Intro To IndyCar - Arrow McLaren - Pt 3 - Nolan Siegel
Following the team post and the newest member of Arrow McLaren, we're moving into the middle driver for McLaren, but also their youngest, Nolan Siegel.
This headshot is taken from his IndyCar website profile.
Nolan, similarly to Kyffin Simpson and Kyle Kirkwood , is a product solely of American racing.
Born in 2004 in Palo Alto, California, USA, he started on the traditional Road To Indy in 2019. He competed in both US Formula 4 and USF 2000 in 2019; USF2000 full time and US F4 partially.
He spent three years in USF2000 before moving on; his highest finish in that championship was eighth. He competed with several teams - Newman Wachs Racing, Jay Howard Driver Development and then DEForce Racing.
He stepped into Pro 2000 with DEForce Racing full time in 2022, after subbing for a driver once in the 2021 season. With two wins, two poles and four additional podiums, Nolan finished fourth in that championship. The winner that year was Louis Foster.
As he did the year before, Nolan also debuted in IndyNXT in 2022. Driving the final two races, he then moved to HMD Motorsports for the 2023 IndyNXT season. HMD partnered with Dale Coyne Racing for Nolan. HMD is also owned by fellow driver David Malukas' father, Henry. We'll circle back to why this is interested in a minute.
His first and only full season of NXT was strong. With two wins and three additional podiums, he finished third in the championship behind Christian Rasmussen and Hunter McElrea. Nolan won NXT's Rookie of the Year award.
Then came 2024. Coyne departed NXT, leaving Nolan totally under the HMD banner. However, they added him to their proper lineup, promising him multiple races in the #18 car in races that did not clash with the NXT schedule.
Yet Nolan only spent six races in the car before being called up to IndyCar proper.
If you haven't read the team article, you may not know the contract struggles that Arrow McLaren had for 2024. In 2023, they signed driver David Malukas away from Dale Coyne Racing. Malukas had an unfortunate biking accident and needed to recover. This had him miss the first few rounds of the season. Arrow McLaren subbed in different drivers before eventually signing Siegel.
Before that, Nolan had an even more interesting start to his year. Though we will not see as much of it going forward, IndyCar can be a very expensive game of musical chairs at times, and Nolan's strong performance in NXT had him drive three different cars before landing at Arrow McLaren in the #6 car.
As stated before the season started, Nolan competed in the qualifying for the charity race at Thermal, but did not qualify for the full race with Dale Coyne. He then drove the #51 at Long Beach, and then back to the #18 for the 500, where he did not qualify.
Then, Nolan was pulled into a completely different entry. Juncos Hollinger was having major issues with the fan base of Agustin Canapino after an issue with Arrow McLaren driver Pourchaire, and so Nolan drove the #78 car at Road America. Due to this, he had to be withdrawn from the NXT race at the same place.
This withdrawal was the last mark of Nolan's NXT career, as he officially joined Arrow McLaren full time at the next race, Laguna Seca.
Though Nolan didn't directly replace David Malukas - that was technically Pourchaire, who then lost his seat to Nolan - there were definitely some hurt feelings there. Not necessarily from Malukas, but there were quite a few fans and critics alike that were outspoken about this change.
Especially when Malukas returned to racing himself at Laguna Seca, and with two less starts than Siegel, ended up merely six points behind him.
However, Malukas found another full time seat in 2025, and hopefully the whole merry-go-round feel that he had last year will end. Although he was taken out on the first lap in St. Pete, things can really only go up from there!
In the final article of our Arrow McLaren intro series, will be about the rockstar of IndyCar, Pato O'Ward!