JUNCOS HOLLINGER RACING
No. 77 Chevy: Romain Grosjean (13th in 2023 championship with Andretti Global)
No. 78 Chevy: Agustin Canapino (21st in 2023 championship)
Barbenheimer
By the time we get through the last race of the year, I’m convinced the scene inside the Juncos Hollinger Racing team is either going to look like the movie ‘Barbie’ with bright colors and big gleaming smiles being flashed… or like ‘Oppenheimer,’ with a giant mushroom cloud rising over the crater where its hopes for the lineup of Romain Grosjean and Agustin Canapino once lived.
That’s the wild experiment Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger are about to attempt as the most combustible team of 2023 welcomes last year’s most combustible driver into the family. I might be crazy, but I think it could work.
For Grosjean, two combative seasons at Andretti Global nearly left him without a ride in IndyCar, and with the multiple blowups between JHR and its former driver Callum Ilott when Canapino’s fans targeted the Briton on social media, the Argentinian-American team had its own share of bruises to mend and behaviors to reconsider.
Unrelated to the clashes with its former driver, JHR showed genuine promise last year as Ilott and Canapino were highly competitive in the midst of the team’s expansion to two cars and its introduction of a total open-wheel novice to the extreme challenges of racing in IndyCar. The team didn’t exactly dominate the middle of the field, but it was punching above its weight on more occasions than expected, and that’s the springboard to where I believe JHR can perform in 2024.
Grosjean was impressive as an IndyCar rookie with Dale Coyne’s team, and while things didn’t go well in his first year at Andretti, and eventually turned super sour last year, there was that opening phase to 2023 season where the 37-year-old was quick and vying for race wins. In the lower pressure situation at JHR, that happier version of the Swiss-born Frenchman just might thrive in ways we haven’t witnessed.
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In the No. 77 car he’ll drive with Steven Barker continuing as race engineer, Grosjean has a chance to properly lead an IndyCar team for the first time, and he’s excited about that opportunity to coach the team and his teammate Canapino. That kind of motivation, in being asked to do more than drive, is a great fit for where the Formula 1 veteran is at in his career, and that’s why this marriage with JHR could be more Barbie than Oppenheimer.
For Canapino, the Argentinian’s sophomore season is one that should offer more improvements as the 34-year-old pays return visits to almost every track where he’ll know the layouts, isn’t an oval neophyte, and can approach each session with a pure focus on driving instead of basic learning.
As a rookie, Canapino was a revelation. How much higher can he ascend in Year 2? Will the best IndyCar version of Grosjean emerge? Would on-track contact between Grosjean and Canapino send up another mushroom cloud? And where will JHR end up among its midfield rivals? Lots of big threads to follow over the next seven months.
Captain Morgan
With the departure of team manager Vince Kremer soon after the last race of 2023, JHR nominated crew member and racing veteran Dave Morgan to helm the program. Juncos is a very hands-on owner with precise views on how things should be done, and he picked Morgan for the role, which is a good thing because they’ll work in tandem. In Morgan, Juncos has a successor for Kremer who’s building on that good work in step with the co-owner’s views.
Squirrel
JHR’s engineering team has been strengthened with the signing of esteemed veteran Allan McDonald, who will be Canapino’s race engineer on the No. 78. Nicknamed ‘Squirrel,’ McDonald is the first high-profile IndyCar engineer to join the program, and he’s worked with everybody from Dario Franchitti to James Hinchliffe to Jack Harvey. He’ll complement the respected Steven Barker who’s paired with Grosjean, and overseeing the group is JHR’s secret weapon, technical director Yves Touron. Altogether, this is one of the most talented assemblies of senior engineering talent in the series.
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Commercial alliance
The age of IndyCar team alliances continues to grow with the business relationship formed between Arrow McLaren and JHR. Unlike the technical alliances between A.J. Foyt Racing and Team Penske, and Meyer Shank Racing and Andretti Global, the link between JHR and McLaren is purely commercial.
Small flourishes of McLaren’s papaya orange color are expected to be found on the race suits worn by Grosjean and Canapino, and their cars are also meant to have some papaya accents as a nod to the modest business relationship they’ve developed. McLaren has secured space on the tire ramps of both Chevy-powered entries to feature some of its partners through JHR when its three cars are full, and while the program is unlikely to be activated for St. Petersburg, some McLaren sponsors should be visible on the bodywork in front of the rear tires at the ensuing rounds.
RACER also understands that if JHR has races where one of its cars has a larger piece of bodywork to fill, McLaren would have the first right to place one of its sponsors in that area.