Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Team Principal | Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team
Gavin Ward says working with cars and in racing has been his dream since he was a child. “Now what gets me up every morning is a desire to change the sport for the better by setting the standard for higher performance and doing it in the right way,” he said. That means more than building the fastest cars; it includes building a diverse and inclusive race team, focusing on the overall health and wellness of the team members, and engaging in the community to make racing more fun and accessible for all. In 12 years working in Formula One, his team won 50 Grand Prix races (including three Monaco Grand Prix) as well as eight F1 World Championships. Since coming to IndyCar, he has won the 2019 IndyCar Championship as Josef Newgarden’s race engineer and helped Team Penske win the 2018 and 2019 Indianapolis 500s.
Getting here: Ward calls his job “the culmination of over 20 years chasing my motorsports dream.” He started volunteering in racing when he was in high school and moved to England from Canada when he was 18 to study motorsports engineering. His first paid racing job was as an engineering intern at the Red Bull Racing F1 team in the UK in 2005. After 12 years in F1, he moved to IndyCar with Team Penske, then four years later joined Arrow McLaren to lead its Trackside Engineering team. About five months later, he was promoted to his current position, leading the entire team.
Givebacks: Guest lecturer at his alma mater, Oxford Brookes University, and with the Motorsports Industry Association in the UK; volunteer, FSAE/Formula Student design judge. Volunteer, Path to the Pits and Gleaners Food Bank.
Proud moment: Taking initiatives to help better support his team members’ mental health. “This started with an effort to fight the stigma of mental health issues, with me sharing my personal history of panic attacks and anxiety. Since then, we’ve sent a group of employees, myself included, for Mental Health First Aid training and are planning to roll that training out to more and more team members.”
Advice: “Find something you are passionate about and go for it. But first and foremost, enjoy the journey.”•
Check out more Forty Under 40 honorees.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.