![\"Patricio](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/OWard-rounds-LB-fountain-turn-min.jpg\")
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This is big news for Patricio O\u2019Ward, the 2018 Indy Lights champion whose INDYCAR debut at last season\u2019s Sonoma Raceway series finale was so impressive it nearly eclipsed Scott Dixon\u2019s fifth series championship. He qualified fifth and finished ninth in that contest. Newly named to Red Bull\u2019s Junior Team, O\u2019Ward\u2019s future is a heck of a lot more secure than it has been in the last nine months.<\/p>\n
Mexican national O\u2019Ward won the 2018 Indy Lights title with Andretti Autosport, and as teammate to Colton Herta. The duo expected, after their initial run in Sonoma last September, to be teammates again with Harding Steinbrenner Racing, an outgrowth of Mike Harding\u2019s and George Henry Steinbrenner IV\u2019s collaboration.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Ward\u2019s financial backing wasn\u2019t enough to secure his ride with the team and he was released at the start of 2019. Haarding Steinbrenner became a single-car team – again – with Herta as their driver. The team also switched from being Chevrolet proponents to racing with Honda Performance Development power.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Ward\u2019s ostracism from the NTT IndyCar Series didn\u2019t last long as Trevor Carlin realized his value and hired Pato for 12 races, including this month\u2019s 103rd Indianapolis 500, where he will be one of three drivers on the Carlin squad, joining full-timer Max Chilton and Charlie Kimball, who is racing a partial season with Carlin.<\/p>\n
Dr Helmut Marko of Red Bull saw the talent of this great racer, still only 20 years old, who has also found success in sports car competition, earning the North American Endurance Cup title in IMSA\u2019s Prototype Challenge (PC) class, as well as the overall PC championship. The announcement on May 9 of O\u2019Ward\u2019s ascension to the Red Bull Junior Team acknowledges his great talent behind the wheel and the driver\u2019s capabilities outside a race car.<\/p>\n
![\"Patricio](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/OWard-mug-min.jpg\")
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\u201cI\u2019m very proud to have been approached to be a member of the Red Bull Junior Team and thank Dr. Marko and the team at Red Bull for seeing my potential,\u201d O\u2019Ward said.\u00a0\u201cMy focus for the remainder of the season is absolutely delivering results in the NTT IndyCar Series with Carlin. We have a great package and a lot of potential together. It\u2019s great to race in an environment where we completely support each other as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently driving with Carlin, O\u2019Ward rejoined the Indy car series at its second race, the INDYCAR Classic at Circuit of the Americas, close to his adopted Texas home in San Antonio. There he finished eighth from eighth on the grid. A week later at Barber Motorsports Park he took 16th after starting 18th and, at Long Beach he battled from ninth grid spot to a 12th place finish for Carlin.<\/p>\n
Despite missing the first race of the NTT IndyCar Series season, Trevor Carlin feels he\u2019s got a real talent on his squad with O\u2019Ward and is excited for his driver\u2019s future. \u201cWe\u2019re delighted that Pato\u2019s potential has been recognized by the Red Bull Junior Team, a program that has helped incredibly talented drivers in the past. Whatever Pato\u2019s future holds, we know he has a successful and exciting career ahead of him,\u201d Trevor Carlin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether with Pato and the entire Carlin INDYCAR team, we are very much focused on the season ahead and of course the Month of May. This is without doubt our most intense month of the year and the Indianapolis 500 remains the absolute jewel in the crown of motorsport,\u201d O\u2019Ward\u2019s current team principal said. \u201cPato and the rest of the team are determined to make the most of our continued development and improvements on and off track and claim the best result possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Ward is scheduled to race in this weekend\u2019s INDYCAR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway\u2019s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course. The 85-lap contest is scheduled to take the green flag on Saturday, May 11 at 3:50PM EDT. It will be broadcast free-to-air live on NBC.<\/p>\n
![\"Patricio](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/OWard-at-LB-hairpin-min.jpg\")
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This is big news for Patricio O\u2019Ward, the 2018 Indy Lights champion whose INDYCAR debut at last season\u2019s Sonoma Raceway series finale was so impressive it nearly eclipsed Scott Dixon\u2019s fifth series championship. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":62043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470,5029],"tags":[5614,712,41,6242,1632],"class_list":["post-62040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-racing","tag-anne-proffit","tag-indycar","tag-news","tag-patricio-oward","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/OWard-rounds-LB-fountain-turn-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-g8E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62044,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62040\/revisions\/62044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}