Oilpressure

Did you catch this little nugget? In between Christmas shopping, holiday parties, meaningless bowl games and other distractions, you may have missed this. In one of the crazier silly seasons we’ve seen in a while, and in a time when IndyCar needs something, anything, positive to come this way – even a simple driver announcement has been met with clumsiness and controversy.

There aren’t many open seats left for the 2024 season of the NTT IndyCar Series. Going into Friday, there were two at Dale Coyne Racing and two at AJ Foyt Enterprises. Over the last ten years or so, the second seat at Foyt has been considered the bottom of the food chain.

I never cared for the Dirty Santa game played at Christmas parties. You know the one, where you buy a gift with a predetermined dollar limit. Then whoever gets what is the worst gift, keeps trading it for what they deem a better gift. When it’s all over, someone is not overly excited about what they ended up with, but at least they have a gift in-hand. That’s sort of the way it has been with the second seat at Foyt. You’re not exactly thrilled, but at least you’re on the grid.

On Friday, there was a press conference announcing Sting Ray Robb would drive the No. 41 for AJ Foyt Racing. The No. 41 has been the much more traditional number for the second car at Foyt, much more so than the No. 55 they ran last year for Benjamin Pedersen. If you recall, the team started off announcing Pedersen would drive the No. 88 last season; but a few people connected some random dots to connect that with white supremacy, so they changed it to No. 55. I’ve always thought the No. 41 was an ugly number, but because it is the inverse of No. 14, the Foyt team has run it for decades. Personally, I liked it better when they ran the No. 82 or No. 84 for George Snider – but they never asked my preference.

It was known for weeks that of the remaining drivers on the market, Robb had more financial backing than almost anyone else. The general consensus is that Santino Ferrucci wants to return to the No. 14 car, and the team wants him back – but more money needs to be found first.

In 2023, Sting Ray Robb finished twenty-third in points as a rookie, while Benjamin Pedersen finished twenty-seventh also as a rookie.

Though he started every race, Robb finished behind a driver that missed several races (Marcus Armstrong). Pedersen also started every race, but finished behind four divers that missed races (Armstrong, Jack Harvey, Conor Daly and Ryan Hunter Reay). If it were not for the financial backing behind Robb and Pedersen, I’m not sure any teams would be clamoring for their services – although I do think Robb has a slightly higher ceiling than Pedersen.

Except for being able to scratch an available seat off of the list, this Robb for Pedersen announcement would not have been newsworthy. It was generally assumed that Robb would be replacing Pedersen in the second car at Foyt, while the No. 14 remained unfilled. It wasn’t until Nathan Brown of The Indianapolis Star asked Larry Foyt to clarify that Robb was replacing Pedersen, and Foyt responded with “I’m not sure about that”.

While Robb had a lot of money behind him, Pedersen signed a multi-year contract with Foyt before the 2023 season, with quite a bit of cash behind that deal. The press conference had not been concluded very long before Benjamin Pedersen released the following statement across social media.

Most did not see this as one teammate warmly welcoming another to the team. It was generally interpreted as a shot across the bow to remind everyone, including the Foyt team, that Pedersen has a multi-year deal and that he fully expects to be driving for Foyt in 2024. Those that see this as a warning don’t anticipate Foyt running fulltime three cars in 2024. Count me in that group as well. Outside of the Indianapolis 500, they barely seem capable of running two fulltime cars, much less three.

Although it was known throughout the offseason that Pedersen had a multi-year deal with Foyt, it was also hard not to notice that the team never confirmed that Pedersen would return in 2024. It was assumed, but never reaffirmed that Pedersen would be back.

The joke for decades was that contracts mean nothing in racing. That would explain the regular midseason changes in drivers. JR Hildebrand was fired two days after the 2013 Indianapolis 500. Just this past season, we saw Conor Daly let go just after Detroit and later on, Jack Harvey was shown the door with several races left. Callum Ilott learned he would not be back with Juncos Hollinger next season, a month into the offseason. But when Alex Palou tried to leave Ganassi a year too early on his contract, Chip Ganassi proved that some contracts do have some teeth. McLaren is now showing the same thing, now that Palou is staying with Ganassi.

Will Benjamin Pedersen get the courts involved and sue AJ Foyt Racing? If he does, will he be successful? I don’t know the answer to the first question, but my opinion is that if he does sue, he won’t be successful. With Alex Palou being the lone exception when a contract was enforced – what was the big difference between his situation and the others where a driver was let go early? It was the owner holding the driver to the contract.

Although many consider it unfair, it’s the oldest complaint in sports – the owners have the power. It doesn’t matter if it’s the NFL, Major league Baseball, IndyCar, NASCAR or Formula One – the owners call the shots.

Did Benjamin Pedersen’s family or other financial backers give Foyt the full amount of the multiyear contract up front? Most likely, they did not. There are probably several payments per year scheduled. They made good on the first year, and probably had every intention of making good on all payments in 2024 and beyond. But the fact remains that Benjamin Pedersen had the worst results of any fulltime driver in the 2023 paddock. He tore up a lot of race cars. Even if the crash damage was covered, that many repair jobs takes its toll on the crew.

I won’t pretend to know any of the details of Pedersen’s contract with Foyt, but I’ll bet that there is something that kicks in when crash damage gets too excessive. I’m also betting that no payments had been made toward 2024, and that Larry Foyt has acted within the limits of the contract. In short, while it may appear shady and that Pedersen is getting the shaft – he would probably be better served to take his financial backing to Dale Coyne, while he still has an open seat; rather than doing battle with Foyt Racing in the courts.

When Larry Foyt was pressed about Pedersen by Nathan Brown, he may have been evasive for other reasons. He could be exploring a possibility to keep the No. 55 alive and actually run three cars next season. I don’t think that’s the case.

Is it possible Foyt is hedging his bets and is keeping the Pedersen money in play, in case no funding is found for Ferrucci? Perhaps the Pedersen money is a safety net for the No. 14, in case they have to run Pedersen in the No. 14.

None of us will probably ever know the real truth, but it sure has created an awkward situation where Foyt might actually have three drivers for two cars. It could make for a real unpleasant situation at the team Christmas party.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on December 18, 2023 at 4:05 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.