For the fifth year of the Career Retrospective series it became obvious that a theme was crossroads. A number of drivers were at crossroads, some unexpectedly, at the end of 2025. A few drivers are making clear choices and are heading in different directions. Some are remaining still and are not sure where they will be heading next.
This year, we will look at three drivers as their careers are making a change.
For part two, we meet a driver still at the intersection, another intersection in his career. His ride has been filled already for the 2026 season, and there are not many left. In all likelihood, it will be making the most of what is left. It is not an unfamiliar position, but it is a tough one no matter how many times you have been through it. The wonder is how many more times can a career be at this point and where else is there left to go.
It is Conor Daly.
Where was Daly coming from?
Daly started in Skip Barber and won the national championship in his first year of car racing. This led to a move to Star Mazda in 2009 where he was third in the championship. In his second year, Daly won the title with Juncos Racing with seven victories in 13 races beating Anders Krohn, Connor De Phillippi and Tristan Vautier.
After this championship, Daly made a decision to head to Europe to race in the GP3 Series while also running non-conflicting rounds in Indy Lights with Sam Schmidt Motorsports. He opened the Indy Lights season with a second at St. Petersburg, an 11th at Barber Motorsports Park, and he won at Long Beach after Josef Newgarden got into the barrier while in the lead.
The GP3 results were not spectacular in 2011 with Carlin, but he moved to ART Grand Prix the next year and he won the first sprint race of the season at Barcelona. Daly ended up sixth in the championship. He also completed straight line tests for Force India. During that winter, he won the MRF Challenge F2000 Championship in India.
The following year saw Daly as a championship contender heading into the final round at Abu Dhabi. With a victory, six podium finishes and 12 finishes in the points in 16 races, Daly wound up third in the championship behind Daniil Kvyat and ART teammate Facundo Regalia but Daly was ahead of Tio Ellinas, his other ART teammate Jack Harvey and Nick Yelloly. Alexander Sims and Carlos Sainz, Jr. also competed in GP3 that season.
Daly did run the 2013 GP2 season opener in Malaysia where he was seventh in the sprint race. While competing in GP3, Daly was able to make his Indianapolis 500 debut in an additional entry with A.J. Foyt Racing. He had an accident in Thursday practice before qualifying, but he was able to make the race, qualifying 31st. He ended up finishing two laps down in 22nd.
After finishing third in GP3, Daly moved up to GP2 in 2014. Driving for Lazarus GP, Daly had only one finish in the points, a seventh in the Hungarian sprint race.
What did IndyCar look like when Daly started in the series?
IndyCar was in the early days of the DW12 chassis and had just introduced the manufacturer specific aero kits a year prior to Daly's first full season in 2016. There was a bit of changing time in IndyCar in the early days of the DW12. While some teams returned to IndyCar, others had left the series. Car count was still around 22 full-time entries, but three teams were responsible for over 54% of the grid.
IndyCar was coming off a season where nine different drivers won a race representing seven different teams. It allowed for six drivers to be alive for the championship at the final round with a driver from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and CFH Racing, a merged program of Ed Carpenter Racing and Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, were each alive for the title.
Of course, the title went to Scott Dixon and Chip Ganassi Racing. It was Dixon's fourth career championship and his second in three seasons. Three different teams had won the title over the first four seasons of the DW12 chassis.
There were rumors of a season opener at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. A round on the streets of Boston was scheduled for Labor Day weekend. Phoenix was returning to the calendar for the first time in 11 years. Road America was set to return for the first time in nine years.
How does IndyCar look now?
IndyCar has grown to 27 full-time entries with 11 teams on the grid. Each team is limited to three chartered entries, but can still enter "open" entries that could fail to qualify for a race. All 25 chartered entries are locked into the race (sans the Indianapolis 500) with any open entries competing to fill two spots on the grid.
Six teams run the maximum three chartered entries. Every team on the grid fielded two full-time cars in 2025.
IndyCar is coming off a season where Álex Palou has just won his third consecutive championship and his fourth title in five seasons. It is the second time in three years Palou has clinched the championship with races in hand. This year, Palou did it with two races remaining, the first driver to clinch a title with multiple races remaining since Cristiano da Matta in 2002. Palou also became the first driver with at least eight victories in a season since reunification.
With Palou's championship, it was Chip Ganassi Racing's fifth title in six seasons. Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske have combined to win the last 13 championships.
IndyCar has not raced in Mexico City, and though there were rumors of Mexico City possibly being included on the 2026 calendar, it did not materialize. The Boston race never took place and IndyCar went to Watkins Glen for two seasons as a filler event on Labor Day weekend. Phoenix is scheduled to return to the calendar in 2026 after seven seasons off the schedule.
What did Daly do in-between?
Daly's reputation has become that of a super-sub.
Even before his first full season in IndyCar, Daly took a role as a substitute. In 2015, with no full-time seat in any series, Daly filled in at Long Beach for Rocky Moran, Jr. at Dale Coyne Racing He would be entered for the Indianapolis 500 with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, but he took a larger role with the team as he replaced James Hinchcliffe in three races, including finishing sixth in the second Belle Isle race.
For 2016, he put together a full-time program with Coyne. Strategic races allowed for some of Daly's best results. He was sixth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, second and sixth at the Belle Isle doubleheader, and he was sixth at Mid-Ohio. At the end of the season, he was fourth at Watkins Glen. Encouraging results led to a move to A.J. Foyt Racing in 2017.
While he moved to a program with more resources, results dipped or at best plateaued at Foyt. He had four top ten finishes the entire season, with his best result being fifth at Gateway. He was 18th in the championship for the second consecutive season, but Foyt decided to drop him as well as his teammate Carlos Muñoz for the 2018 season.
Daly was back on the sideline and waiting for a call. He drove a one-off for Coyne at the Indianapolis 500 in 2018, but he got the call for three races with Harding Racing after the team dropped Gabby Chaves in the middle of the season.
For 2019, Daly put together an Indianapolis 500 entry with Andretti Autosport with Air Force sponsorship. Daly ended up finishing tenth, his best finish in the race. Carlin experienced a midseason shakeup as Max Chilton decided to step away from oval races. Daly posted respectable results considering both Carlin cars failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. His worst finish was 13th but he was sixth at Gateway. Daly was called up to run at Portland for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports as Marcus Ericsson was on standby for Kimi Räikkönen at the Belgian Grand Prix with Alfa Romeo, and Daly added the Laguna Seca season finale with Andretti Autosport.
With Chilton done running ovals, Daly was able to put together a full season program in 2020 driving on ovals for Carlin while running Ed Carpenter Racing's #20 Chevrolet on the road and street courses while Ed Carpenter contested the ovals. The one exception was the Indianapolis 500, where Daly ran a third ECR car as Chilton was comfortable enough to compete on that one oval.
The oval results were magnificent with four top ten finishes in five races driving for Carlin, including winning pole position for the first Iowa race. This dueling full-time arrangement continued for another season in 2021, but results were not quite as high. Daly failed to score a single top ten finish.
Despite this, ECR brought Daly on for full-time in 2022. A slow start was erased with a month of May that saw him finishing sixth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and fifth in the Indianapolis 500, but the results fell off from there. While he was eighth in the Indianapolis 500 in 2023, ECR released Daly after the Detroit round the following week.
Daly ended up contesting four more races in 2023, three substituting for Simon Pagenaud at Meyer Shank Racing, and one at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing after the team released Jack Harvey. He remained without a full-time ride in 2024 but put together an Indianapolis 500 program with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, where he would finish tenth.
Though scheduled for only one race, Daly again stepped in for an injured driver. This time, Harvey was ruled out of the second Iowa race due to back issues and Daly filled Harvey's Dale Coyne Racing seat. As Juncos Hollinger Racing was struggling to keep its #77 Chevrolet in a Leader Circle spot, Daly was hired to drive the five races. He took a third in the first Milwaukee race and a tenth at Nashville secured JHR's spot in the Leader Circle for 2025.
With the salvation job Daly did, JHR gave him a full-time seat. Road and street course results were lacking, but Daly had strong days on ovals, finishing eighth in the Indianapolis 500 and running competitively at Gateway before finishing sixth. He would pick up a seventh in the first Iowa race and he ended the season with a fifth at Nashville.
However, Daly was 18th in the championship, and in six full seasons competing in IndyCar, he has never finished better than 17th in points.
What impression did Daly leave on IndyCar?
Daly's career is very much not over in IndyCar, but we are running out of runway.
Daly has made 132 starts and has zero career victories. Only three drivers have made more starts and never won in IndyCar history. Scott Brayton (150), Dick Simon (183) and Raul Boesel (199).
His career is on borrowed time. Daly has driven for eight of the 11 teams currently on the grid. The exceptions are Team Penske, Chip Ganassi racing and Prema. Of those three, one is a realistic option in the future. Daly is about to turn 34 years old next month. The opportunities will soon be disappearing, at least on the full-time level.
Based on his Indianapolis 500 track record, he should have a seat as a one-off for the next five or six years. It is the one thing Daly has going for him. When it comes to the Indianapolis 500 and ovals in general, Daly has shown a tremendous ability to be competitive in a variety of machinery. He has been on the verge of pulling off something special for the last few seasons. Of course, that is easier said than done.
When your schedule is limited to one race a season, at best two or three depending on who needs a seat filled, it is difficult to establish yourself as someone noteworthy in the series. Yet, Daly has developed a persona most drivers in IndyCar cannot match.
Daly has become a voice for the fanbase with his podcast Speed Street, which allows him to share his viewpoints happening around the series. His willingness to honestly express himself and connect with fans through his antics, whether that be in the Snake Pit on Indianapolis 500 race morning or social media posts, has made Daly one of the most personable drivers in IndyCar even if he is struggling more times than not to have a full-time ride.
There is still time for Daly to leave his mark on IndyCar and notch a victory to his name. What we have seen is a driver who has been able to make the most of the opportunities given and sometimes pull out results the other average drivers cannot quite match. However, when given a full-time opportunity, he has never exceeded expectations of the equipment given and led to a greater shot down the road. His career is littered with lateral moves, and some have been slight moves backward. There has never been that giant leap forward.
If he had impressed anyone at this point, he would have already received his big opportunity and been with an organization for a three-to-five-year run.
However, I believe Daly's legacy in IndyCar will go beyond what he has done as a driver. He will be remembered for some of his performances. It has been a respectable career, but Daly's future is beyond the steering wheel. I don't know if he will every end up in the broadcast booth but Daly is set to be a spokesman for the series that it rarely has seen for past drivers. There is a clown prince quality to Daly, the kind you read about from Robin Miller and company on Eddie Sachs and Jim Hurtubise. IndyCar hasn't had one of those in a longtime. Daly is the 21st century equivalent.
Daly is going to be involved in IndyCar for a long time after his driving career is done. His father is Derek Daly and his stepfather is IndyCar president and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles. Conor Daly is going to be involved, and maybe it is in a capacity we have not seen a driver venture into before. It could be broadcasting as suggested above, but it could be in promotion or marketing or leadership. Though options might be limited when it comes to sitting behind the wheel of a car, when it comes to working in the series, Daly might have plenty of options to choose from in his future.
At this moment, he still wants to be a driver, and all signs point to Daly continuing in that direction for the near-future. However, he currently stands at the crossroads of his career for what feels like the 100th time, unsure where the next opportunity will come from and how many more will come after it.
