IndyCar silly season update: November edition

11/19/2024 11:19 AM

The grid for the new NTT IndyCar Series championship is almost set. More teams have completed their roster at this relatively early stage of the offseason than in recent years, yet there are still a few seats waiting to be filled and no expectation that the full-time field will be finalized anytime soon.

Of the five open or unconfirmed entries, at least four will be resolved through the wiring of millions of dollars into those teams' bank accounts, and depending on how one team fares, all five seats could come with a hefty price tag attached.

CONFIRMED

AJ Foyt Racing
No. TBA Chevy: David Malukas
No. 14 Chevy: Santino Ferrucci

Lots of change for AJFR heading into 2025. The 14 car and team has been moved from Texas to Indianapolis to join the No. 41 (which we hear could become the No. 4 next year), and not all of the crew is continuing with the team. No. 14 crew chief Didier Francesia, in particular, chose to move to Indy, but is going to work for Arrow McLaren. The team is swapping race engineers from car to car, with Team Penske's James Schnabel moving to its entry/driver with Malukas and Michael Armbrester is shifting across to Ferrucci. And technical director Michael Cannon left, which is 'misfortunate' as A.J. would say, for both sides.

There's huge potential within the team, and it needs to use the rest of the year to settle and adjust to the numerous internal changes if it's going to deliver on its full capabilities.

Andretti Global
No. 26 Honda: Colton Herta
No. 27 Honda: Kyle Kirkwood
No. 28 Honda: Marcus Ericsson

Michael Andretti leaving the team and clearing out his office would be enough of a change on its own, but the team also has a looming move to contemplate as its current base was purchased by McLaren and the Arrow McLaren team will move in late next year. That's a good way down the path, but the Andretti team has plans to start the move-in process at its new compound in May. It shouldn't be too much of a distraction for the race team with the Indy 500 going on as Andretti intends to hire a moving company to do most of the heavy lifting.

Arrow McLaren
No. 5 Chevy: Pato O'Ward
No. 6 Chevy: Nolan Siegel
No. 7 Chevy: Christian Lundgaard

The planned arrival of Alex Palou and his subsequent decision to stay at Ganassi was a big disruption for the team going into 2024. The preseason injury to his replacement, David Malukas, was another big disruption for the team. A season filled with other dramas on the driver side kept the disruptions going, and then the post-season change in job scope for team leader, Gavin Ward, and his assistant Tony Kanaan, just over a month ago was another significant adjustment. And now Ward is gone after two years.

The strength of the organization will be tested as it processes yet another grand distraction. If there is a positive to find in losing another popular team boss, it's that the split with Ward is happening now, rather than a month or two before the first race.

Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 8 Honda: Kyffin Simpson
No. 9 Honda: Scott Dixon
No. 10 Honda: Alex Palou

Downsizing to three cars worked wonders for Team Penske in 2022 when it won the championship and it also helped Andretti Global last season, as its top-performing driver, Colton Herta, shot from the far end of the top 10 to second in the standings. It will be interesting to see if the reigning, back-to-back champions at Ganassi who won titles in 2021 and 2023 as a four-car team, and as a five-car squad in 2024, will reap any benefits from cycling down to three cars.

Palou and Dixon were in a different league compared to the other Ganassi drivers last season, so losing two cars shouldn't take much away from their ability to keep running up front since the team will get great feedback from Felix Rosenqvist and kinda-former Ganassi driver Marcus Armstrong via the technical support it's now providing to Meyer Shank Racing. Two teams, with five combined cars, led by the series' champs, with shared engineering and technology. Imposing stuff.

Ed Carpenter Racing
No: 20 Chevy: Alexander Rossi
No. 21 Chevy: Christian Rasmussen

We've never seen this team in a position to consistently compete inside the top 10, but that's now possible thanks to the major infusion of funds from new co-owner Ted Gelov. Carpenter hasn't known what it's like to have a budget that rivals what the top teams have to spend, and with Gelov on board, hardcore offseason engineering R&D programs that go beyond trying to win the Indy 500 become possible.

The team also hired the best all-around driver it's ever had (notwithstanding the brief tenure by 2012 IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay for half of 2023) in Rossi, who will make every aspect of the racing team better from his input and influence. It won't all happen at once: Carpenter isn't going to knock off Ganassi, Penske, Andretti, and McLaren in 2025. But it should move forward on the grid and displace some of the midfielders it has been battling for almost a decade.

Meyer Shank Racing
No. 60 Honda: Felix Rosenqvist
No. 66 Honda: Marcus Armstrong

Picking up on the new Ganassi technical alliance, Ganassi gets ongoing feedback from Armstrong, and resumes the feedback from Rosenqvist, who the team absolutely loved while he was there and never wanted to lose him. The FRO and ARM pairing could be impressive if the two — more Armstrong than Rosenqvist — can find and maintain a consistent form.

PREMA Racing
No. TBA Chevy: Callum Ilott
No. TBA Chevy: Robert Shwartzman

The team hired Karina Redmond, Coyne's longtime PR rep, in a coordinator role. It’s a brilliant hire for a new team as Redmond is among the most well-known and well-liked people in the IndyCar paddock and will help integrate the team within the long-established entrants.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
No. 15 Honda: Graham Rahal
No. 45 Honda: Louis Foster

The team hasn't been as bullish on a new young talent like Foster in many years. The challenge that exists for RLL is to fortify its engineer group, which has undergone a massive transformation with numerous veterans retiring or moving on to other teams.

Team Penske
No. 2 Chevy: Josef Newgarden
No. 3 Chevy: Scott McLaughlin
No. 12 Chevy: Will Power

It's a critical season ahead for Power, whose contract runs out at the end of 2025. Penske has Malukas in the pipeline with Foyt, which makes the first half of the season crucially important for Power. He needs to get off to a strong start to make a statement early to his bosses that an extension is warranted. A slow start, coupled with a solid debut for Malukas at Foyt, is the worst-case scenario.

UNCONFIRMED

Dale Coyne Racing
No. 18 Honda: TBD
No. 51 Honda: TBD

Coyne is working hard to onboard a new co-owner/investor that would allow the team to hire a lead driver next year and possibly hire both drivers starting in 2026. That would be a massive development for Coyne, and the line of drivers raising their hand to be the new face of DCR is long.

It starts with Rinus VeeKay and includes Linus Lundqvist, Toby Sowery (who is testing for Coyne this week at The Thermal Club), Hunter McElrea, Pietro Fittipaldi (whose commitment to a full-season IMSA LMP2 deal with Pratt Miller Motorsports would only force him to miss one IndyCar weekend due to a date conflict) and his brother Enzo, Jacob Abel, and likely a dozen others from IndyCar, Indy NXT, F1, and F2 who might fancy a seat.

The partner/investor part is key to the silly season because if Coyne can make it happen, and former Carpenter sponsor Todd Ault of BitNile fame is said to be on pole position, there would be one of the five seats that isn't purely for hire. And if that plan goes awry, all five would be subject to those teams seeking the highest price from the highest caliber of talent attached to those funds.

Juncos Hollinger Racing
No. 77 Chevy: TBD
No. 78 Chevy: TBD

The team's ongoing financial hardships have manifested in a change to how both cars are being approached during the offseason. Since its return as a single-car team late in 2021, JHR has hired a lead driver for the No. 77. The addition of the No. 78 was accompanied by a quest for funding to support former driver Agustin Canapino through Argentinian sponsors. Moving into 2025, both seats have become for-hire situations, with 2024's lead driver Romain Grosjean actively searching for sponsors to help the team fund the No. 77.

But there are other drivers doing the same thing, led by Conor Daly, who was drafted in to replace Canapino late last season, and continues to work behind the scenes to acquire the budget to stay with the team in a full-time capacity. In a perfect world, Grosjean and Daly would find budgets and continue as teammates, but the No. 78 entry also has plenty of attention among drivers, with Sting Ray Robb rumored to be on the cusp of having his name applied to the car. Take some of the names listed above with Coyne, add them into the JHR mix, and the pool of candidates does indeed extend beyond Grosjean, Day, and Robb.

If Robb's sizable budget is accepted and the No. 78 comes off the market, that means the race to land the No. 77 is on, and it might favor Daly, whose sponsor-searching skills are rather formidable. A Daly-Robb pairing wouldn't make JHR stronger than a Grosjean-Daly combo, but since dollars are the driving factor here, surviving is the primary objective. The possibility of a Coyne-like ride sharing deal with multiple drivers in at least one JHR entry has also been floated.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
No. 30 Honda: TBD

Despite signing a full-season LMP2 deal, Fittipaldi isn't out of the conversation at RLL. Former Andretti driver Devlin DeFrancesco has been rumored as his replacement, and anything is possible. Losing Hy-Vee has made the need for new income an inescapable reality.

Many of the drivers in the hunt for the remaining seats need more time to develop sponsorship leads and bring their offerings up to the higher level required to play. Then there's the new charter membership program, where some of the folks attached to certain drivers are wanting to buy into those charters, and based on the bylaws, not every candidate meets the criteria.

It's anything but an uncomplicated matter for some of the teams with openings, which could make locking down the entire field an issue that extends into the new year.