When Pato O'Ward opened up on his F1 'dream come true'

Pato O'Ward drove McLaren's F1 challenger in the Mexican Grand Prix Free Practice 1 session in 2024. Hailing from the same country, it was a special moment for him, and back then, he even deemed it a 'dream come true.'

The Mexican was tasked with the responsibility of driving Lando Norris' challenger in the Free Practice 1 session, alongside Oscar Piastri (full-time race driver). O'Ward was able to keep his car in one piece at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez Racing circuit to secure a decent P13 finish in the session.

After his memorable one-hour run in front of his home crowd, he expressed his feelings via a post-session interaction (Planet F1) and said the following:

"I would have loved to have some more chance, maybe on the hard to prepare for the soft. I can feel pretty pleased with with what I got out for myself, and with all the information that I was able to gather for the team, because they’re obviously in a pretty important title fight, and I’m obviously here to to make sure and to help that that they stay where they are. But it was a dream come true."

Pato O'Ward is also set to make an appearance in the 2025 Mexican Grand Prix Free Practice 1 session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez Racing circuit. This was made known in May by the McLaren Formula 1 team principal, Andrea Stella.

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Pato O'Ward lacked 'performance' in IndyCar's 2025 Monterey race

Pato O'Ward has been in strong form in the ongoing 2025 IndyCar season. After the first 14 rounds, he is currently in second place in the standings with 469 points. He had a golden chance of securing a victory in last week's Java House Grand Prix of Monterey, starting from P2, but ultimately, he ended his Grand Prix outing out of the podium places in P4.

After the end of the race, O'Ward understandably cut a frustrated figure. Via a post-race interaction with Arrow McLaren, he said:

"I just didn't feel like I had the performance today. There were cars giving me a lot of pressure from behind. It felt like we extracted the most out of what we had. Congrats to Christian on the podium, and I'm happy for Arrow McLaren with our most podiums we've ever had in a season. There are still three races to go. We're going to keep pushing, but the 10 car just keeps winning."

Pato O'Ward has an extremely small chance at winning the 2025 IndyCar championship against Alex Palou with only three races left. The latter has a lead of 121 points over O'Ward and is on 590 points. Next up on the race calendar is the Brintile.com Grand Prix of Portland.