David Malukas has signed for a third different IndyCar team in the space of 12 months on a shock multi-year deal with the AJ Foyt Racing team starting from 2025.
Having been dropped by the Arrow McLaren team he ultimately never started a race for, Malukas made his comeback following 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 top-10 finishes at every race since, despite his left wrist - which he injured during the pre-season - not being back to full capability.
Double IndyCar podium finisher Malukas was a massive name on the free agent market for 2025 after his recent performances, and his decision to move to Foyt takes a big seat off the table.
Excited for the future!⚫️🔴 https://t.co/l00hm01v1m
— David Malukas (@malukasdavid) August 13, 2024
It also opens up other seats as Rahal Letterman Lanigan had been heavily linked with trying to sign Malukas as a replacement for McLaren-bound Christian Lundgaard for 2025, while Shank will now need another driver to join Felix Rosenqvist starting next year.
But there's one bigger development in all of this: is this all part of a long-term plan to end up at Team Penske?
Why Foyt?
AJ Foyt Racing is in the midst of a battle to secure its first top 10 in the drivers’ championship in IndyCar since 2002, with Santino Ferrucci currently 10th in the standings despite being taken out of the previous race in Toronto.
Signing Scott Dixon’s former race engineer Michael Cannon as technical director for 2023 had an immediate impact at the Indianapolis 500 where Foyt was a win threat, but this year it has been better and more consistent on other circuits too with Ferrucci.
A host of other personnel hires have helped the team - which runs one car out of Texas and one out of Indianapolis - even further.
But the biggest difference in 2024 has likely been a tie-up with Team Penske. There have been disagreements between the drivers in terms of how much information and how many parts exchange hands between the two teams, but Foyt has had access to Penske’s dampers, at least at the Indy 500, and its upturn in form is timely.
This link may well be at the core of Malukas’s move - although that is purely speculation at this stage.
Fundamentally, Shank has been a more competitive team and won the Indy 500 as recently as 2021. But at Foyt, Malukas gets to show Penske what he can do via the relationship and perhaps put himself at the front of the queue for a Penske seat the next time one becomes available.
He even made a point of highlighting the Penske link in Foyt's press release announcing his arrival for 2025.
"I am mostly looking forward to being a part of such a special team [as Foyt]," said Malukas. "The recent alliance with Team Penske this season has clearly been beneficial, and I want to be sure that we build the right environment, not just for myself, but for the mechanics, engineers and everyone else who makes this all possible."
None of the three current Penske drivers are expected to leave until the end of 2026 at the earliest.
Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin have contracts in place and Will Power told The Race recently he has no plans to call time on his career. He won the 2022 championship and is Penske’s highest-placed drive this year at the moment in second overall.
How has Malukas ended up on the market?
Malukas decided to leave Dale Coyne Racing - the team he contested his first two seasons in IndyCar with - and join McLaren for the 2024 season on what was described as a multi-year deal.
He was effectively the replacement for Alex Palou, with whom McLaren is still engaged in legal proceedings with, as Palou was supposed to join for 2024 but then elected to stay at Ganassi.
But that pre-season wrist injury followed by complications in his recovery kept Malukas out until May when McLaren elected to replace him. Part of this was believed to be for legal reasons as it was the first chance McLaren had to move on, but the team also cited the uncertainty for sponsors over who was driving the car.
It then signed Theo Pourchaire for the rest of the year, only to drop him one month later for Nolan Siegel.
Malukas wasn’t on the sidelines for long as Shank - in search of a replacement for struggling rookie Tom Blomqvist - signed him to drive from the Laguna Seca weekend and hasn’t looked back since.
However, there was always the chance Malukas could elect to leave the team for next year.
How has his return been?
It’s been an almost perfect return to action for Malukas in terms of things in his control, the only significant blip being a crash in the first oval race at Iowa which he admitted was silly.
Apart from that, he qualified third at Mid-Ohio and sixth at Toronto, and while his results haven’t quite backed up that form he has not been entirely to blame for that.
At Laguna Seca he dropped out of 12th - he likely would have been a comfortable top 10 after strategy played out - with a puncture, and a pitstop issue meant he finished 12th at Mid-Ohio.
His sixth-place finish last time out at Toronto was massive for Shank's #66 car because it is fighting to finish in the top 22 in points to make the Leaders’ Circle, the positions that earn a $1million payout 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 - has given that team a very good chance of making the cutoff if it executes at its current level.
Leaders' Circle standings
19 Meyer Shank #66 144 points
20 Rahal 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 Coyne #51 115 points (-6 points)
25 Dale Coyne #18 91 points (-30 points)
What next for Shank?
One of the hottest rumours 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 shrinking to three cars itself for Alex Palou, Scott Dixon and Kyffin Simpson - who brings budget - and then having decisions to make about Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist, who is on course to be IndyCar's rookie of the year.
The Race's sources have linked Armstrong to Shank, a team Lundqvist raced for in 2023 before joining Ganassi for this year.
Luckily for Shank, there are plenty of top drivers available and on the market, including race winners and even an Indy 500 winner.
What next for silly season?
There’s one seat available for the rest of this season, never mind next year, as Juncos Hollinger Racing has parted ways with Agustin Canapino. Conor Daly drove in his place at a test earlier this month.
The biggest name on the market for 2025 is ex-F1 driver and 2016 Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, who will leave McLaren at the end of this season.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s seat is arguably the best available, but Rossi is likely to command a significant salary, so RLL will have a decision to make.
It also has Juri Vips - racing at Portland later this month - on its books, who it values highly.
Prema Racing is joining IndyCar next year and has two seats and has been linked to every driver in the stratosphere, although The Race understands it has not made any final decisions.
Rinus VeeKay is another race winner on the market. There have been rumours that Ed Carpenter’s team could be bought, but that doesn’t appear likely at the moment.
Juncos is working hard on sponsorship, and is believed to have an option to retain Romain Grosjean. Who his team-mate will be is still unclear, especially in the wake of Canapino's exit.
Coyne appears to be going race-to-race in its driver choices so there’s certainly no decisions there, and Foyt wants Ferrucci to stay on, but it will have to make a decision on whether it wants a paying driver to bring significant budget alongside Malukas in the future.
Last but not least, Jamie Chadwick is due to test with Andretti at the end of the year.
That team has only just shrunk to three cars for this season and is set with those three drivers for 2025, but Chadwick would be someone who could likely attract the backing required to make a seat happen.
Andretti could place her with a satellite team or loan her to another squad, but some of that may well depend on how she finishes the Indy NXT season.
Chadwick is in her second season of Indy NXT and took her first pole and victory at Road America earlier this year.
She suffered some ill-fortune earlier in the year, and lies fifth in the championship, 200 points adrift of points leader and team-mate Louis Foster.
After five consecutive top 10s, Chadwick returns to action this weekend at Gateway, in what is a challenging stretch of three ovals in four races to finish the season.
Unconfirmed seats
AJ Foyt x2 (Santino Ferrucci likely to stay on)
Dale Coyne x2
Ed Carpenter x2 (Rinus VeeKay status unknown; decision pending on Christian Rasmussen renewal)
Ganassi (decision pending on how many cars it will run, expected to shrink to three)
Rahal Letterman Lanigan x2 (Juri Vips under contract, decision pending on Pietro Fittipaldi renewal)
Prema x2 (heavily linked to Robert Shwartzman and Callum Ilott, among many others)
Other drivers in seat contention: Jacob Abel, Louis Foster, Jack Harvey, Katherine Legge, Zane Maloney, Hunter McElrea, Theo Pourchaire, Logan Sargeant, Toby Sowery
