Oilpressure

As of yesterday, we are exactly halfway through the IndyCar offseason. The season finale at Nashville ran 92 days ago, and the green flag will fly in St. Petersburg exactly 90 days from today. Once we get through Christmas, and the calendar flips to 2026 one month from today – the season will be here before we know it.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think any team has made as many offseason moves in hopes of beefing up their program as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL). The team is definitely going all in for the future. They resigned Louis Foster to a multi-year deal. Foster had a decent rookie season in 2025, showing occasional flashes of brilliance and also signs of being…well, a typical rookie. The 2024 Indy NXT champion apparently showed the team enough that they thought he was worth building their future around.

I liked what I saw out of Foster, for whatever my judgment is worth. But most importantly, the team liked what they saw out of the British rookie. Apparently his sponsor, Droplight – who became his primary sponsor last June, decided he had shown enough as they extended their primary sponsorship with the No. 45 car into a multiyear deal. When Hy-Vee and Christian Lundgaard both left the No. 45 car at the end of the 2024 season, things appeared very uncertain for that program to an outsider. Now the future seems bright and solidified for the next few years.

The team also made an interesting move with what was the No. 30 entry. Devlin DeFrancesco brought quite a bit of funding to that car in 2025. It is uncertain just how much he brought. I’ve heard that it partially funded the No. 30 entry to that it was so much that it helped fund the other two programs of Foster and Graham Rahal, as well. I’m not sure what to believe, but one thing is certain – DeFrancesco brought a good deal of money to the team, but little else except crash damage. He had little to no talent inside the cockpit, and was surly and disagreeable outside of it. I’ll never forget one encounter he had this past season with Georgia Henneberry in one of his many interviews following a crash. She asked him a very simple question that was non-offensive. However, he took it the wrong way and arrogantly implied she knew nothing about racing, which was totally wrong and uncalled for. Currently, Henneberry is employed for 2026 and DeFrancesco is not.

I find it curious that once the Droplight deal was done in October, DeFrancesco became expendable in November. That is when Mick Schumacher was signed to the team to drive the same car DeFrancesco drove in 2025, except it will be re-numbered to No. 47. Maybe some of you know, but I’m not quite sure of the significance of that number is. Perhaps it was a number that he or his famous father had early on in their careers, but it certainly is not what I would call a sexy number. It’s sort of like when Joe Montana went to the Kansas City Chiefs and wore No. 19. The only other famous QB I can think of that carried that number was the great Johnny Unitas. Without doing a little research, no IndyCar driver comes to mind that carried No. 47. But I digress…

On the surface, it looks like RLL tossed away some guaranteed funding from a pay driver to hire an unproven commodity with a much higher ceiling. Some might call it a gamble, but I call it a calculated risk. Besides, I have no idea if Schumacher is bringing any budget or not – but I would think it would be easier to sell a potential primary sponsor on Mick Schumacher, than even an associate sponsorship for Devlin DeFrancesco – but that’s just me.

Graham Rahal returns to the No. 15 car, which seems to have no trouble attracting sponsors. One thing to notice about Graham Rahal – although his sponsors rotate from race to race, they all seem to return year after year. Don’t sleep on Graham Rahal as a drier, either. Although he hasn’t won a race since 2017, he has not forgotten how to drive a race car. Given the right tools and staff, I think he is still very savvy and capable of winning on any track.

It’s the engineering staff that as been the team’s downfall the last few seasons. Don’t forget – RLL won the Indianapolis 500 just five years ago. Since then, team personnel has been a revolving door of individuals that simply did not mesh together for whatever reason.

You can buy talent, but you cannot buy chemistry. We’ve seen that with other teams. When a team hits on the team-driver-engineer combination – magic can happen. A driver can leave for a supposedly better team and take the engineer with him, and they cannot replicate the same success, even though it is a supposedly better team around them (see Romain Grosjean leaving Dale Coyne after the 2021 season).

Talent on the pit stand is nothing new to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. This is, after all, the team that produced Tim Cindric and the late Scott Roembke. Some say the team has been in a downward spiral personnel-wise since Roembke’s untimely death in 2012.

We have no idea what the results will be, but you have to praise RLL for assembling some of the best available talent from the IndyCar paddock this offseason. It all started last April, when Jay Frye was hired as President of RLL. Before Frye was fired by Penske Entertainment as IndyCar President last February, he had no bigger supporter in the paddock than Graham Rahal. Once Frye was available, it didn’t take long for RLL to name Frye to head up all racing aspects of Rahal’s IndyCar and IMSA programs.

Frye has not been sitting still this offseason. Not only did he hire Mick Schumacher and extend Louis Foster – he hired Brian Barnhart away from Arrow McLaren. Barnhart came under criticism during his time as Chief Steward of the series, but no one questions his credentials as a mechanic and race strategist. At RLL, Barnhart will serve as Senior VP of Operations. Kyle Sagen also moved over from Arrow McLaren to oversee the teams pit stops.

Most recently, Gavin Ward – formerly of Team Penske and Arrow McLaren – has been hired by RLL in what is currently described by Marshall Pruett of Racer.com as “in a somewhat open capacity” that will report directly to Jay Frye. Ward is credited with being behind Josef Newgarden’s best ears at Team Penske.

Is it a coincidence that Frye has raided Arrow McLaren for key personnel roles. To be clear, Gavin Ward was already available, since he was kicked to the curb by Zak Brown and company earlier. Although he was not a good fit at McLaren, no one denies his credentials.

How will this collection of talent mesh at RLL? Will it be a combination of ingredients that blend together so well, they create a masterpiece of a meal; or will they disagree and combat each other to where they are pulling in different directions, doing more harm than good to the finished product? Time will tell.

I’m not expecting RLL to sweep the podium at St, Petersburg three month from now, But I am betting that by the end of 2026, we will have seen tangible improvement in the team that has fallen to the bottom third of the grid in overall team performance. Who knows, they might even win a race next season. But if they don’t, I suspect they will be regularly competing for race wins in 2027.

If not, you can’t say they didn’t try. There is something to be said for that.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on December 1, 2025 at 4:03 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.