McLaren has become the latest IndyCar team to reveal details of a new race factory, taking over Andretti's old premises in Indianapolis.
With so many teams moving or expanding, you might be forgiven for chalking this off as a piece of relatively unimportant or trivial news. But this one does really matter for McLaren and, to some extent, IndyCar generally. Let's take a look at why.
Why new McLaren factory matters
Since Schmidt Peterson became Arrow McLaren SP for the 2020 season - the Schmidt Peterson part was fully dropped in January - McLaren has operated out of that team's old Coffman Road facility in Indianapolis.
This factory was built for a one to two-car team maximum, but McLaren has run three cars full-time since 2023 and run an extra car at the Indianapolis 500 across that time.
Schmidt Peterson was never a team with enormous resources. Certainly not one with the capability to do flash R&D work and absorb the knowledge of a Formula 1 team into its repertoire.
Put simply, McLaren had reached its peak in terms of the factory. It couldn't do expansive development as easily as some of its rivals, and although it's been on a massive hiring spree it still wants more people and to have them in a conducive working environment, and to have the level of efficiency other teams enjoy in their race shops.
No matter how well it strung things together at the track, its preparation and efficiency could never be as consistent as those teams around it.
This is an exciting time for McLaren, but also a scary one. Once the factory is up and running for 2026, there's no excuse: the team will have everything it needs to deliver more race wins, a championship, an Indy 500. This could be the difference in achieving that feat.
Will it really make a competitive difference?
Rahal Letterman Lanigan has been running a three-car team for the last few years in a factory three times bigger than what McLaren has been in, yet RLL hasn't overtaken it.
Also, Pato O'Ward is second in the championship this year - the only driver remotely close to Ganassi's dominance at the moment - and team-mate Christian Lundgaard has been a competitive addition.
So, put simply, it won't be a case of McLaren's results improving exponentially now it has a bigger factory.
But it is true that the team has pretty much reached its ceiling in its current facility.
More on O'Ward's strong IndyCar run
'I've studied him' - What was key to an unappreciated IndyCar win
Winners and losers from IndyCar's chaotic Toronto race
It has reached its likely peak performance in winning races and being there or thereabouts in the championship. But how does it take the next step to be consistently fighting for and winning titles? It's a sum of the parts approach and its biggest deficit to how it performs against the competition at the moment is the size of its shop.
More space - and better-used space, too - will help morale and efficiency.
Not having to go to an off-site gym, having a grand entrance where your success can remind people on the way in every morning what they are working towards - that sort of thing.
But the extra departments this factory will allow McLaren to have, and to integrate them constructively, is only going to help.
The mechanics will have better grounds for prep, and there will be more room for pitcrews to train in.
Let's flip the perspective. Would Chip Ganassi Racing or Team Penske have had the success they have had in recent years working in an outdated, two-car factory which is three times smaller? I would argue, absolutely not.
What's in the new factory
The team is expanding Andretti Global's 74,000-square-foot facility to 86,000 square foot, almost triple the size of the existing facility. That gives you an idea of the scale here.
The new shop, which is Zionsville, north-west of Indianapolis city centre, will have a grand new entrance, perhaps something like the McLaren Technology Centre headquarters in Woking has, with nods to the team's heritage.
There will be a fitness centre - no more travelling to an outsourced one - and the building itself will get "architectural elements" and a repaint to fit with the team's brand. The pictures in the press release (there's one above) indicate the building will not be painted bright orange - sorry, Papaya...
"We're proud to begin the renovation and grow our footprint right here in Indianapolis," said McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.
"The investment is a big step in our long-term growth, and this new facility will provide our team with state-of-the-art tools, equipment and space to keep pushing forward."
The press release announcing the move is a little light on detail, so I'd certainly expect there's elements of the factory that are cutting-edge that McLaren wants to keep to itself.
What other teams are up to
In recent years, Andretti and Rahal Letterman Lanigan have both moved into big new facilities in what seems to be the trend of the times. RLL's is actually far bigger than McLaren's current facility at 115,000 square feet!
Alongside McLaren, Ed Carpenter Racing recently announced its plans to move into an ambitious 76,000-square-foot facility in Westfield.
That will come one year later than McLaren as ECR will move in for the 2027 season. It's a massive move for a team that has undergone significant investment since Ted Gelov bought into the team last year.
It means six of IndyCar's 11 teams will have moved in some capacity in recent seasons.
