INDIANAPOLIS — Back in May, McLaren went 2-3-5 here. They came into Saturday’s race reeling more than they were here a few months ago. At that point, McLaren was rolling. Pato O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races. Felix Rosenqvist had three straight top 10’s while Alexander Rossi had 3 top 8 finishes in the first 5 races himself.

Since?

Rossi had 2 top 8’s over the last 8 races entering, Rosenqvist has 3 top 10’s in the same span while O’Ward had just 2 top 5’s, both 3rd place finishes, since as well.

Could they turn it back on this weekend?

In the end, while Felix Rosenqvist dropped out late, they had two more cars in the top five again.

Pato O’Ward finished third after being second in May while Alexander Rossi brought his No. 7 Dallara-Chevrolet home fifth.

“I was pretty happy with my car,” O’Ward said after the race. “Definitely a hot race. I don’t think we could have squeezed out one more ounce of performance out of this car. I wouldn’t have changed the strategy one bit. I think the car balance was great, but we’ve got some catching up to do.”

O’Ward was made mention in the past that this hasn’t always been a strong track for him but to come away with two podiums in two tries, he’s satisfied.

“I’m very proud of myself,” he told me. “The way that I’ve that I’ve raced around here, I’ve taken a massive step forward and Yeah, happy for that.”

On natural road courses this season, O’Ward is thriving. He’s finished 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th and now 3rd again. It’s remarkably enough ovals that has had them down and he said they have work to do still heading to World Wide Technology Raceway in two weeks.

O’Ward has finished 2nd, 24th, 3rd and 10th on them. While I feel like he’s being hard on himself, he just wants to win so bad and frustrated that it’s been 20 starts now.

“A fricking win would be great,” O’Ward said.

“I mean, I’ve been driving my ass off every single race. Like, there is nothing more than I want than to get wins. Obviously there’s been little things here and there that have got us out of contention and out of being able to kind of capitalize on that.

“With like the performance of today, I’m very pleased. I’m just tired. I’m just very pleased with today, very happy with how the team and I attacked because I was playing around with Graham in the warm-up, and he was just stronger than me. I know he was. I knew it was going to be a tall ask, just from outright pace, to try and beat them.

“But I was very happy with my car balance. I was very happy with every other call. Yeah, we just got to keep pushing.”

For Rossi, this was his 7th top 7 finish in his last 8 tries here, 6 of which in the top 5. He’s finished 1st, 3rd, 5th in his last three.

“Over the past few races, we’ve experienced a few struggles,” admitted Rossi before the race weekend. “But motorsport is never a straightforward journey; it’s a test of resilience. As we return to the site of our last podium, it reminds us that every race is an opportunity to learn and grow. We’re going to harness that past success.”