Twenty-three days remain until the 2024 IndyCar season opener from St. Petersburg, and while we are almost within three weeks of the first race, there are still some open seats in IndyCar. Dale Coyne Racing will have two new drivers in 2024. David Malukas has moved to Arrow McLaren. Sting Ray Robb has moved to A.J. Foyt Racing. However, who those two drivers will be are still a mystery though this close to the first race.
At First Glance... Is this acceptable in 2024?
At time of writing, it is less than a month until the 2024 IndyCar season opener, IndyCar media day was over a month ago, and Dale Coyne Racing has still yet to announce any drivers for the upcoming season.
It has long been a joke that Coyne waits until the last minute to announce its drivers, sometimes not confirming drivers until hours, maybe even minutes, before the first practice session of the season. But that has rarely been the case for Coyne in recent seasons. For the better part of the last decade, Coyne has had its drivers confirmed in timely fashion, most years before Christmas, a previously unthinkable time for the organization. This year has been a break from recent DCR trends, but should it have even gotten to this point? Should it even be allowed?
Considering the growing fervor for larger financial protections for team owners, including possible guaranteed starting spots in the Indianapolis 500, teams should make a greater effort to be a part of the series. Every team had a driver present at IndyCar media day last month... except Dale Coyne Racing. Every team had a driver the media could talk to and write about and gain greater insight during an already lengthy offseason with still two months until the first race... except Dale Coyne Racing. Every participant was there and participating... except Dale Coyne Racing.
This might be the Dale Coyne Racing way of old and something we cannot be surprised about, but in 2024, can IndyCar afford to have a team that is completely silent and disengaged from the moment one season ends until the next one begins? If these team owners view themselves as a sort of shareholder of the series and believes it is crucial they receive a greater financial reward to assure long-term stability in the series than they must do better than being anonymous for half the year and leave us all guessing who will be driving its cars until we get to the opening weekend.
It is isn't 1998 anymore. Coyne isn't the small team blocked out by about a dozen bigger teams with tobacco sponsorships. There are ten teams in IndyCar. That's it, the same number as Formula One. IndyCar prides itself on open competition and any of these organizations, doesn't matter the size, can win a race. Coyne is an example of that, but in 2024 it must at least show an effort to be a part of the series.
Every Formula One team is making noise in the offseason. We know just as much about Haas and Sauber at the back of the grid as we do Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari at the front.
This might be the Coyne business model that has kept the team on the grid for 40 years, but there is a middle ground between this and being McLaren, Penske, Ganassi and Andretti. Coyne doesn't have to be over the top and flamboyant. It just needs to show some kind of pulse and not slide into hibernation.
Dale Coyne's participation has been greatly appreciated, and he has made it through many different eras, some tougher to navigate than others, but IndyCar needs more active team owners. It needs organizations expanding the profile of the series and bringing new people into the tent.
Plenty of teams bring new partners to the series. Ganassi brought NTT Data to IndyCar a decade ago. Then-Schmidt Peterson Motorsports brought Arrow, which is a prominent name with McLaren today. DHL has been around for over a decade thanks to Andretti. Verizon has been around for over a decade thanks to Penske. Meyer Shank Racing got SiriusXM on its cars. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing introduced Hy-Vee, which now supports an entire race weekend at Iowa.
Coyne has never been in that group, but IndyCar needs all of its teams to be in the group. The Coyne model worked, but on a selfish level. It is time for fresh minds and fresh ideas and sees the team as a part of a greater collective. A team should no longer be around just to see what driver or drivers bring a large enough check to break even. IndyCar needs teams that openly seek partners for the greater benefit of the team and series as a whole.
When you consider what Trackhouse is doing in NASCAR, and it is expanding to MotoGP, that organization purchasing Dale Coyne Racing would be a substantial boost to IndyCar. It doesn't have to be Trackhouse. VasserSullivan and HMD Motorsports are two established organizations that would also be beneficial for IndyCar to have take over this outfit, and both would increase competition on and off the track.
IndyCar needs its teams to be fully present 365 days a year. One team clinging to its old ways is not going to help the series. There are others out there that can provide more than Dale Coyne Racing at this moment, and the sooner they come in the better.
Possible Drivers
Since the end of the 2023 IndyCar season, Dale Coyne Racing has tested Jacob Abel, Jack Harvey and Nolan Siegel. Abel tested at Sebring on November 6 while Harvey and Siegel drove for the team at the Homestead road course over January 22-24.
Abel and Siegel are both planning to run full-time in Indy Lights, Abel with his family's team and Siegel with HMD Motorsports, which has a partnership with the Coyne operation. Harvey has no announced plans for next season.
Harvey has made 79 starts in his IndyCar career and spent the better of the previous two seasons driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. All 79 of his starts have come for Honda-powered teams. After a promising period with Meyer Shank Racing, which included him finishing on the poidum for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in 2019 and having ten top ten finishes over 24 starts between 2019 and 2020, Harvey has had only seven top ten finishes in his last 46 starts. He did not finish in the top ten in any of his 13 starts during the 2023 season, and he had one top ten finish in his 29 starts with RLLR.
There are not many other IndyCar-experienced drivers on the sidelines. The likes of Conor Daly and Ryan Hunter-Reay have Indianapolis 500 rides but generally do not have the funding for more races. Considering the lack of drivers DCR has tested, it makes sense Harvey will be one of the team's drivers come the St. Petersburg season opener. How many races Harvey runs in 2024 remains unknown.
However, there is a good chance Coyne will enter a driver, or possibly multiple drivers this season, without any experience in a DW12 chassis prior to their first appearance, and that isn't without race experience, that is without testing experience. We could see a few cold turkey drivers this season coming from unexpected corners of the world. IndyCar is not a series with abundant testing, but every other driver on the grid has at least tested an IndyCar prior, and most of the drivers on the grid have spent multiple years with this chassis. There will be a significant uphill battle for any driver coming in blind with Coyne.
Abel and Siegel have each tested for the team, but interloping regularly in IndyCar seems unlikely for either driver. Nobody has seriously attempted a full-time Indy Lights and IndyCar efforts. The money doesn't really exist to allow it. Either or both drivers could run a one-off. There are three IndyCar race weekends without Indy Lights competition, Long Beach, Indianapolis and Toronto.
All we can say, it is Dale Coyne Racing. Any and all names are equally likely candidates to end up in one of its cars. Keep an open mind.
The first round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season will be the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10. Coverage will begin at noon on NBC and Peacock.
