O'Ward calls his McLaren a "missile" after superb recovery in Mid-Ohio

Pato O'Ward seemed to be more than happy with his result at the Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio after driving a mega race from 14th on the grid to fifth, making up nine places.

The Arrow McLaren driver had a poor qualifying session on the Saturday after missing out on round two which put him on the back foot for the race.

The slowest Arrow McLaren driver in qualifying, both his teammates put in stellar times to start at the very front of the grid.

This included Nolan Siegel who achieved his best-ever qualifying position in fourth.

On Saturday, he said: “'I’m happy. I think we could have given Christian a run for the front row on new reds so that would have been fun.

But [for] now [I’m] really happy to be starting fourth, best Indy car starting position, and nice to be in the Fast Six again.

“We've had a rough few weekends and things are really turning around. The group's doing a great job. Got some new faces on the number six NTT Data Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. It's all working well.”

Christian Lundgaard put his car in second for the race start.

The 2024 race winner, O'Ward would need to put in a shift to get near his teammates or the podium and, thankfully, that's exactly what the Mexican did on Sunday moving up the grid thanks to good strategy.

Making three stops overall, O'Ward was able to finish fifth overall in the race and ahead of Siegel who finished 11th.

Lundgaard remained just out of reach with a third place finish but O'Ward still seemed chuffed with his result;

On Instagram following the race, O'Ward wrote: "Knew I had a missile to fight with. Made my strategy work. Fought from 15th to finish 5th."

The caption came with a collection of two photos and a video of O'Ward wearing a cloth on his head looking very sweaty while drinking water.

The Mid-Ohio race was held under very hot temperatures of around 32 degrees. Alongside O'Ward, Christian Lundgaard also seemed to suffer from the heat post-race which he explained was because he didn't wear a cool vest or even carry water in the car.

Sat on the pitall, Lundgaard shared: "I don't drive with a cool suit. I don't drive with a drink bottle. So I need a lot before and I need a lot now."