Former Red Bull Formula 1 driver Jory Vips will return to IndyCar competition later this month in Portland, starting his third series with Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
It’s a crucial time in the 2025 silly season for Vips, who replaced Jack Harvey at the team last year for the final two races at Portland and Laguna Seca before eventually having to settle for a test and development deal for the team, which also runs BMWs in the Hypercar class in the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Pietro Fittipaldi eventually secured the third seat for 2024 alongside Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal.
However, with Lundgaard joining McLaren, the team has a vacancy until 2025, and is arguably the best team to have a vacancy to fill in a driver market full of top talent with little or no room to go.
Vips was signed by RLL after spending most of 2023 on the sidelines, due to his alleged use of a racist word on live stream.
At one point, Red Bull seriously considered signing him to a Formula 1 team. He won the 2017 ADAC F4 championship with Prema – which will compete in IndyCar next year – and has won three races in Formula 2 from 2021 to 2022.
He will drive the fourth RLL-operated car, the No. 75, in Portland.
What did Vips and RLL say?
Vips said he was “confident” his start at Portland last year would help him get up to speed quickly but described the opportunity – which will be his first start with IndyCar’s new hybrid unit – as a “big challenge.”
Team co-owner, series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal is a huge Vips fan and has spoken very positively about his chances of getting a seat in the race in 2025 in the wake of Lundgaard’s exit.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Rahal added: “He showed at Portland and Laguna Seca last year that he has the speed to compete in any event he competes in with us.
“He has put in a lot of work for us in the simulator this year, helping us understand the hybrid system, so it is good to reward him for his efforts.
“I am optimistic that this will lead to more races for him with RLL.”
How did Vips perform last year?
The feeling around the paddock was that Vips had been incredibly impressive. Despite qualifying 18th in Portland, he was just one point behind Lundgaard – who had been the leading candidate available on the driver market this year before McLaren snapped him up for 2025 in place of Alexander Rossi last month.
Vips finished 18th in a strategically complex race at Portland, but had a great run of seventh in qualifying at Laguna before being forced to pay a six-place penalty for an engine change, which dropped him to 13th. He then crashed out of the race at Turn 1.
What are his chances of getting a seat in 2025?
The IndyCar driver market has a lot of top talent with few options for 2025, so Vips has an interesting place to be in this ridiculous offseason.
On the other hand, he has shown good performances in his starts already, the team and Bobby Rahal like him, he works hard and contributes – unusually in IndyCar – as a proper reserve driver, and the team has expressed a desire to see him in the drivers’ seat.
On the other hand, the Vips team doesn’t bring in a big budget when others do, and Rahal is known to be a fan of other drivers such as David Malukas who RLL has reportedly been in contact with, Indy 500 winner Rossi is on the market, and Rahal tested Formula 2 frontrunner Zane Maloney just last week.
It could be complicated by the fact that RLL could look to make two changes to its line-up if Haas F1’s Pietro Fittipaldi – who is 22nd in the $1 million-a-year entry standings – doesn’t improve in the last five races. He is 19th in the standings.
With Maloney’s testing suggesting that Vips’s seemingly indisputable graduation to a permanent IndyCar seat could be challenging, getting out in the race at a time when the hybrid era is still in its infancy will be good news for Vips in his bid to secure a seat.
Unless Rahal runs a fourth car full-time next year, which is highly unlikely, the odds are that one of the three drivers will make the budget, so that driver may have to be decided before a decision is made on Vips or another driver.
It’s up in the air right now, and it was clear many felt Phipps had done enough to earn a seat last year, so seeing him snubbed again would be a tough pill to swallow, especially if things go well in Portland.
