On 6 January 2000, Sam Schmidt crashed during testing at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Florida, striking the outside wall at approximately 180 mph and sustaining a severe spinal cord injury at the C-3/C-4 levels that left him a quadriplegic. Despite this, Schmidt announced the formation of Sam Schmidt Motorsports just 14 months later, in 2001. The team competed in its first Indianapolis 500 that year with Davey Hamilton, who suffered his own injury at Texas Motor Speedway mid-season. In the years immediately following, SSM scaled back to developmental series competition, most notably the Indy Pro Series, returning to the Indianapolis 500 on a one-off basis each year.
The team ran single Indy 500 entries from 2003 to 2007 with drivers including Richie Hearn, Airton Daré, and Buddy Lazier. For 2009 and 2010, SSM partnered with Chip Ganassi Racing for Indianapolis 500 entries with Alex Lloyd and Townsend Bell respectively.
In 2011, SSM purchased the assets of FAZZT Race Team, retaining personnel and sponsors and committing to a larger IndyCar programme. The team fielded cars for Alex Tagliani, Townsend Bell, Jay Howard, and Wade Cunningham that season. Tragedy struck twice: team manager Chris Griffis died in September 2011, and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon was killed in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in October while driving a car in a joint deal between SSM and Bryan Herta Autosport.
For 2012, French driver Simon Pagenaud joined SSM on a full-season deal backed by Hewlett-Packard. Pagenaud won the IndyCar Rookie of the Year Award and scored four podiums. The team was simultaneously renamed Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports after Davey Hamilton secured enough sponsorship to support a second car, the No. 77.
In 2013, Canadian businessman Ric Peterson purchased a stake in the team, creating Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (SPM). Pagenaud won two races that season at Detroit and Baltimore, and in 2014 scored an additional victory at the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Pagenaud departed to Team Penske after 2014 and was replaced by James Hinchcliffe and James Jakes. Hinchcliffe won the 2015 Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana but suffered a near-fatal crash during Indianapolis 500 qualifying, which required him to miss the remainder of the season.
The team continued to field two full-time entries throughout 2016 and 2017 with Hinchcliffe and Mikhail Aleshin, the latter of whom was replaced partway through the 2017 season. For 2018, Canadian rookie Robert Wickens joined Hinchcliffe in a much-anticipated pairing. Wickens showed immediate speed before suffering a catastrophic crash at Pocono Raceway that left him a paraplegic. Hinchcliffe and Marcus Ericsson represented the team in 2019, the year in which Arrow Electronics became title sponsor, renaming the operation Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
In August 2019, SPM entered a collaborative agreement with McLaren Racing for the 2020 season, with the combined team known as Arrow McLaren SP. Pato O'Ward and Oliver Askew drove for the team in 2020; Askew was replaced by Felix Rosenqvist for 2021. That season, O'Ward delivered two victories — at Texas and Detroit — marking McLaren's first open-wheel wins since 2012 and the first by a Chevrolet-powered team outside Team Penske since 2016.
In August 2021, McLaren Racing announced the acquisition of a 75% ownership stake in the team, with Schmidt and Peterson retaining a combined 25% share and remaining on the board. Zak Brown, McLaren Racing's CEO, was installed as team chairman. The team was rebranded Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team for 2023, dropping the "SP" designation. In January 2025, McLaren completed a full buyout of the remaining stakes from Schmidt and Peterson.
Schmidt's developmental programme in the Indy Pro Series and later Indy Lights was among the most successful in the series' history. The team won the Indy Lights championship in 2004 with Thiago Medeiros, 2006 with Jay Howard, 2007 with Alex Lloyd, 2010 with Jean-Karl Vernay, 2012 with Tristan Vautier, and 2013 with Sage Karam. The programme was shut down after 2016, with Schmidt electing to redirect resources toward the IndyCar operation. A driver development partnership with Belardi Auto Racing was subsequently announced in 2017.
Sam Schmidt's story — from a decorated racing career cut short by catastrophic injury to the founding and sustained growth of a competitive IndyCar team — remains one of the more remarkable in American open-wheel racing. The organisation he created in 2001 grew into a championship-winning entity at multiple levels, ultimately attracting the investment of one of motorsport's most storied brands in McLaren Racing.