Indy 500: Another battle of IndyCar Series team owners is brewing

INDIANAPOLIS – Zak Brown swooped into Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon and stole the show.

Well, scratch that, as Brown would make a point to correct me. "I don't think people steal things. I think people lose things," the McLaren Racing CEO said Friday morning minutes ahead of Carb Day action ahead of Sunday's Indianapolis 500.

Thursday, it was rolling up to St. Elmo Steak House in downtown Indianapolis with his drivers in tow, all sporting their "daily drivers" for the month – custom-painted McLaren road cars they were loaned for May. Those cars match their 500 car liveries that pay homage to the team's Indy 500, Le Mans and Monaco victories of years ago.

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Not to be left out, Brown made sure to secure a bright-orange papaya car for the weekend that was parked a block away. Young star driver Pato O'Ward, to his choice, hopped into his own bright blue personal McLaren he landed in his latest contract negotiation with Brown.

And Friday? It was sitting at the podium in the IMS media center, taking opportunity he could to needle his arch-nemesis in the paddock. Chip Ganassi has been Brown's foil in recent battles for high-profile drivers, sponsors and team bosses.

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The morning press conference, whether purposefully or coincidentally, was scheduled for 15 minutes before Ganassi's annual "Chip on the Bricks" media scrum that traditionally starts 30 minutes before the start of Carb Day practice. Brown's took place a stone's throw away, and it ran long.

"It does create a scene when you've got four McLarens sitting outside a restaurant in a pretty cool livery, but I think it's fun when people come out of the restaurant, and you've got a lot of people standing around, waiting to see the drivers and get pictures with them," Brown said. "I think that's what it's all about."

Brown says his team's recent IndyCar results couldn't be much better – outside of not finding Victory Lane this year, of course. That could change with four cars that start Sunday's 500 inside the top-9. Commercially, the McLaren Racing CEO said the team has been buoyed by the attention the team has a knack for making whether on track and off.

"I'm very happy with where we are. We have a great team, great drivers, great leadership. Team looks good, and everyone's noticing us. Now, I just want to win races, championships and the 500," he said. "We are considering adding a fourth (full-time) car. We're having a lot of commercial success and finding IndyCar very popular, and we have the demand where we could put a fourth car out and have the economics for that.

"It's just a function of whether that's biting off more than we can chew."

As Brown went onto explain, Arrow McLaren's current home on the north side of Indianapolis, what used to be the HQ of Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson, was originally built for a two-car program. As they stand now, Arrow McLaren has three full-time cars, as well as a fourth in the 500 – which they've already secured for 2024 with NASCAR Cup champ Kyle Larson. Brown says he and the IndyCar program's management team will decide by July whether there's enough space to add an additional full-time program and the likely 30-40 additional employees to run it. They added a third full-time car with Alexander Rossi this year.

"We're already stretched at three now, and we've had to do things like outsource our gym, our paint shop, our storage," Brown said. "It's not set up logistically to run four cars full-time, so I think that's our biggest challenge."

Another Zak Brown vs. Chip Ganassi driver battle brewing?

Should McLaren keep growing before they move into their new shop in 2025, Brown says there's one driver he has his sights set on, from a team he would say that nearly "lost" another top talent a year ago. Marcus Ericsson, Brown said, is the "top free agent" on the market, should Ganassi fail to come to terms with the 2022 Indy 500 winner. The team's exclusive negotiating window with the Swedish driver ends in August.

"I'm a little surprised, given how strong things are commercially (in this sport), in reading the quotes that his current team doesn't have the commercial confidence that they can sell an Indy 500 winner and a championship contender and sign him up," Brown said, referencing Ericsson and Ganassi's ongoing contractual standoff. "I understand they probably have a little bit of time, and I'm sure they're working at it, but I wouldn't let him go if he was driving for me.

"I would have the commercial confidence I could get the sponsorship, but that's not my issue. If he does become a free agent, and we run a fourth car, he would definitely be heavily under consideration."

At the moment, both O'Ward and Rossi are secured at Arrow McLaren under multi-year deals, with Rosenqvist only tied down for the rest of the 2023 season after Brown executed the team's option on the Swedish driver to keep him around for this season. Brown's attempt to land 2021 IndyCar champ Alex Palou last summer was returned with a federal lawsuit from Ganassi directed at Palou for breach of contract. In mediation late in the summer, the sides agreed for Palou to return to his No. 10 CGR ride for 2023, and it's widely presumed in the paddock he'll land at Arrow McLaren once the IndyCar season ends, alongside his test and reserve driver responsibilities he already holds for the McLaren F1 team.

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So, it puts Rosenqvist's future at the team in serious jeopardy, unless Brown finds a way to add a fourth full-time car, and even then, he may get jumped in line by his countryman – should Ericsson not come to terms with Ganassi, Mike Hull, Taylor Kiel and company. It's also understood Andretti Autosport would pursue Ericsson if he comes on the market, as a possible replacement for Devlin DeFrancesco, whose introductory two-year deal ends after this season.

"I've noticed my phone has been quite busy the last few months. Teams are pretty interested in my future, and that's a new thing for me," Ericsson told reporters last week. "I'm allowed to listen to what (other teams) are saying, but talk? Not so much.

"It would be nice to have things worked out already (with Ganassi for the future), but that's obviously not the case. I have to focus on delivering on the track, and I feel like I had a strong enough start to the year that that should hopefully help my case. I'm not stressed about it. I feel like there's a lot of teams interested, and if Chip isn't, I'm not stressed."

Ericsson's contract standoff with Ganassi

Ericsson is understood to make the similar "couple-hundred-thousand-dollar" salary that upset Palou's camp when Ganassi refused to give him a significant raise following his championship season in his first year with Ganassi. His management team then found interest from Brown and McLaren and believed they could jump ship at the end of 2022. Ganassi, when the sides couldn't come to terms, pulled out what he believed would be a trump card in his "team option" on Palou's 2023 season well before the former champ was allowed to legally sign elsewhere.

The evening of Ganassi announcing Palou's option being picked up last July, the driver tweeted that the quotes attributed to him in that release had not come from him and that he had no plans to drive for Ganassi in 2023. Mediation ultimately proved otherwise.

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The frustration emanating out of Ericsson's camp stems from the insistence from Ganassi that backing must continue to come from Swedish billionaire Finn Rausing. (Rausing spearheads Ericsson's backers that have supported him for a decade or more and helped get him to Formula 1.) Virtually all of the top talents in the series – including all of Team Penske's drivers, the three most competitive ones at Andretti and both Scott Dixon and Palou – are not hired because of their ability to foot the bill for the ride. Ericsson believes his talent alone should warrant a ride at a team where he helped snap a decade-long dry-spell in the 500 and where he's won four times in the last two calendar years.

A raise above the $1 million range that virtually all the series' true title contenders make, up from a $200,000 range, would also likely help lock up Ericsson for the long-term, though he hasn't voiced concerns about anything beyond the continued reliance on his backers to prop up the No. 8 car.

It would also seem turn-key for Ganassi to, should he be losing Palou, to slide Ericsson into the fully-funded No. 10 car and look for a solid, funded driver to put into the No. 8. But as is often the case in this sport, it often seems tough for owners to relinquish the locked-in funding they once had been promised.

Notably, CGR has seen a shake-up in its marketing department in recent months, with president of business operations John Bitsoff now set to focus solely on sales and sponsorship. Kiel, the new IndyCar team manager, has added partnership marketing, hospitality and the social media and PR teams to his responsibilities.

'It's called racing'

And Ganassi would not be pressed in multiple interviews to go into detail about how all this plays into locking down Ericsson for the long term. His exchange became testy with reporters at times ahead of qualifying weekend, saying after he was asked what it would take to sign Ericsson ("We just need to finalize some sponsorship") and whether the sides were close ("I think we are, yeah"):

"Here's what we're doing today: We're focusing on today right now. OK? I'm not here to talk about my drivers and their contracts. I'm here to talk about Fast Friday and qualifying. Marcus is a valued (team member) and I want them all here today, I want them here tomorrow, I want them here next week, I want them here next year."

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On Carb Day, when asked about Brown's name-drop of Ericsson and the accusation that CGR couldn't manage to find the funding to hold onto the current points leader, Ganassi retorted:

"I focus on the results around here. I focus on our team. Contracts and things will take care of themselves. It's not on my radar screen. I've said all I want about our drivers. I don't get it. My focus is on winning (the 500) right now, and I can't get that across to you guys enough. The things you want to talk about, whether gossipy or contracts, it's just not on my screen.

"We focus every day on our team and it's performance. That's what we're her to do. It's called racing. Some day, when you have your own team, you can focus on (contracts) as you wish."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy 500: Zak Brown, Chip Ganassi may battle for driver Marcus Ericsson