Coyne signs Abel for full IndyCar season
Yesterday at 11:00 AM
Jacob Abel's breakout season in the Indy NXT series has opened the door to competing in the IndyCar Series with Dale Coyne Racing. The Kentucky native becomes the new full-time driver of the No. 51 Honda; his teammate in the No. 18 will be announced by the team at a later date.
Abel comes to DCR after earning two wins and three Indy NXT poles, along with 10 podiums, on the way to placing second to champion Louis Foster with the family-run Abel Motorsports team. He recently tested for Chip Ganassi Racing at Texas Motor Speedway and made a strong impression on its managing director Mike Hull, who openly advocated for the Butler University graduate to land an IndyCar drive.
In leaving Abel Motorsports, the 23-year-old who turns 24 in March fills the 26th of 27 seats on the grid and joins Foster and PREMA Racing's Robert Shwartzman as the only drivers vying for Rookie of the Year honors.
"It’s super cool; it’s what I’ve been working for my whole entire career," Abel told RACER. "This off season in particular has been my most unsure and unsteady for obvious reasons. It's been a huge journey, and I really can’t thank everybody enough with the likes of Mike Hull that are saying that I belong here, I deserve to be here, and then everybody, basically since day one, who’s supported me in every single way possible to get here and make this happen.
"I’m just happy to have a chance to be on the grid, do what I love, and hopefully do it at a high level. I'm ready to take it one step at a time, and I understand it’s going to be a process, and it’s a process that I’m really, really looking forward to."
Abel arrives at a veteran team that went through one of its roughest seasons in decades. Helping the Illinois-based outfit to rediscover its form and pose a more consistent challenge to its closest rivals is just part of what he'll be asked to deliver while learning how to be an IndyCar driver.
"I’m really looking forward to the whole experience," he said. "Honestly, I already feel very confident of what I’ve seen in the team, the new personnel coming in, the people that are returning, lots of people with a lot of experience. And I do think that continuity is going to be a big thing this year, and I think it’s going to be something that is going to be improved.
"I'm not saying that I’m going to be the lead driver in this team, but I'm really trying to foster a culture that can lead to improvement and building race by race and year by year."
His first test with in the No. 51 is set for the end of the month at The Thermal Club where team building is a top priority.
"I feel very confident in my feedback that I can give and knowing what I need out of a race car," Abel added. "Obviously, it's going to be a step, for sure, but in the little time that I do have in an Indy car, it is similar to the Indy NXT car, and the needs are similar. So I feel like I can pull from that experience, from the past, being with smaller teams and trying move them in the direction that that I want to go, and that’s something that I’m really looking forward to at Dale Coyne Racing."
