David Malukas has signed with a third different IndyCar team in 12 months in a surprise multi-year deal with AJ Foyt Racing starting in 2025.
After being dropped by the Arrow McLaren team for whom he ultimately did not start a race, Malukas returned from a wrist injury with Meyer Shank Racing and made his first start for the team at Laguna Seca in June.
He has been a threat for the top 10 in every race since then, although his left wrist – which he injured during pre-season – has not regained full ability.
Malukas, a two-time IndyCar podium finisher, has been a big name on the 2025 free-agent market after his recent performances, and his decision to move on Foyt takes a big seat away from the table.
Excited for the future!⚫️🔴 https://t.co/l00hm01v1m
– David Malukas (@malukasdavid) August 13, 2024
It also opens up the door to other seats as Rahal Letterman Lanigan has been strongly linked with a bid to sign Malukas as a replacement for Christian Lundgaard, who will move to McLaren in 2025, while Schank will now need another driver to join Felix Rosenqvist from next year.
But there’s a bigger twist to all of this: Is this all part of a long-term plan to join Team Penske?
Why did you miss?
AJ Foyt Racing is battling to secure its first top-10 finish in the IndyCar Drivers’ Championship since 2002, with Santino Ferrucci currently sitting 10th in the standings despite crashing out of the previous race in Toronto.
The signing of former Scott Dixon race engineer Michael Cannon as technical director for 2023 had an immediate impact at the Indianapolis 500 where Foyt was a threat to win, but this year the performances have been better and more consistent at other tracks as well with Ferrucci.
Hiring another group of employees has helped the team — which runs one car from Texas and one from Indianapolis — even more.
But the biggest difference in 2024 may have been the connection to Team Penske. There were disagreements between the drivers over the amount of information and the number of parts exchanged between the two teams, but Foyt had access to Penske dampers, at least for the Indy 500, and his improvement came at the right time.
This link may be the crux of Malukas’ move – although that’s just speculation at this point.
Essentially, Shank’s team was more competitive and won the Indy 500 as recently as 2021. But in Foyt, Malukas gets a chance to show Penske what he can do with the relationship and perhaps put himself at the front of the queue for a Penske seat the next time it becomes available.
He even made sure to highlight his connection to Penske in Foyt’s press release announcing his arrival in 2025.
“I look forward to being part of this special team. [as Foyt]“Obviously the recent alliance with Team Penske this season has been beneficial, and I want to make sure we create the right environment, not just for myself, but also for the mechanics, the engineers and everyone else who makes it all possible,” said Malukas.
None of Penske’s three current drivers are expected to leave the team before the end of 2026 at the earliest.
Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin have signed contracts and Will Power recently told The Race he has no plans to call it quits. He won the 2022 championship and is Team Penske’s highest-placed driver this year, currently second overall.
How did Malukas get to the market?
Malukas has decided to leave Dale Coyne Racing – the team he raced with in his first two seasons in IndyCar – and join McLaren for the 2024 season in what has been described as a multi-year deal.
He was in fact a replacement for Alex Palou, with whom McLaren is still involved in legal proceedings, as Palou was supposed to join the team in 2024 but chose to stay at the Ganassi team.
But a wrist injury sustained by Malukas in pre-season, followed by complications in his recovery, kept him out until May when McLaren decided to replace him. It is believed that part of this was due to legal reasons, as this was the first opportunity McLaren had to move forward, but the team also cited uncertainty over sponsors over who would drive the car.
The club then signed Theo Bourchier for the rest of the year, then released him a month later in favor of Nolan Siegel.
Malukas was not on the bench for long as Schank – who was looking for a replacement for struggling rookie Tom Blomqvist – signed him to lead the team from the weekend at Laguna Seca and he hasn’t looked back since.
However, there was always a chance that Malukas would choose to leave the team for next year.
How was his return?
It was almost perfect back to work for Malukas in terms of the things he had under control, the only big mistake being an accident at the first oval race in Iowa that he admitted was silly.
Aside from that, he qualified third at Mid-Ohio and sixth at Toronto, and while his results didn’t exactly support that performance, he wasn’t entirely responsible for it.
At Laguna Seca, he dropped from 12th place – he would have been comfortably in the top 10 after implementing the strategy – due to a flat tire, and a pit stop issue led to a 12th place finish at Mid-Ohio.
A sixth-place finish last time out in Toronto was huge for Shanks’ No. 66 car as it struggles to finish in the top 22 in points to reach the leaders’ circle, the spots that carry a $1 million bonus from IndyCar.
That result – plus the fact that Malukas is usually good on short ovals and has two podiums in two starts at Gateway, the next round of the championship – gives this team a very good chance of reaching the final stage if they execute on their current form.
Leaders Circle Arrangement
19 Meyer Shank #66 144 points
20 Letterman Lanigan #30 135 points
21 Ed Carpenter #20 123 points
22 AJ Foyt #41 121 points
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23 Juncos Hollinger #78 116 points (-5 points)
24 Dale Quinn #51 115 points (-6 points)
25 Dale Quinn #18 91 points (-30 points)
What’s next for Shank?
One of the hottest rumors in IndyCar right now is that Meyer Shank will end its five-year partnership with Andretti — where it gets parts and engineering support — and strike a similar deal with Chip Ganassi Racing.
That would likely mean Ganassi trimming its car count to three in favour of Alex Palou, Scott Dixon and Kyffin Simpson – who brings the budget – and then having to make decisions on Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist, who is set to be IndyCar’s Rookie of the Year.
Race sources have linked Armstrong to Shank, the team Lundqvist previously raced for in 2023 before joining Ganassi this year.
Fortunately for Shank, there are plenty of top drivers on the market, including race winners and even an Indy 500 winner.
What’s next in the silly season?
There is one seat available for the rest. this Next season, let alone next year, as the Juncos Hollinger Racing team has parted ways with Agustin Canapino. Conor Daly drove in his place in a test earlier this month.
The most prominent name on the market for 2025 is former Formula 1 driver and 2016 Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, who will leave McLaren at the end of this season.
Letterman Lanigan’s seat is certainly the best available, but Rossi will likely command a big paycheck, so RLL will have a decision to make.
Her records also include Juri Vips – who will race in Portland later this month – whom she greatly admires.
The Prema Racing team will join IndyCar next year and has two seats and has been linked with every driver in the atmosphere, although The Racing understands that no final decisions have been made yet.
Rinus Vichai is another race winner on the market. There have been rumours of a possible purchase of Ed Carpenter’s team, but that doesn’t seem likely at the moment.
Juncos is working hard to look after the team, and is believed to have the option to keep Romain Grosjean. It is still unclear who his team-mate will be, especially in the wake of Canapino’s departure.
Quinn’s team seems to be moving towards choosing drivers from race to race, so there are definitely no decisions there, and Foyt wants Ferrucci to stay, but he will have to decide whether he wants a paid driver who brings a big budget to Malukas in the future.
Last but not least, Jamie Chadwick is scheduled to test with Andretti at the end of the year.
That team has been reduced to just three cars for this season and is set to have those three drivers for 2025, but Chadwick will likely be someone who can attract the support needed to make that seat happen.
Andretti may put it with an affiliate team or loan it out to another team, but some of that may depend on how the Indy NXT season ends.
Chadwick is in her second season in Indy NXT and earned her first pole position and win at Road America earlier this year.
She suffered bad luck earlier in the year, and now sits fifth in the championship, 200 points behind points leader and team-mate Lewis Foster.
After five consecutive top-10 finishes, Chadwick returns to action this week at Gateway, in what promises to be a tough three-oval, four-race leg to end the season.
Unconfirmed seats
AJ Voight x2 (Santino Ferrucci is likely to stay)
Dale Quinn x2
Ed Carpenter x2 (Rinus Vichai’s status unknown; decision pending on Christian Rasmussen’s contract renewal)
Ganassi (Pending decision on the number of cars to be operated, expected to be reduced to three cars)
Letterman Lanigan Traveler x2 (Yuri Vips under contract, decision pending on renewal of Pietro Fittipaldi’s contract)
Prima x2 (Heavily associated with Robert Schwartzman and Callum Ilott, among many others)
Other drivers in contention for the seat:Jacob Abel, Louis Foster, Jack Harvey, Catherine Legge, Zane Maloney, Hunter McElrea, Theo Bourchier, Logan Sargent, Toby Sawyer
