Scott Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist Explain Moves To Arrow McLaren In 2027

Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist joining Arrow McLaren next year makes sense but also includes a great deal of “why?” –Why would Scott Dixon leave Chip Ganassi Racing after 25 years, the place where he has won six INDYCAR titles and the 2008 Indianapolis 500, to go to Arrow McLaren? –Why would Felix Rosenqvist go to a team that released him a few years ago? Dixon was the guest on “SPEED with Harvick and Buxton” this week to talk about his decision and FOX Sports caught up with Felix Rosenqvist after Rosenqvist’s trip to The White House on Monday to get some of the answers. “I thought a lot about the situation that I was in, what the future really holds — there were a lot of things that kind of kept me up at night, and a lot of it was actually, ‘Do I finish my career without trying anything else?’” Dixon told FOX Sports racing analysts Will Buxton and Kevin Harvick. Dixon and Rosenqvist will replace Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel on the Arrow McLaren roster next season. Lundgaard has two wins this year, but Rosenqvist has had the biggest — a win in the 2026 Indianapolis 500. Dixon’s move is one of the biggest in INDYCAR history as he earned 58 of his 59 career victories at Ganassi. “The one thing that kept kind of nagging at me was, ‘Should I try a different team, be with a different environment?’” Dixon said. “Don’t get me wrong. I love Chip. He’s one of my best friends. “Trust me, it was an extremely tough conversation that we had a couple of times, just about the possibility and what it would look like and where and when it would kind of happen. … Ultimately, it came down to I need to try something different for right now.” The hirings were at least in part spurred by McLaren’s goal to win the Indy 500. For Dixon, joining the organization founded by Bruce McLaren, was part of the decision. “I’ve always been a Bruce McLaren fan, a fellow Kiwi, that whole situation, especially coming from New Zealand — event talking to my dad about Bruce and when he watched him, and for me straight up I’ve just been a big fan of Bruce McLaren and obviously his family,” Dixon said on the show. “When you look at it just from the New Zealand historic value and what it means for people back home, that is an easy sell right there.” Rosenqvist was released from the team a few years ago when it thought it would be landing Alex Palou, who eventually remained at Chip Ganassi Racing. Rosenqvist went from McLaren to Meyer Shank Racing for the last three years. “It wasn’t like we were terrible [when I raced for McLaren],” Rosenqvist told me Monday.  “We actually had a pretty good second and third year together. What I said when they made the decision, “OK, it’s business. I wish you guys the best. I really loved working with you, and maybe we’ll see each other in the future.’ “That’s literally what I said. Times change, and here we are. So I don’t have any animosity against the past or anything. It is sport. It’s just business. You can’t force anyone to keep you as a driver. It changes all the time. Everything is fluid, and you’ve got to perform, and that’s all you can do.” Just like for Dixon, it was a tough decision for Rosenqvist to leave his current team. “It was not an easy one,” Rosenqvist said. “It was probably as close to a 50-50 [decision] as you can get. The long term was the deciding factor for me. It was basically looking three years in the future, trying to make your best bet where you’re going to be — which in this world, I guess for any athlete, you’re going to have to make tough calls and you’re going to have to make your best bet where you’re going to thrive yourself and in the future. “It was probably the hardest decision I made. But I’m super happy to be coming back to a team that I know — I know the engineers, I know the leadership.” Dixon, who is ninth in the 2026 standings (Rosenqvist is seventh), is looking forward to just something different. He doesn’t know if it will be better, but it is inspiring to race for another organization. “There’s the excitement of just really not knowing what the approach is, how they do it, what’s different,” Dixon said. “I’m definitely not going into a situation of thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side. That’s probably not the case. I’m with one of the best teams in the history of INDYCAR racing.”