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For the second time in less than two weeks, I have had a nice topic in mind to write about, only to have it blown up by some major IndyCar news. The topic originally planned for today will now be shifted to Wednesday, since I feel compelled to share my thoughts on the news that McLaren is coming to the NTT IndyCar Series full-time in 2020.

Unless you’ve been stranded on another planet that had no internet access for the past few days, you know that the official announcement came down early Friday morning. I was backing out of my driveway on my way to work when I saw it on my phone. All I knew was that it was official that McLaren would partner with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Because I don’t like the idea of reading articles while driving down the interstate, I called my friend Paul Dalbey (Fieldof33.com) and he filled me in on the particulars.

The new alliance will officially be known as Arrow McLaren Racing SP, which I’m sure will quickly morph into being referred to in everyday conversations as simply “McLaren”. I’m not sure if this is an alliance, a partnership, a merger or a takeover. Being cynical as I can sometimes be – it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if five years from now, if it was simply called McLaren and Sam Schmidt may go the way that Sarah Fisher and Wink Hartman did when they merged their team with Ed Carpenter to become CHF Racing. It didn’t take long for the team to go back to being called Ed Carpenter Racing.

My first question to Paul on the phone was how they resolved the differences between Honda and McLaren, since Arrow SPM was a longtime Honda team. His answer was simple…they didn’t. Honda would be releasing Arrow SPM from the one year remaining on the contract, and they will become a Chevy team. My next question was “What about Hinch?” That’s where things get really murky.

If you’ve watched IndyCar races live on NBCSN without blipping through the commercials on a DVR, you’ve undoubtedly seen James Hinchcliffe doing Honda commercials. Last week, the Honda I drive needed maintenance. When I walked into the dealership, I saw a stand-up cutout of Hinchcliffe and several pictures of him and/or his Indy car in different promotional displays. James Hinchcliffe has deep ties to Honda and I’m not sure that driving a Chevy-powered car for Arrow McLaren Racing SP is in his immediate future.

By this time, I had arrived at work and was about to tear into the e-mails and news stories before my work-day started. It’s a good thing I was early to work on Friday. The cynic in me began to wonder why everyone was excited about two teams that had missed the last two Indianapolis 500s getting together. But what do I know?

Early on, I thought Jim Ayello with The Indianapolis Star had the best take. He said (paraphrasing) that Friday was a good day for IndyCar, but the way it happened stinks.

Just last week, I wrote about this potential partnership and how Honda was adamant that they would not ever work with McLaren again, after the nastiness of their Formula One divorce a few years ago. I mistakenly predicted that Honda would eventually forgive and forget and mend their relationship – as happens many times in racing. But I underestimated the will of the Japanese culture. Apparently, Honda of Japan holds a grudge longer than Honda Performance Development of Santa Clarita, California – who designs and builds the Honda IndyCar engines.

The mandate from Honda Motor Company, Ltd. was clear – no Honda team in any racing series will ever work with McLaren. Michael Andretti tried his best for the better part of two years to repair the severed relationship between McLaren, who partnered with Andretti Autosport for the 2017 Indianapolis 500, and Honda, who supplies engines to Michael Andretti’s team. Honda would have none of it – but Sam Schmidt would.

Schmidt chose to ignore the edict from Honda and forged a partnership with McLaren, even though he and his Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team had a year remaining on their current contract with Honda. Sam Schmidt and his team have had a longstanding relationship with Honda. According to Trackside Online, the last time a Schmidt car had any other type of engine in an IndyCar race was when Richie Hearn drove a one-off Chevy-powered Schmidt entry in the 2005 Indianapolis 500. If you count the current relationship with Meyer-Shank Racing, Honda and Sam Schmidt’s team will have had over three-hundred consecutive IndyCar starts by the end of this season. That will come to an end next month at Laguna Seca.

By choosing to ignore Honda’s wishes, Schmidt backed Honda into a corner. He would either be calling their bluff and force Honda to work with a team they completely despised; or they would force Honda to terminate their existing contract one year early. Honda chose the latter option.

Sam Schmidt has always been justifiably praised for overcoming life-threatening injuries suffered in a crash while testing on January 6, 2000 at Walt Disney World Speedway, that left him a quadriplegic. He has worked tirelessly for his Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation to help find a cure for paralysis. It is both fortunate and ironic that Robert Wickens was driving for Schmidt when he suffered his own paralysis in a crash at Pocono one year ago this coming weekend. Wickens has been the beneficiary of having a car owner with the same experience, and a sponsor like Arrow; who is a pioneer in several technologies to aid those with similar injuries.

But with all the goodwill that Sam Schmidt has brought to the table in this area; for years I’ve heard whispers about how Schmidt is not someone to do business with. Rumors have persisted that he can be ruthless and cutthroat in business dealings with drivers, sponsors and suppliers. Reading between the lines of all the news that has broken on this story since Friday morning – it certainly sounds like those adjectives describing Schmidt could be applied here.

From where I sit on the outside, it certainly looks like Schmidt didn’t care about his relationship with Honda. If he wanted to sever that longtime partnership between his team and Honda, that’s his prerogative. But there are others involved.

I’ve mentioned James Hinchcliffe and his own personal relationship with Honda. In a news conference Friday morning, Jenna Fryer of the Associated Press asked McLaren CEO Zak Brown if he expected James Hinchcliffe to drive for the new team next season. His answer was one syllable – Yes.

He did elaborate later saying that Hinch is still under contract through 2020 and would be very happy to have Hinchcliffe continue driving for them.

You know that Hinchcliffe has known about this for a while. Late in the morning on Friday, he released the following statement on social media.

Different people had different reactions to Hinch’s statement. Some said it sure sounded like he was staying at Arrow McLaren Racing SP. Personally, I think it was a carefully crafted statement drawn up by lawyers and approved by both sides. My opinion is that James Hinchcliffe will be driving a Honda-powered car somewhere else in 2020. I could be wrong, but that is my take.

When I have said that to others, the last sentence in the statement was pointed out to me, where he says he looks forward to rekindling his relationship with General Motors in 2020. Although Honda is being publicly classy in saying how they are sorry to end their relationship with Schmidt; I hear that privately, they are furious at how this all transpired. My personal opinion is that Honda will move mountains to pry Hinchcliffe from this deal.

Where would he go? I don’t know. Colton Herta is most likely going to a fifth Andretti car, probably with some backing from George Steinbrenner IV. I don’t think Andretti could jump to six full-time cars. Would McLaren go after Scott Dixon again, making room for Hinchcliffe at Ganassi? It’s possible, but I don’t see that happening. If Dixon was twenty-nine instead of thirty-nine, I could see it. At this point in his career, I think Dixon is set at Ganassi. But…he does have a third child on the way, and money does talk.

Some have suggested he could land at a third car at Rahal, while others have suggested a third car at Coyne or booting Ferucci out of the second seat at Coyne. I don’t see a third Ganassi car for Hinchcliffe. What about Harding? If Steinbrenner moves to Andretti with Herta, does Harding Racing cease to exist? Right now there are more questions than answers.

And then there is this. Meyer Shank Racing is expanding to full-time status in 2020. For the past two seasons, they have had a technical alliance with Sam Schmidt’s team. Michael Shank has close ties to Honda and runs the Acura brand in his sports car program. All signs point to him staying with Honda.

I had always heard that by the time Meyer Shank Racing went full-time, that they wanted to be a stand-alone team. However, Friday’s news has people speculating that they may form a technical alliance with Rahal, while others say they may partner with Andretti. Regardless of where they go, or if they are a stand-alone team – would Meyer Shank Racing be in a position to run two cars for Hinchcliffe and Jack Harvey with strong backing from Honda? Who knows? Again – there are more questions than answers at this point.

Lost in all of this is the future of Arrow SPM driver Marcus Ericsson. Although he has had some decent runs in the latter part of the season, I don’t think any of this is good new for him. Unfortunately for Ericsson, I think when the music stops for filling seats for the 2020 NTT IndyCar Series – he will be the one left standing without a chair.

When Alexander Rossi resigned with Andretti Autosport a couple of weeks ago, we thought that put an end to any potentially major moves among teams. We were wrong. Let the dominos fall! Its going to be a fun offseason to watch.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 12, 2019 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.