Oilpressure

This IndyCar Silly Season has been one with many more bombshells than usual. It’s as if after Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing surprised everyone with signing Pietro Fittipaldi out of nowhere, Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) said ‘Hold my beer” about three days later.

By now, I’m sure most of you know that JHR and driver Callum Ilott have parted ways.

When listening to Trackside for the past few weeks, I had noticed that Kevin and Curt kept bringing up the fact that even though Ilott was under contract, nothing had been announced to confirm that he was coming back. They are saying the same thing about Benjamin Pedersen, but we’ll get into that a little bit later. Whenever they brought that up, I was thinking there was no need to announce his return for 2024 if he is already under contract. That would be like my boss announcing to my office each week that George will be returning to work next week. There is really no point in it.

Well, apparently they knew more than they were letting on because regardless of contract – the two sides are going in different directions. That explains why they kept teasing us with this. They had to know something was I the works.

As I write this on Saturday morning, we’ve still not heard any details or the fallout from this. Who broke up with whom? Where is Ilott headed? Who is going into the freshly vacated No. 77? No information leads to speculation on everyone’s part. It’s sort of a game to see who can connect the correct dots, so I will jump into the fray and connect my own dots.

First of all, I want to make it clear I’ve heard nothing from the few people I know on the inside. This is purely my own speculation, which means I am probably about as wrong as I can possibly be. Remember back last summer when Silly Season was in full swing? I predicted that David Malukas would go to Ganassi, Romain Grosjean would stay at Andretti and Felix Rosenqvist would stay at Arrow McLaren. None of those things came true, so this probably won’t either.

The more I think about this, however, the more it makes sense – so hear me out.

Who broke up with whom? Based on the press release, it sounds like Ilott is the one who wanted to leave the relationship. That means he has either sealed up an IndyCar deal, or he is leaving the series t drive elsewhere. I think he is staying in IndyCar.

Where is he going? Remember a couple of months ago, when it was announced that Team Penske had formed an alliance with AJ Foyt Racing? I think that Ilott is headed to Foyt as a satellite driver for Penske. Once Will Power decides to call it a career, Ilott will already be in the fold. In the meantime, Team Penske will be lending technical help to get the Foyt cars competitive. If any team could benefit from Penske leadership – it’s AJ Foyt’s team. Before this alliance was announced, I never would have placed Ilott at Foyt, but now with the Penske influence – I can certainly see that happening.

Santino Ferrucci has not been signed to return to the No. 14, not yet anyway. Benjamin Pedersen is supposedly under contract for the No. 55 with a multiyear deal – but so was Ilott. The fact that the Trackside guys always make it a point to mention that a driver under contract has not been confirmed, tells me they may think he isn’t coming back. Although Ferrucci hasn’t been signed to the No. 14 – I think he will return. Support for him being a legitimate contender last May is impossible to ignore. Better yet, AJ likes Ferrucci.

I think the 2024 lineup at AJ Foyt Racing will feature Santino Ferrucci in the No. 14, and Callum Ilott in the No. 55; or Pedersen will remain in the No. 55 and Ilott will go to a third fulltime entry for Foyt. I’ve seen where some are speculating that Ilott is going to a fourth car at Andretti Global, but I don’t think so. Regardless of Pedersen’s status, I think Ilott goes to Foyt under the Penske umbrella.

So who is going into the vacated Ilott seat? Romain Grosjean. Remember another alliance was announced after the Penske/Foyt alliance – Arrow McLaren and Juncos Hollinger Racing. The McLaren/JHR alliance is not a technical alliance. Theirs is more of a marketing alliance. When this deal was announced, it was mentioned that at least one JHR car will carry the familiar papaya orange and Arrow McLaren sponsor decals.

Of all the available drivers out there, who brings the largest marketing platform along with a pretty good driving resume? Romain Grosjean. While Agustin Canapino performed much better than expected as a rookie in 2023, he is still about as green as the neon green on his car, when it comes to open wheel racing. I don’t think JHR (or Arrow McLaren) want to put another inexperienced driver beside him. I would think they would want a veteran driver, and one that sponsors would be eager to be associated with. Romain Grosjean fits that bill.

Regardless of what happens, this was a pretty big bombshell this late in the silly season. It’ll be interesting to see how things work out on this one. It also begs the question; are there any more bombshells out there? Ed Carpenter Racing signed Christian Rasmussen to drive the non-ovals in the No. 20 car, while Ed will take over that car on the ovals. That announcement last Tuesday hardly caused a ripple, compared to the Ilott news a couple f days later. That just leaves Dale Coyne Racing to try and top JHR for surprises. With Coyne testing Enzo Fittipaldi, little brother of Pietro, at Sebring in early November – signing him will cause another stir. Who says nothing happens in the offseason?

George Phillips

This entry was posted on October 30, 2023 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.