Brown: O'Ward's best route to F1 is through Indycar

22-year-old O'Ward is one of the young rising stars of Indycar and now - sportscar racing Stateside - with his LMP2 class victory at the Daytona 24 Hours driving for DragonSpeed USA alongside fellow Indycar young gun Colton Herta as well as Devlin DeFrancesco and Eric Lux sharing the cockpit.

In December, O'Ward drove a McLaren MCL35M during the Young Driver Test at Yas Marina Circuit. He was bowled over by the experience and left Abu Dhabi wanting more.

He said at the time: “I’m at a loss for words. The experience and the opportunity are rare, once in a lifetime, and wow, wow, these cars are ridiculous. I was expecting crazy and insane, and this is crazy and insane times 10.

"I thought the Indy car was fast, and my eyes, man, it was just crazy. This is the best experience I’ve ever had in a race car in my life. I don’t think anything has come close, in terms of driving.”

While the traditional route to F1 has been through the modern era Formula 2, and before that the GP2 Series, before that F3000 which preceded the first Formula 2 era.

Indycar was also the route for those mentioned in the first para but since then that pipeline has dried up and the fact that a winning Indycar driver does not qualify for an F1 superlicense remains an irritating hurdle but sure to be overcome.

Nevertheless Brown is adamant O'Ward should stick to the Indycar-to-F1 plan: "That's exactly what I told him, the quickest way to F1 is to go and do what Juan Pablo Montoya or Alex Zanardi or Jacques Villeneuve or Michael Andretti did: go win in IndyCar.

"That's going to be your best chance of getting into F1. He's unbelievably talented. He's a great personality. I think he's got what it takes from a raw talent point of view to be a Formula 1 driver.

"Obviously Formula 1 is a much more different discipline, so he's got a lot to learn, with all the buttons for example. But for sure he will. He needs to stay very focused on IndyCar. It's going to be his best route into F1. I think his timeline is about right," said Brown of O'Wards two-year target to race in the top flight..

For the 2022 season, O'Ward will be targeting the Indycar title with Arrow McLaren as well as IMSA races with DragonSpeed USA.

As a backdrop, F1 is in the throes of a boom in the USA - Miami on the schedule this year - largely driven by the Netflix Drive to Survive series and the intensity plus last year's season-long drama of the Lewis Hamilton versus Max Verstappen title fight

However, it is clear that for the sport to be mass-market NASCAR style, an American F1 driver is key and while O'Ward is Mexican his career has evolved in the USA and as a result, he has a strong local fanbase.

He and, as well as his DragonSpeed USA teammate, American homegrown Herta are two drivers who deserve a shot and would boost F1 immensely on the Stateside motorsport landscape.

Until then it's worth keeping an eye on their Indycar exploits this year as they carve an indirect path to F1.