Tag: Dreyer & Reinbold

Dreyer & Reinbold confirms Hunter-Reay for Indy 500

Ryan Hunter-Reay has signed to drive for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at the Indianapolis 500. The 2014 Indy 500 winner will pilot the No. 23 Chevy as the DRR team takes its biggest swing in decades to capture its first win at the Speedway. Hunter-Reay …

Ryan Hunter-Reay has signed to drive for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at the Indianapolis 500. The 2014 Indy 500 winner will pilot the No. 23 Chevy as the DRR team takes its biggest swing in decades to capture its first win at the Speedway.

Hunter-Reay will be reunited with Stefan Wilson, driver of the No. 24 DRR Chevy, after they were teammates at Andretti Autosport in 2018 and 2021.

“I am thrilled to have Ryan Hunter-Reay join our lineup for the 2023 Indianapolis 500,” said Dennis Reinbold. “Ryan is a proven winner at the Speedway, winning in 2014, and is a tremendously talented driver who is a great addition to our team for this year’s 500.”

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For the 2012 IndyCar Series champion, making a return to one of the series’ heralded challenger team is a throwback to his early days in the Champ Car series.

“I’ve been eager to share this news for quite some time,” Hunter-Reay said. “This partnership with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing presents a unique opportunity for me and I can’t wait to get back on track at IMS. I feel laser-focused and energized. The Indy 500 isn’t just a motor race, for me; it’s a way of life.

“I was incredibly attracted to the fact that DRR is a streamlined program that puts all of its energy into the month of May. I guess you can say I’m going back to my roots, considering how I started my IndyCar career with smaller teams that took the fight to the bigger efforts and won. If you look at DRR’s record at Indy and its impressive recent results, the pool of talented engineers and crew, it’s a perfect fit.

“Dennis Reinbold embodies everything the Indy 500 is about. He is, without a doubt, one of the Indy 500’s most passionate entrants. I look forward to working with him, the entire team, and my teammate Stefan Wilson.”

Indy 500 entry list update

Filling the most recent field of 33 was a prolonged and painful affair that left the 2022 edition of the Indianapolis 500 with 32 entries – one shy of a full grid – until days before official practice began at the Speedway. Thanks to a consortium of …

Filling the most recent field of 33 was a prolonged and painful affair that left the 2022 edition of the Indianapolis 500 with 32 entries — one shy of a full grid — until days before official practice began at the Speedway.

Thanks to a consortium of willing parties that included the NTT IndyCar Series, A.J. Foyt Racing, DragonSpeed, Cusick Motorsports, Team Chevy, Team Penske, and Andretti Autosport, among others, the No. 25 entry for Stefan Wilson was quickly assembled in Gasoline Alley in order to give the great race 11 complete rows of three.

With the dramas of last May in mind, there’s no need to worry about filling the grid as 33 entries are firmly in place. In fact, of those 33, only one awaits the public confirmation of its driver, and as RACER has learned, a few drivers who held out hope of landing that 33rd seat were informed at the opening IndyCar round at St. Petersburg that the opportunity was no longer available.

At present, Team Chevy and its partners at Ilmor Engineering have 16 entries on their roster and Honda Performance Development has 17. RACER understands HPD’s 17th engine lease assigned to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for Katherine Legge is its last, leaving Chevy to handle any entries that might emerge to take the field to 34 or beyond.

Although it won’t be a surprise if the 107th edition of the Indy 500 hold steady goes with 33 car and driver combos, two teams stand out as possibilities to introduce bumping to the event.

The first, which has a long history of adding an extra car or two to the entry list, is A.J. Foyt Racing. Set with two full-time cars for Santino Ferrucci and rookie Benjamin Pedersen, the team is actively searching for primary sponsors for both entries, and as team president Larry Foyt recently told RACER, if they’re successful in that sponsorship hunt, it would create a need to run a third car at Indy to represent longtime partner ABC Supply. If the team is unable to acquire primary sponsors ahead of May, one of its drivers will carry ABC’s colors and the team will stick with two cars.

After Foyt, the other team that’s been mentioned on a regular basis as having an interest in expanding the Indy 500 entry list is Abel Motorsports. The Indy NXT team was actually spoken of last year as wanting to take part in the great race, and whether it happens in 2023 or soon after, the Kentucky-based Abel family is destined for the big series.

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Foyt and Abel aren’t the only options to push the list of qualifiers to at least 34, but at the moment, they are among the best options to deliver as both have the assets and the means to make it happen. Paretta Autosport team owner Beth Paretta is also searching for opportunities to make a return to the Indy 500 where her team got its start in 2021.

Provisional 107th Indy 500 entry list

1 A.J. Foyt Racing Santino Ferrucci Chevy
2 A.J. Foyt Racing Benjamin Pedersen Chevy
3 Andretti Autosport Colton Herta Honda
4 Andretti Autosport Romain Grosjean Honda
5 Andretti Autosport Devlin DeFrancesco Honda
6 Andretti Autosport Kyle Kirkwood Honda
7 Andretti Autosport Marco Andretti Honda
8 Arrow McLaren SP Pato O’Ward Chevy
9 Arrow McLaren SP Felix Rosenqvist Chevy
10 Arrow McLaren SP Alexander Rossi Chevy
11 Arrow McLaren SP Tony Kanaan Chevy
12 Chip Ganassi Racing Scott Dixon Honda
13 Chip Ganassi Racing Alex Palou Honda
14 Chip Ganassi Racing Marcus Ericsson Honda
15 Chip Ganassi Racing Takuma Sato Honda
16 Dale Coyne Racing David Malukas Honda
17 Dale Coyne Racing Sting Ray Robb Honda
18 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Stefan Wilson Chevy
19 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing TBD Chevy
20 Ed Carpenter Racing Rinus VeeKay Chevy
21 Ed Carpenter Racing Conor Daly Chevy
22 Ed Carpenter Racing Ed Carpenter Chevy
23 Juncos Hollinger Racing Callum Ilott Chevy
24 Juncos Hollinger Racing Agustin Canapino Chevy
25 Meyer Shank Racing Helio Castroneves Honda
26 Meyer Shank Racing Simon Pagenaud Honda
27 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Graham Rahal Honda
28 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Christian Lundgaard Honda
29 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Jack Harvey Honda
30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Katherine Legge Honda
31 Team Penske Will Power Chevy
32 Team Penske Josef Newgarden Chevy
33 Team Penske Scott McLaughlin Chevy