.