A year of turbulence is reaching its end for Juncos Hollinger Racing.
Amid its drama-filled moments, the team owned by Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger has also gotten faster and become more competitive. In 2023, its lead driver Callum Ilott was able to produce three top-10 finishes; so far, his replacement Romain Grosjean has delivered five — and the number could be higher without some of the difficulties they’ve authored or encountered.
Grosjean is 17th in the championship with the No. 77 Chevy, which is safely inside the threshold to earn a Leaders Circle contract. The same can’t be said for the sister No. 78 JHR Chevy, which is tied for 22nd — the final spot — in the entrants’ standings. Juncos and Hollinger parted with Agustin Canapino in July, the No. 78’s driver since 2023, and sought the help of Conor Daly to haul the car into Leaders Circle contention.
Looking to 2025, JHR has plenty of suitors for its second car, and despite rumors of Juncos packing up and heading back to Argentina, selling the team, shuttering the team, and an impending split between the partners, he says the J and the H in JHR are too busy planning for next year to let the annoying chatter slow their momentum.
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“Me and Brad, we are talking to 15 drivers — one-five — from people that have money, a lot of money, a little bit, nothing, or want to get paid,” Juncos told RACER. “Like every year, we are trying to work on the budgets from the investors and from sponsors before we decide who’s going to be driving the car. Both cars are really fast, so we just gonna take our time. I think people know how good we are doing things inside the paddock, and that’s why we have a lot of interest from drivers.
“I don’t know at the moment who the driver is gonna be. We’re just trying to finish the season as strong as we can. Hopefully we can get the Leaders Circle money and we will continue talking to potentials. Then we will see where we are in the next three, four weeks.”
The team has gone from being sporadically quick to becoming a more familiar presence towards the sharp end of the field in qualifying. Over the last three races, Grosjean’s qualified fifth at Toronto, eighth at World Wide Technology Raceway and eighth at Portland, which speaks to the team’s growth. The task ahead is converting JHR’s capabilities in time trials through to the end of each race.
“If I take the small mistakes or the situations where we were taken out of races or crashed and we just finished the races, even without trying to pass nobody, we should be P9 in the championship with the 77 and P12 with the 78,” Juncos said. “But we’re P17 and P22 because of errors from the team, errors from the drivers — but very small mistakes. In qualifying, we average P9 with the 77, so I think we’re showing the potential of the speed in the team. We make improvements on the pit stops. Strategy is very good. Now we just need to put it all together.”
Juncos says the team is making a bigger investment in engineering and research and development to take another step forward.
“We are very strong with Brad; we have a strategy,” he said. “We keep adding good people. We are looking now, actually, to increase the budgets from next year to find a half-tenth (of a second). If we can add a half-tenth only, we will be in the Fast 12 with both cars this year and 80-percent chance of the Fast Six by just adding a half-tenth.”
The bold move to change drivers has been paying off. The 78 car was in 23rd when Daly was inserted and with his renowned oval prowess, it stands a good chance of moving up another position or two and earning a $1 million Leaders Circle contract.
“It’s been difficult because we just try to be smart and finish and collect points, and we’ve been taken out of races and had crashes,” Juncos said. “Nothing we can do about it, like Iowa, then Gateway and then Portland with the 78 car, But I think Conor’s doing a good job. We need to create a little bit of luck, so we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing.”
