Arrow McLaren IndyCar drivers Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi, and Tony Kanaan will join the brand’s 60th anniversary celebrations at this year’s Velocity Invitational event at Sonoma Raceway, November 10-12. The trio, along with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and other drivers that will be announced at a later date, will take to the 2.52-mile California road course in a selection of historic McLaren cars ranging across open-wheel and sports car racing.
“Velocity Invitational is a spectacle of some of the world’s most unique and special cars, and to see our McLaren drivers get behind the wheel of our heritage collection at Sonoma Raceway and bring those cars to life again is an experience you cannot get anywhere else,” said Brown. “We’re excited to be part of it this year, celebrating our 60 years as a racing team.”
Velocity Invitational, which is now in its fourth year, has become a staple event for McLaren. The 2021 edition of the event featured O’Ward driving Mika Hakkinen’s 1998 championship-winning MP4/13, while last year Mario Andretti got behind the wheel of a 2013 McLaren MP4-28, with McLaren’s Extreme E driver Tanner Foust driving a McLaren F1 GTR, while a 1990 MP4/5B and a 1985 MP4/2B were shared between Hakkinen, Foust, and O’Ward over the weekend.
This year, as part of McLaren’s 60th anniversary celebrations, the company is sending “the largest collection of heritage cars that the team has run in the event, and many of these cars are rarely seen in North America” to Velocity. It follows a similar appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed where the team showcased a number historic cars, including Hakkinen’s 1999 championship-winning MP4/14A, Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 championship-winning MP4/14A MP4/23A, the 1970 Can-Am M8D-01, Emerson Fittipaldi’s 1974 M23-05 and an MP4/2B-03 previously driven by Alain Prost and Niki Lauda.