In an exclusive offseason interview with Motorsport.com, Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan went on record and stated that if third-year driver Nolan Siegel doesn't vastly improve to place himself inside the top 10 in the NTT IndyCar Series championship standings in 2026, he doesn't see a way he can justify keeping him as a part of McLaren's three-car driver lineup in 2027.
Though Kanaan has urged Siegel to ignore what outsiders have said about his performance through his first 26 starts with the team since he took over from Theo Pourchaire behind the wheel of the No. 6 Chevrolet during the 2024 season, it is obvious to anybody that an improvement like the one McLaren will likely require of Siegel will not be easy to achieve.
Siegel has just three top 10 finishes in his 26 starts with the team, with nothing higher than seventh place, and his 2025 season featured five DNFs and a DNS after he wasn't cleared to compete in the second race at Iowa Speedway due to a concussion he suffered one day prior in a late crash.
Despite being paired with race strategist Kyle Moyer from the middle of the season, he finished with no top 10 finishes over his final seven starts of 2025. He finished 22nd of 27 full-time drivers in the championship standings, while teammates Pato O'Ward and Christian Lundgaard were second and fifth, respectively.
So who might McLaren call upon to replace Siegel if he doesn't improve in 2026? Here are five realistic candidates.
Rinus VeeKay
Back when all the Alex Palou drama was unfolding in the summer of 2022, Rinus VeeKay was a driver linked to Chip Ganassi Racing to potentially replace Palou, but he was also loosely linked to Arrow McLaren in the event they missed out on Palou themselves.
Nothing ever came of it, and VeeKay ended up spending the next two seasons with Ed Carpenter Racing, where he had been since his rookie season in 2020.
But it was his impressive year at Dale Coyne Racing, after being signed just before the 2025 season started, that landed him another opportunity with Juncos Hollinger Racing for 2026, and if he can again take advantage with another strong season at a mid-tier team, Zak Brown would be foolish not to give him a second look.
Marcus Ericsson
When Brown believed that Palou would be McLaren-bound for the 2024 season, he had no reason to try to sign anybody else. By the time Palou opted to remain at Chip Ganassi Racing, Marcus Ericsson had already signed with Andretti Global, and Brown was forced to look elsewhere.
After whiffing on David Malukas – who was signed instead of Palou, never got the chance to compete for McLaren since they fired him due to an offseason injury, and has since signed with Team Penske after a successful year with A.J. Foyt Enterprises – perhaps Brown can at least partially make amends for his mistake.
Ericsson is in a contract year and could use a change of scenery if things don't improve from his first two seasons in the No. 28 Honda in 2026. As we've seen over the past four years, he is one of the top drivers in the series in the Indy 500, and that could go a long way toward keeping him in the series.
Mick Schumacher
After Brown tried to sign Scott Dixon from Chip Ganassi Racing, even before all the Palou drama unfolded, Chip Ganassi sent him a stern warning to his rival that he would be better off finding and developing his own talent, rather than trying to poach it from other high-level organizations.
As we saw later that summer, when the McLaren Formula 1 team signed Oscar Piastri away from Alpine, that message went in one ear and out the other, if it was ever even delivered at all. So if Mick Schumacher impresses in his first season in the series with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, don't rule out an instant seat upgrade.
McLaren already signed away Lundgaard from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and the move has paid off. They are also already familiar with Schumacher from his two seasons in Formula 1 and his additional work as a test driver.
Christian Rasmussen
Speaking of Lundgaard, we have fellow Danish driver Christian Rasmussen, who became the first driver since Lundgaard in 2023 to score his first career victory this past year at the Milwaukee Mile. He did it in his first full season with Ed Carpenter Racing, which hadn't won on an oval since 2016, and even aside from that win, there were a few other races he easily could have won as well.
Rasmussen is on a clear upward trajectory with the talent to be a force for a long, long time, and he should absolutely be on McLaren's radar. He is not afraid to ruffle feathers with bold moves on the race track, yet for the most part, he has shown an impressive ability to pull it off unscathed.
Ed Carpenter Racing may end up in a spot where they need to improve to justify him wanting to stay, because he could be a hot name in the free agent pool otherwise.
Josef Newgarden
Brown has never shied away from trying to make a splash, and signing Josef Newgarden would certainly qualify.
Looking back at Newgarden's past few seasons, it's almost hard to believe that he has won two of the three most recent Indy 500s. He hasn't won a championship since 2019, and he hasn't even been Team Penske's top points finisher since 2021.
Newgarden has been at the center of controversy over the past few years on multiple occasions, yet most if not all of it can be blamed on the team, rather than on him.
Even aside from 2023's never-before-seen Indy 500 red flag restart sequence, you have the 2024 push-to-pass scandal, when he was conveniently led to believe that there had been a rule change, the 2025 Indy 500 attenuator scandal, and even his 2024 Indy 500 win with the illegal attenuator, which wasn't discovered until a rival team pointed it out as the 2025 mess was uncovered.
It's almost as if fans have forgotten that a 32-time race winner, two-time champion, and two-time Indy 500 winner has a legitimate case as a top 10 driver all-time when you ignore all the outside noise.
Anything shy of a championship and another Indy 500 win in 2026 could reasonably justify Newgarden seeking a fresh start. And now that the whole Palou lawsuit drama is behind McLaren, it's hard to imagine that money would be an issue.
As for Team Penske, Juan Pablo Montoya was dropped a year after winning the Indy 500 and finishing tied for the series points lead, and while Newgarden isn't at risk of being dismissed (like, say, Will Power was after 2025, despite leading the team in points, being their most recent champion, and still being the most recent points leader not named Alex Palou...), he could realistically decide it's time to move on himself.