Andretti Autosport has been strong on street courses for the past four seasons, and Rossi believes his quarter of the team made a breakthrough on natural road courses in the final third of this season. But he says the team is still missing vital speed on ovals other than Indianapolis, which next year will comprise
IndyCar
Earlier this month, Detroit City Council approved moving the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix from Belle Isle, where the race has been held since 2007, back to downtown, where it originated back in 1982 as a Formula 1 event, before evolving into an IndyCar race in 1989. The new track will use some of the original
Ex-McLaren Formula 1 driver and 2015 GP2 Series champion Vandoorne will get the opportunity to test an Arrow McLaren SP on 6 December, as McLaren CEO Zak Brown suggested he would in September, because the team plans to expand to three entries by 2023. That same day at Sebring, reigning FE champion De Vries’ opportunity
Had it not been for an out-of-the-blue phone call, 1999 Macau Grand Prix winner Darren Manning believes he could still be racing in Japan to this day. Certainly, without the approach that resulted in the Yorkshireman racing for Derrick Walker’s Champ Car team in 2003 when he was on the brink of joining Team Impul
Indy Lights champion Kirkwood was confirmed this morning as the #14 AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet driver for 2022, and Larry Foyt believes this will help his team lure staff to bolster the engineering line-up. Kirkwood has proven himself by becoming the first driver to win the championship at each level of the Road To Indy, accumulating
It’s not often that a seasoned sportscar veteran gets a shot at a professional single-seater gig in their mid-30s. But although his IndyCar career lasted just one race, which was ended by an engine failure, Lucas Luhr can claim to be part of that select club after his 2013 cameo at Sonoma for the Sarah
Kirkwood, who won the championship in all three categories on the Road To Indy between 2018 and ’21, scored 10 wins on his way to the Lights title, but his erstwhile team owner Michael Andretti couldn’t find a berth in his IndyCar team for the 23-year-old. However, the youngster’s contract meant he wasn’t allowed to
Speaking at the announcement that Devlin DeFrancesco will complete the team’s four-entry IndyCar line-up for 2022, the Andretti Autosport CEO opened up on the negotiations to secure a stake in the Swiss F1 team. “I’d just like to put an end to some of these rumours that the deal fell through because of financial reasons. That
Hulkenberg has been without a full-time race seat since losing his F1 drive with Renault at the end of 2019. He retains an F1 role as Aston Martin’s reserve driver, having made two substitute appearances for the Silverstone-based team last season. To evaluate a potential future move into IndyCar, Hulkenberg took part in a test
The proposal, first reported here in September, will see the IndyCar and IMSA races shift from the man-made island back to the city, incorporating part of the track first used by Formula 1 1982-88 then CART Indy car 1989-91. Over the last five weeks, Grand Prix representatives have met with Detroit residents, business leaders, community groups
With Michael Andretti’s four-car team set to run Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi, Romain Grojsean and Devlin DeFrancesco in 2022, Kirkwood currently has only three IndyCar entries – part of his Road To Indy scholarship worth $1.25m – set in stone for next year. Andersen Promotions, which ran Indy Lights up until this week when IndyCar
The German hadn’t driven a single-seater since his stand-in appearance for Racing Point in the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix, when he finished eighth in place of a COVID-stricken Lance Stroll. Hulkenberg, who remains an Aston Martin F1 reserve driver, told Autosport in the Circuit of the Americas paddock last weekend that the test was an
Hulkenberg is to take part in the rookie test for the Arrow McLaren SP team at Barber Motorsports Park next week in order to give him a first taste of IndyCar. The team has been evaluating a third car programme to run alongside regulars Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist. Brown noted that the current plan
The German’s participation in the rookie test is being billed as a chance to sample an IndyCar, with a view to seeing if he would like to one day pursue a race programme. There is a clear opportunity on the horizon for 2022, with the team evaluating a programme to run a third car alongside
IndyCar race-winner Herta has been touted as the next American to take the plunge and leave IndyCar behind for F1 amid reports his IndyCar team Andretti Autosport is nearing a takeover of the Alfa Romeo F1 squad. Herta’s IndyCar rival Pato O’Ward believes the 21-year-old has everything to be successful in F1, while former IndyCar
Current ART Formula 2 driver Lundgaard will join Graham Rahal and Jack Harvey as the third full-timer in the Honda-powered RLL team in a multi-year agreement. The Alpine Academy driver made a huge impression on his IndyCar debut on the IMS road course in August by qualifying fourth. With Formula 1 not an option for
Hulkenberg will drive for the Arrow McLaren SP squad, while Sargeant will appear for AJ Foyt Racing, as two of at least six drivers taking part in the driver evaluation/rookie test on 25 October, which will also feature cars run by Ed Carpenter Racing, Dale Coyne Racing and Andretti Autosport. Hulkenberg admitted last month that
Lundgaard, a member of the Alpine Formula 1 team’s junior programme, made his IndyCar debut at August’s Indianapolis road course race after impressing Bobby Rahal’s team at a Barber test. The 20-year-old stunned the paddock with a fourth place in qualifying on his debut and went on to finish 12th despite suffering food poisoning overnight.
O’Ward will take part in the post-season F1 test at the Yas Marina Circuit in December after winning a bet with McLaren chief Zak Brown by scoring his first IndyCar victory in Texas earlier this year. To prepare for his F1 test, O’Ward visited McLaren’s UK base in Woking last week, completing three days in
Wheldon was an immensely popular character throughout the motorsport world. An IndyCar champion in 2005, Wheldon won the Indy 500 in the same year before claiming a sensational second 500 crown in 2011. In a special podcast, Motorsport.com editor Charles Bradley is joined by Motorsport.com’s US Editor David Malsher-Lopez and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon
The 22-year-old Andretti Autosport beat HMD Motorsport rival David Malukas to the title and won half of the season’s 20 races, continuing his record of winning every championship on the Road to Indy ladder. Kirkwood earned a $1,369,425 scholarship for three IndyCar races in 2022 – including the Indianapolis 500 – but is fully focused
The Briton, whose decision to leave Meyer Shank Racing was announced back in July, was confirmed as the driver of RLL’s newly full-time #45 entry for 2022 on Monday. He will join Graham Rahal at the squad, while the departure of RLL’s 2020 Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato was announced last week – with Christian
In an elongated and ongoing IndyCar silly-season, Harvey’s departure from Meyer Shank Racing was the first – and arguably most surprising – piece of concrete news. Soon he was linked with the team co-owned by Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan, but all parties involved remained publicly mute on the subject. However, in August
Like Jimmie Johnson who was also in action at IMS today, Grosjean’s attempt to complete the Rookie Orientation Programme was stymied by rain, just a few laps shy of completing the third and final phase, which requires the rookie to run 15 laps over 215mph. But the former Formula 1 driver, who has switched to
As expected, the former Formula 1 driver’s latest term with the team co-owned by Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan has ended after a four year stint, during which Sato won at Portland in 2018, Barber and Gateway in 2019 and the Indy 500 in 2020, his second triumph at the fabled Indianapolis Motor
The famous Ford squad has today formally locked in its Bathurst 1000 driver line-up, with Anton De Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto teaming up in the #11 and brothers Will and Alex Davison in the #17. McLaughlin, meanwhile, will miss his highly-anticipated Great Race return following an on-again, off-again saga influenced by evolving schedules in both
Herta scored three wins in 2021, the only driver to match Palou in terms of victories, but added only two more top-three finishes, whereas the Chip Ganassi Racing driver accrued five more podiums. That said, Herta was the only Andretti driver to score wins, and in fact between them his three full-time teammates only added
The IndyCar rookie of the year agreed to return to the race this year as part of he and Team Penske’s divorce with Dick Johnson Racing in late 2020. That plan was scuppered shortly afterwards by a change to the IndyCar schedule, before another scheduling change, this time for Supercars, re-opened the door for a
Bud Denker, president of Penske Corporation which not only owns IndyCar but also the Detroit Grand Prix, made a presentation this week to local council members to move the track nearer the site of the original Detroit course, which held Formula 1 races from 1982 through ’88, then Indy cars from ’89 through ’91. According
A calm fourth place in the Grand Prix of Long Beach was enough for the Chip Ganassi Racing driver to seal the championship by 38 points ahead of two-time champion Josef Newgarden, whose runner-up finish was enough to push him well clear of Pato O’Ward in the final standings. Despite three early engine-change penalties and