Dale Coyne Racing – Syndication Server

Coyne signs Abel for full IndyCar season

Jacob Abel’s breakout season in the Indy NXT series has opened the door to competing in the IndyCar Series with Dale Coyne Racing. The Kentucky native becomes the new full-time driver of the No. 51 Honda; his teammate in the No. 18 will be announced …

Abel comes to DCR after earning two wins and three Indy NXT poles, along with 10 podiums, on the way to placing second to champion Louis Foster with the family-run Abel Motorsports team. He recently tested for Chip Ganassi Racing at Texas Motor Speedway and made a strong impression on its managing director Mike Hull, who openly advocated for the Butler University graduate to land an IndyCar drive.

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In leaving Abel Motorsports, the 23-year-old who turns 24 in March fills the 26th of 27 seats on the grid and joins Foster and PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman as the only drivers vying for Rookie of the Year honors.

“It’s super cool; it’s what I’ve been working for my whole entire career,” Abel told RACER. “This off season in particular has been my most unsure and unsteady for obvious reasons. It’s been a huge journey, and I really can’t thank everybody enough with the likes of Mike Hull that are saying that I belong here, I deserve to be here, and then everybody, basically since day one, who’s supported me in every single way possible to get here and make this happen.

“I’m just happy to have a chance to be on the grid, do what I love, and hopefully do it at a high level. I’m ready to take it one step at a time, and I understand it’s going to be a process, and it’s a process that I’m really, really looking forward to.”

Abel arrives at a veteran team that went through one of its roughest seasons in decades. Helping the Illinois-based outfit to rediscover its form and pose a more consistent challenge to its closest rivals is just part of what he’ll be asked to deliver while learning how to be an IndyCar driver.

“I’m really looking forward to the whole experience,” he said. “Honestly, I already feel very confident of what I’ve seen in the team, the new personnel coming in, the people that are returning, lots of people with a lot of experience. And I do think that continuity is going to be a big thing this year, and I think it’s going to be something that is going to be improved.

“I’m not saying that I’m going to be the lead driver in this team, but I’m really trying to foster a culture that can lead to improvement and building race by race and year by year.”

His first test with in the No. 51 is set for the end of the month at The Thermal Club where team building is a top priority.

“I feel very confident in my feedback that I can give and knowing what I need out of a race car,” Abel added. “Obviously, it’s going to be a step, for sure, but in the little time that I do have in an Indy car, it is similar to the Indy NXT car, and the needs are similar. So I feel like I can pull from that experience, from the past, being with smaller teams and trying move them in the direction that that I want to go, and that’s something that I’m really looking forward to at Dale Coyne Racing.”

Last team standing: Coyne still keeping options open

Dale Coyne holds the final pair of keys for drivers looking to race in the NTT IndyCar Series in 2025. It’s a common occurrence for the Illinois-based team owner whose program has become synonymous with introducing new talent to IndyCar, and with …

Dale Coyne holds the final pair of keys for drivers looking to race in the NTT IndyCar Series in 2025.

It’s a common occurrence for the Illinois-based team owner whose program has become synonymous with introducing new talent to IndyCar, and with the grid nearly full, Dale Coyne Racing is once again sitting on two prized entries that represent the last seats for interested parties to fill.

With Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing recently confirming Dev DeFrancesco in its lone remaining car and Juncos Hollinger Racing signing Conor Daly to lead its squad, 25 of the 27 full-time entries have been taken. Coyne is working to have both opportunities resolved in the coming weeks and lock down the entire field for the March 2 season opener at St. Petersburg.

“We won’t have them by the end of the year, but I’m hoping to have them both by the middle of January,” Coyne told RACER. “Middle to the latter part of January.”

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Despite urgings from fans who would like to see former Red Bull Formula 1 driver Sergio Perez climb into one of Coyne’s Honda-powered cars, he says, “obviously he’s not gonna do that,” but there’s no shortage of drivers trying to stake their claim to his entries. Unlike last season’s steady rotation of drivers through the Nos. 18 and 51 Hondas, Coyne wants to get away from that practice in 2025.

“I’m the last man standing on the owner’s side with available cars, but there’s lots of drivers trying to get in,” he said. “Our goal is to run two guys all year, and that’s what we’re working towards.”

From Rinus VeeKay to Linus Lundqvist to Toby Sowery and many others, Coyne has a range of quality pros to either hire or take on as paying drivers. His ongoing efforts to sell a stake in Dale Coyne Racing to an investor/partner would create the opportunity to hire at least once ace, which is one of the reasons he hasn’t signed any deals. Progress on the investor/partner front is ongoing.

“Making progress,” he added. “Not as fast as anyone wants, but it’s still making progress.”

Coyne, RLL teams complete 2024’s final testing laps at Laguna

The final laps of IndyCar action have been turned for 2024 with a two-car test featuring Dale Coyne Racing’s Toby Sowery and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing with Louis Foster at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Wednesday. It marked the last …

Among the pair of Britons, Foster, the reigning Indy NXT champion, set the unofficial best time at 1m10.198s in the No. 45 RLL Honda, doing so on his 85th of 89 laps. Sowery was the most active, making up for a gremlin-filled November test at The Thermal Club where vehicular issues kept the NXT race winner in the paddock for most of the visit.

At Laguna Seca, Sowery completed 130 laps of the 2.2-mile road course, with his best of 1m10.409s coming on the 104th tour.

“There was obviously a lot of things that we didn’t get to test for at Thermal, so this test was about completing everything that we had lined up there, and looking at the lap count, we made up for that,” Sowery told RACER. “It was a strong test for us, and we didn’t go there specifically chasing pace. As you know, you can quite often end up chasing your tail when it comes to that, and the track was a mile off of what it should be in terms of race weekend pace. So we ticked a lot of boxes, spent a lot of time in the car, did a lot of laps, but everything productive and I think we learned quite a lot with the things that we threw at the car.”

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Sowery made three starts for Coyne across Mid-Ohio, Toronto and Portland, with a best finish of 13th, which equaled the top result for DCR in 2024. The 28-year-old hopes to find enough funding to return with Coyne in a full-time capacity.

“Opportunities don’t come about too often in IndyCar, so any opportunity that we get is one that we’re going to take, so when Dale reached out to test for him, obviously we couldn’t say no,” Sowery said. “It’s taking every opportunity that we get. And obviously the relationship between myself and the team is very strong and growing at a good solid rate. There’s two sides to the sport: There’s the driving, and then there’s the business side.

“There’s still a lot of work in progress behind the scenes to make it a full-time gig, and I’m thankful for the opportunity that Dale gave us to start the career journey for myself in IndyCar. These tests are very valuable for both the teams that get the opportunities and the drivers with lesser amounts of seat time. So it’s been fantastic for me, no pressure, and we’re continuing to work on making this a regular thing.”

Dale Coyne Racing seeking investment

Over its 40-year IndyCar history, Dale Coyne Racing had one significant period where its name was changed to Payton/Coyne Racing to reflect the co-ownership stake taken by NFL legend Walter Payton from 1992-99. If Coyne’s current efforts are successful, the dynamic could return by adding a new name to the ownership roster as the Illinois-based entrant seeks a partner and investor to strengthen DCR’s present and future.

Where Coyne previously spoke of seeking investors in the new charters he and other full-time teams have recently received from Penske Entertainment, he’s expanded his ambitions.

“Buying into the team itself,” Coyne told RACER of the business plan he’s attempting to execute. “It brings a few things to the table. If you have an investor who has the passion for the sport, if you have a billionaire investor, like a lot of teams have a billionaire investor, this is a game of golf to them, and to me, it’s everything I do. But they can backstop the budget. They have relationships and a network to find sponsors that I don’t have. That’s valued. The charter has opened the door for all this, big time.”

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Coyne’s other motivation in seeking an investor is to restore DCR’s ability to select its preferred drivers. A significant portion of DCR’s time in IndyCar has involved the signing of drivers who bring some or all of the annual budget required to field each entry, and over the decades, the team’s competitiveness has fluctuated based on the talents of the funded pilots.

With a new investor, Coyne would return to the days of hiring top-tier pros like Justin Wilson, who won DCR’s first race in 2009, or Sebastien Bourdais, DCR’s last winner, who took the team to victory lane in 2017 and ’18. If Coyne can welcome a partner into the program, at least one of DCR’s two Honda-powered entries would feature a driver chosen for their skill, and skill alone.

“It will depend on what we come up with, but the target would be to do it with both cars,” Coyne said. “But we’ve got to walk into that and maybe do one car first year and two cars second year. But the goal is to do both cars like that.”

Coyne is hopeful additional investment can bring a return to the winning ways it last enjoyed with Sebastien Bourdais in 2018. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images

It’s an encouraging possibility for many of the young drivers in the field and some of the veterans who are currently on the outside looking in.

Former Ed Carpenter Racing driver Rinus VeeKay, unseated Chip Ganassi Racing driver Linus Lundqvist, plus Hunter McElrea who drove for Coyne at Toronto, former DCR driver Pietro Fittipaldi and his brother Enzo who tested for Coyne, Indy NXT championship runner-up Jacob Abel, and former DCR driver Romain Grosjean are among the many who would welcome an invitation from Coyne for 2025.

The question that remains is who will emerge as Coyne’s new investor, and will that person be new to IndyCar, or a familiar entity like ex-Carpenter sponsor Todd Ault, whose branding for his BitNile company adorned ECR’s cars in recent years, and is rumored to be pursuing a stake in a team?

However it happens, Coyne is locked in on keeping the ownership group simple and compact.

“We’d like to do it with a single investor,” he said.

Coyne buoyed by “post-season podium”

Dale Coyne Racing had a miserable month of May. Often one of the faster teams, both of Coyne’s entries struggled from the outset of practice, lacked speed, and were relegated to the Last Chance Qualifiers session to try and make it into the …

From there, Coyne watched as Nolan Siegel crashed for the second time and failed to make the show, and while Katherine Legge put in a mighty performance to earn 31st in the field of 33, her efforts in the race went unrewarded as the day lasted all of 22 laps before the engine blew.

It was a stinging experience for the veteran team owner, which made DCR’s recent return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first test on the 2.5-mile oval with the Dallara DW12 in hybrid specification a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate the team’s improvements since Josef Newgarden won the rain-delayed thriller and Legge was classified a disappointed 29th.

Although Coyne planned on running former driver and free agent Sting Ray Robb at the hybrid test, he installed newly-former Ed Carpenter Racing driver and Indy 500 savant Rinus VeeKay in the No. 18 Honda. The results were immediate as the Dutchman produced the third-fastest lap of the test with a 223.383mph tour, directly behind Newgarden and 2023 Indy 500 polesitter Alex Palou.

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“It was good,” Coyne told RACER. “We’ve made a lot of engineering changes since ending last year, and I think we’ve seen it. I just don’t think the public has seen it. We had Katherine turn the fastest lap of the race at Race 1 in Milwaukee, and Jack [Harvey] turned the fastest lap in Race 2. And obviously, we all saw what Toby Sowery and Hunter McElrea did in our cars. So we’ve been getting better but just haven’t really shown it.

“So it was bittersweet to go back to Indy where the month of May was a disaster, and we crashed a couple cars and missed the race to come there and run first in class. Really, the two cars in front of us both had, I believe, 2025 engines, and we were the first of the rest. We’re back on track. We didn’t have much to show for the month of May this year, so to go back there in the fall and do what we did is a great morale booster for everybody. It was like our ‘post-season podium.’”

For VeeKay, the impromptu collaboration with Coyne went as well as he could have hoped.

“It was definitely quick, but it was a good experience,” VeeKay said. “Starting the day, I was still learning everybody’s name. We started out in the morning still going over measurements a little bit, making sure my position in the car and every everything felt the same as what I was used to. And then in the afternoon, we got the car in a good spot, and went through all the their testing plans, and they were very excited to work for me, and I was excited to work with them. It was a day of unknowns in the beginning, but then I think we worked together like we’ve been working together for years. So that was a good surprise.”

Coyne shared VeeKay’s enthusiasm for the collaboration.

“I think we all got along great with him, and he along great with us, and his feedback was good,” he said. “He told us what the car was doing, didn’t tell us how to fix it. We figured that out and just kept going faster and faster all day.”

It’s too early to say if the Coyne and VeeKay pairing will extend beyond the hybrid test, but the 24-year-old would like conversations to continue with the Illinois-based team about working together in 2025.

“After the test, we were both happy with each other,” VeeKay said. “I think I impressed them in some ways out there, and they impressed me. I might have created some opportunities, which I still believe are there. It’s hard to say with the amount of seats that are open right now, but doing a test with Dale and really getting to know each other, him hearing my feedback, and seeing how I work behind the scenes, because nobody really has ever had a chance outside of ECR that definitely, maybe gave him a view of my value to the team.

“And that team and the crew, which I think is definitely under-underestimated, I think we can make really fast cars and good results in there. There’s a lot that’s possible, and yeah, hopefully we can continue working together in the future.”

Coyne targeting a more steady line-up for 2025

At some point in the future, fans will win games of IndyCar trivia by naming how many drivers competed for Dale Coyne Racing in 2024. That answer (nine) has another level to unlock by answering how many drivers were entered to complete the season …

And while those numbers might never be repeated, one person who won’t mind is Coyne (pictured above with Katherine Legge), who wants to go back to a traditional format for his Illinois-based team in 2025 with a pair of full-time drivers.

“That’s certainly our goal, and we’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now going toward that,” Coyne told RACER. “I think the charter thing is a good first step. I think there’s a partner plan that could come after that for us, but searching for the drivers is a parallel path with all of that. So it all could happen quickly if a couple guys land here or there, and I think we’ll all know very quickly how things are shaping up for us next year.”

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Coyne is the only IndyCar team owner with two open seats left to offer. It’s a blessing in the sense that he and team manager Mitch Davis have a wide array of options to choose from, but thanks to the escalating costs to compete in IndyCar, reaching the high financial bar to secure a car for the entirety of the championship is not something most funded drivers can afford.

Pursuing a single driver for each car will continue, but if ones with the necessary year-long budget do not emerge, Coyne is open to a smaller version of the ride-sharing program that gave so many young talents a chance to gain IndyCar experience this season.

“It’s never a bad thing if you have to; it’s what we did that this year,” he said. “In all honesty, just about every single Indy Lights [NXT] driver has called up and wants to do a race or two. We had to pick and choose what we did to get through. Toby Sowery did a few races, and he did a great job. Luca Ghiotto from Europe did some, and then Hunter McElrea, he made the most out of his one weekend, and he sure made an impression when he did it.

“So, yeah, I think it’s been good for these drivers to have some place to try and showcase what they’ve got, and that’s worked out good for next year. There’s all kinds of options. We’ve got the Lights guys, you’ve got Formula 2 guys, you’ve got some Formula 1 guys now. A lot of things are moving around.”

Coyne taking unique approach to IndyCar charters

Dale Coyne has been an IndyCar entrant since 1984. In the five decades since the Illinois native joined the CART IndyCar Series as an owner/driver, carried the outfit into the Champ Car World Series, and migrated to today’s NTT IndyCar Series, he’s …

The 70-year-old’s steadfast commitment to IndyCar is unwavering, and as a result, Coyne is receiving the upcoming introduction of Penske Entertainment’s new IndyCar charter membership structure in a different way. With no interest in relinquishing his team, Coyne finds no value in the ability to sell his two charters — his team’s two guaranteed entries on the grid — and cash out and leave. What piques Coyne’s interest is seeing how much money he can raise, and not on the back end, but now, by offering a stake in the charters to investors.

For those who might want to own a share of an IndyCar team’s entries without owning part of the team itself, and don’t mind waiting to reap the future profits whenever Coyne and his wife Gail decide to sell and retire, DCR is open for business and looking to frontload the financial benefits of having charters.

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“We’ve had a lot of interest, and people have talked to us about partnering up, so the charter is going to be very good for us,” Coyne told RACER. “We’re looking to get partners in here that help either bring sponsorship or some capital, so we’re open to how that looks and what type of partnerships they could be. That’s the way business should work.”

The looming rollout of Penske Entertainment’s 25 charter memberships across IndyCar’s 10 teams has Coyne busy on his usual hunt for next year’s drivers for the Nos. 18 and 51 Honda, and to find the best investment partners for each entry’s charter.

“It could look a lot of different ways because it depends on what the partner is looking for,” Coyne said. “If a partner just wants to come and be part of racing, that’s fine. If it’s somebody who has good marketing relationships and can bring them to the table, that’s another thing to consider. There’s ways it could work that I’m sure we haven’t thought of yet. But we see the charters as a way we can make things better for our team right away. It all helps.”

Sowery to close out 2024’s road and street races in Coyne’s No. 51

Dale Coyne Racing will complete the road and street courses left on the schedule with Toby Sowery in the No. 51 Honda. With Katherine Legge tipped to compete in the four remaining oval races on the calendar, the British duo should complete Coyne’s …

Sowery is paired with NTT IndyCar Series newcomer Hunter McElrea, who will debut in the No. 18 Coyne Honda for this weekend’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto event in Canada. Sowery will return in August at the Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland, which will give the 29-year-old a total of three IndyCar races with the team after impressing Coyne at Mid-Ohio with a smart debut drive to 13th.

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“It’s amazing to be back with Dale Coyne Racing,” Sowery said. “Having such a strong debut has certainly set our hopes and expectations fairly high. Now that I’ve got a weekend under my belt, I feel I’ve got foundations to build on and that’s definitely the goal. I’ve not been to Toronto or Portland in a very long time, but I really enjoyed those events and atmosphere previously. Portland is also where I got my Indy NXT win, so it will be great to go back there. I can’t wait to finish off the road courses in the No. 51 for DCR.”

After Mid-Ohio, Coyne wanted to get Sowery back in the car as soon as possible.

“Toby really impressed during his weekend with us at Mid-Ohio and we’re excited to have him back for another couple of races this year,” Coyne said. “Not only was Toby a pleasure to work with, but he was up to speed immediately after not having driven one of these cars in over a year. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do on the streets of Toronto this weekend.”

McElrea to make IndyCar debut with Coyne in Toronto

Hunter McElrea will make his NTT IndyCar Series debut this weekend at the Honda Indy Toronto in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda. “It’s a dream come true for me to be making my NTT IndyCar Series debut,” McElrea said. “I’ve been working towards …

Hunter McElrea will make his NTT IndyCar Series debut this weekend at the Honda Indy Toronto in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda.

“It’s a dream come true for me to be making my NTT IndyCar Series debut,” McElrea said. “I’ve been working towards this for a long time, and I have to thank Dale for the opportunity.

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“I can’t wait to get to Toronto, which is one of the coolest events of the year. I want to thank JR Smart and Courtesy Corporation for making this possible for me.”

The Indy NXT championship runner-up from 2023 recently tested for the team at Mid-Ohio.

“Hunter impressed the team during our test last week at Mid-Ohio,” said Coyne. “He quickly got up to speed and helped run through our testing plan. I’m excited to see what he can do on the streets of Toronto, this weekend.”

The Toronto race in the No. 18 was originally scheduled to have new Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel in the seat. McElrea not only fills that void, but also gives the injured Jack Harvey, who stepped out of the car on Sunday in favor of Conor Daly, more time to recover as the series moves into an extended break during the Olympics.

Sowery’s IndyCar debut was years In the making

It’s OK if most IndyCar fans don’t know who Toby Sowery happens to be or why, at the age of 29, he’s making his debut in the series this weekend at Mid-Ohio. And there’s no guarantee the open-wheeler from Cambridgeshire, England, will get a second …

It’s OK if most IndyCar fans don’t know who Toby Sowery happens to be or why, at the age of 29, he’s making his debut in the series this weekend at Mid-Ohio.

And there’s no guarantee the open-wheeler from Cambridgeshire, England, will get a second chance to race in the NTT IndyCar Series after he’s done with Dale Coyne Racing’s No. 51 Honda on Sunday. But if you’re a fan of underdogs, or just have an affinity for scrappy people who refuse to give up on their dreams, Sowery is someone who might be worth following.

He took his first turn from Europe to the American racing ladder — known then as the Road to Indy — in 2017 with a couple of impressive outings in USF2000, returned for a few more in 2018 in the series we call USF Pro 2000 today and scored a double podium, and made the full-time commitment to reaching IndyCar in 2019 when he joined the precursor to HMD Motorsports.

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Sowery took seven podiums from 18 races and finished third in the Indy NXT championship behind champion Oliver Askew and runner-up Rinus VeeKay in a team that was exceptional, but wasn’t on the same level of Andretti Global (Askew) or Juncos Hollinger Racing (VeeKay).

The story went in a familiar direction afterwards as a lack of funding took the Briton out of the series in 2020, and while he put together a partial season of NXT in 2021, and did three races in 2023 which produced a podium,

While working on IndyCar opportunities, Sowery has shown well in other realms like IMSA LMP2 with Crowdstrike. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

Sowery’s hopes of getting to IndyCar ground to a halt. Even so, he raised enough funding to do his first IndyCar test with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and hoped to get the nod for the No. 30 Honda seat that eventually went to Pietro Fittipaldi, and from there, he picked up paying rides in global LMP2 and GT racing as a pro positioned alongside pro-am drivers.

And thanks to the tough season for Coyne and the steady rotation of drivers through the No. 51 entry, the chance for Sowery to break into IndyCar with grateful support of some backers has given him one shot, at least, of realizing his dream.

“A lot of the motivation is if you quit, you’re never going to get there,” Sowery told RACER. “We’ve been working towards IndyCar for a very long time. And looking back, I think COVID actually put more of a dent in my career than I perhaps gave credit for; it really blocked our momentum. We lost the momentum coming off 2019 and it’s been very up and down for me, doing some part of [NXT] seasons, and then obviously the test with Rahal. It’s been a difficult couple of years in terms of direction and progression and momentum in my career, but after the start of this season, it’s been very, very different for me.”

Hired to race in sports cars, Sowery has re-established his name — albeit mostly outside of the U.S. — which only helped in negotiations with DCR.

“Working with the Crowdstrike group (in LMP2) and in the Fanatec (GT World Challenge Europe) series has given me a platform to have stability and race again, and allowed me to re-introduce myself, which is obviously led to an opportunity with Dale,” he said.

“Resilience is probably a good word for this. You know, we’re not quitters in my family, we never have been. I’ve got a great team surrounding me and there’s a lot of good people that we’ve got on board to help give me this opportunity.”

And so, Sowery will strap into the No. 51 Honda with no testing, no experience with the new hybrid powertrain, no pre-existing working relationship with his race engineer or crew, and no reason to believe he’ll be competitive in a car that has consistently qualified and finished towards the back of the 27-car field.

The best Sowery can hope for is to show well against his veteran teammate and countryman Jack Harvey and do his best to make team owners — including Coyne — recognize his talent. It’s a heady task, but Sowery isn’t afraid to face it.

“It’s about really, really enjoying the weekend and putting a performance in as well, because it’s something we’ve been working to for a long time,” he said. “IndyCar is a fantastic series. It’s arguably the most competitive in the world. So it’s going to be no small challenge for me. But again, at the same time, everything I’ve ever jumped in and raced in, I’ve had to make an impression because as a family, as an individual, we don’t have the money just to not worry about that and know that we’ve got other routes.

“Every time I jump in the car, I have to fight for my career and put a good enough impression out that people actually give me the opportunities further down the line.”