Remember last week when I said the IndyCar silly season was moving faster than I could keep up with? I wasn’t kidding.
Try this new one on for size: Chip Ganassi Racing will return next season with the same familiar international driver lineup that hails from New Zealand, Spain and Sweden, but the Swede is Linus Lundqvist, not Marcus Ericsson. Monday was spent handling a barrage of info, and all for the positive with the 2022 Indy Lights champ.
As if the silly season wasn’t already out of control, consider how it was a little more than two weeks ago where Lundqvist was unemployed and had yet to compete in an IndyCar race. Two weeks later, after a pair of impressive runs for Meyer Shank Racing that delivered the No. 60 Honda’s best result of the season — a 12th place — on Saturday, and Lundqvist is expected to be confirmed in the days ahead as the new kid on the block at CGR.
Details are sparse on how it all came together in such a short amount of time, but stay tuned on the 24-year-old’s future with the best team of 2023 and taking over for his countryman in the No. 8 Honda.
And what does that mean for Ericsson? We continue to wait for his confirmation at Andretti Autosport, which seems like a formality at this point. I’ve also heard Ganassi’s other Kiwi, Marcus Armstrong, is likely to retain his seat.
I know MSR was hoping to have Lundqvist as an option as it plots the next course for the No. 60 Honda, but I continue to hear there’s a strong preference to place a veteran alongside incoming rookie Tom Blomqvist. There’s the obvious hope that Simon Pagenaud will make a comeback and continue to lay claim to the No. 60 he drove for 1.5 seasons, but as I mentioned many months ago in a silly season update, MSR has some intriguing drivers to pursue.
Blomqvist’s equally fast IMSA GTP teammate Colin Braun would be an open-wheel rookie, but he has vast and varied experience and tons of oval knowledge from his time racing for Ford in NASCAR. As I see it, he’d be more of an in-betweener than a pure rookie. If anyone can step into an IndyCar for the first time and look like a seasoned veteran, it’s Braun.
And then there’s Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist, who is attracting plenty of interest throughout the paddock, and if he doesn’t end up staying at his current team or moving to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in the No. 30 Honda, he could be a perfect veteran match for MSR in an all-qvist lineup.
The decision to stand Jack Harvey down wasn’t totally unexpected, but the call to try out a couple of rookies at the last two road courses makes me think RLL isn’t ready to select next year’s driver for the No. 30. If that’s the case, and if Rosenqvist wants a fresh and drama-free start, leading MSR and mentoring Blomqvist makes a lot of sense.
David Malukas is known to be on the clock for announcing where he’ll be heading next season, and there are other fascinating developments in the works as a trio of teams are now talking about everything from joining forces to creating technical alliances.
And we still have a number of teams and drivers to cover in our next silly season installment. Buckle in.