Patricio
O'Ward

Patricio O'Ward was born in Monterrey, Mexico, on 6 May 1999. He raced karts from the end of 2005 until 2012, then moved into single-seaters in 2013. That year he took part in Latam Formula 2000, Formula Renault 1.6 NEC and Pacific F2000. In 2014 he contested the French F4 Championship. He finished sixth in the 2015 Pro Mazda Championship with Team Pelfrey and was runner-up the following year. In 2017 he and his co-drivers won the Prototype Challenge class at both the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in the IMSA series. At 17, he was the youngest driver to win both races. He also took the class drivers' title alongside James French.

In 2018 O'Ward won the Indy Lights title for Andretti Autosport. He took nine of the seventeen races, was named Rookie of the Year and clinched the championship at the penultimate round in Portland, ahead of Colton Herta. Two weeks after securing the title he made his IndyCar debut for Harding Racing at Sonoma, qualifying fifth and finishing ninth. In 2019 he drove only part of the season for Carlin, failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 and recorded an eighth place at the Circuit of the Americas as his best result. He joined the Red Bull Junior Team in May 2019. He was due to step in for one Formula 2 weekend at the Red Bull Ring and drove three rounds of Super Formula before moving to Arrow McLaren SP.

For that team he took pole position and his first podium at Road America in 2020, and sixth place in the Indianapolis 500 earned him Rookie of the Year honours at the race. He finished fourth in the championship. In 2021 he won his first IndyCar race at Texas, the first Mexican winner since Adrian Fernández in 2004, added a victory at Detroit and ended the year third overall. In 2022 he won the LMP2 class of the 24 Hours of Daytona with DragonSpeed, won at Barber and Iowa and finished second at Indianapolis. He went winless in 2023 but ended the year fourth in the standings. In 2024 he won three races: St. Petersburg was awarded to him after Josef Newgarden lost the victory for a breach of the push-to-pass rules. Mid-Ohio and Milwaukee followed, and he was runner-up at Indianapolis again. In 2025 he won at Iowa and Toronto and finished third at the Indianapolis 500.

O'Ward did not start a Formula One world championship race. In November 2021 he gave a demonstration run in a McLaren MP4/13 at Laguna Seca, and in December he tested the MCL35M in Abu Dhabi, finishing fourth on the timesheet. He made his first free practice appearance for McLaren at the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. In 2023 he joined the McLaren Driver Development Programme and in 2024 he was one of the team's reserve drivers. At the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix he drove a free practice session in his home country for the first time and finished thirteenth. In 2025 McLaren ran him in free practice in Mexico City and Abu Dhabi, and he then took part in the young drivers' test at Abu Dhabi.

Source: Wikipedia, “Pato O'Ward”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.