Jacob Abel is ready to make the move to the NTT IndyCar Series. With three wins, 10 podiums, and a firm hold on second place in the Indy NXT championship to use as a springboard, the Kentucky native has gotten all the training the junior open-wheel ladder has to offer.
Abel spent the year fighting with new champion Louis Foster and hopes to resume the battle with the Briton in 2025, but like most of the young drivers searching for an IndyCar home have found, the process involves a lot of waiting, calling, and taking meetings while hoping someone will respond in the affirmative.
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“IndyCar is definitely the goal,” Abel told RACER. “That’s what we’ve been talking about and what we’re going to keep looking at moving forward with. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of really strong drivers looking to go into IndyCar, but I feel like being in the NXT series, we have a little bit of a leg up, just because we race at all the same tracks, we get experience at ovals, and so I feel pretty good about it.”
Abel has been in talks with sponsors to support his career ambitions, and will continue to pursue his options with the IndyCar team who have seats available.
“I want to be in IndyCar full-time,” he said. “I want to be able to show all the teams in IndyCar that I can compete there and succeed. So that’ll be my first goal; trying to get something full-time. After that, I definitely wouldn’t say no to doing the Indy 500 and doing any other races.
“I want to drive race cars for a living, and there’s definitely some options out there with seats. Some of them require full budgets. Some of them, not so much. So it’s just trying to figure out how much of that we can come up with.”