Juncos Hollinger Racing's confirmation that it has retained Conor Daly for the 2025 season leaves Romain Grosjean's IndyCar future on the brink of collapse.
The 38-year-old ex-Dale Coyne and Andretti driver has 64 race starts across four seasons in the series, but with JHR completing its line-up - Sting Ray Robb is already confirmed at the team - Grosjean has another tough decision to make.
NEWS: @juncoshollinger announces @ConorDaly22 will drive for the team full time in 2025 to complete its driver lineup. pic.twitter.com/CXp2UzkcSr
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) December 18, 2024
While Grosjean hasn't at the time of writing posted on social media to acknowledge his Juncos exit or how it impacts him, his IndyCar options are slim - and there's plenty of competition for those options, too.
We explore what could follow for Grosjean, what his options are, and how he reached this point.
What could be next?
There are only two full-time seats left in IndyCar and a large number of drivers circling them. Both of those seats are at the Dale Coyne team that ran eight drivers across two cars last season - a revolving-door line-up of sorts.
Years of its best assets being plundered by the bigger teams has left Coyne in a difficult position and the lack of a heavy financial injection from a driver last year took its toll on the team.
It's said to either have lost or be losing a large number of staff, and Coyne is welcoming financial investment in the team moving forwards.
While Grosjean is one of the better options available for the seat - alongside the likes of Rinus Veekay and Linus Lundqvist - few elite drivers bring a large budget and therefore are reliant on Coyne putting together investment packages either from sponsors or a paying second driver.
Pietro Fittipaldi, who brings significant sponsorship, has been mentioned as a potential driver for Coyne and has raced for that team before. His brother, Enzo, is also known to be looking into IndyCar and tested with McLaren last month (and Coyne last year).
Fittipaldi also knows Grosjean well. Fittipaldi made his two grands prix starts as a substitute for Grosjean following his fiery Bahrain Formula 1 crash in 2020, so there is an existing relationship there. But Fittipaldi has taken on an IMSA SportsCar Championship schedule for 2025, too.
Benjamin Pedersen is a driver who has also been linked to an IndyCar return after a year on the sidelines following his sole AJ Foyt Racing season in 2023, and has the capacity to generate backing.
Ultimately, Grosjean and his fellow silly-season hopefuls might be the best drivers available, but they are the last pieces of the puzzle because the team needs to be funded first before they can be slotted in.
And then Grosjean would have to either bring a bit of budget himself, or hope that Coyne picks him over the other options available.
Any hope of an Indianapolis 500 seat is unlikely for Grosjean this late on too. So without Coyne, the chances of a full-time seat or one for the biggest race of the year are restricted to filling in for or replacing another driver at a later date.
If you followed the 2024 silly season (David Malukas - broken bones, Theo Pourchaire - dropped a month after signing a season-long deal, Agustin Canapino - a lot going on there…) you'll know it's not out of the question that something bonkers could happen. Especially as Grosjean's support and profile is valuable.
What Grosjean needs to ask himself is, how much is he enjoying racing in IndyCar anymore? There are no top seats available so he's unlikely to be competitive at Coyne and, at his point in his career, does he need to go through the emotional turmoil of an IndyCar season?
If the answer is yes, then basically any seat would do. If the answer is no, another opportunity beckons.
There's another complication
Grosjean raced for the Lamborghini squad in IMSA and the World Endurance Championship in 2024, but even that isn't straightforward. Its GTP (LMDh) car was late to be completed and probably needed more development before it hit the track and while it improved through the year, it was still mostly off the pace of the series elite.
Now a split with the team that ran it, Iron Lynx, means the manufacturer currently has no partner to run its car.
So while after looking at the previous part of this piece you might say, 'there's no top seat in IndyCar, go and get paid to be a manufacturer driver for a few years in IMSA', even that doesn't appear straightforward.
There's no Lamborghini WEC races planned - so no Le Mans 24 Hours - and even IMSA will be restricted to the long-distance races, so it's unlikely to be a full season.
It's a complication that has come at a tough time for Grosjean - and, annoyingly, shortly after some really ace appearances in the Lamborghini that didn't get as readily noticed because he was fighting way down the order mostly.
It's a similar situation - ironically - that Callum Ilott, who Grosjean replaced, was in last year. Sometimes ace drivers either leave it too late or their futures don't become clear and other teams and projects move on to other options.
What's happened in his IndyCar career so far?
Grosjean arrived in IndyCar as a fan favourite, a hero who had cheated death and embraced his Bahrain F1 crash with his new nickname 'the Phoenix'.
There was a pole early on in his maiden season with Coyne at Indianapolis and in the second half of the year he really mastered the Coyne car, scoring three podiums across his 13 outings.
That earned him and his engineer Olivier Boision a switch to Andretti but, despite qualifying well at times and some misfortune, he only managed a pair of 13th-place finishes in the championship and over two seasons only matched his three podiums from his first Coyne season.
That doesn't fairly represent his 2023 season. He could have won the first race of the year and had luck sided with him, led the championship early in the year, but it didn't fall that way.
Despite Andretti appearing to be happy with Grosjean and both sides hinting at a new deal in May, it was never completed and Grosjean ultimately left - joining Juncos instead - amid arbitration talks with Andretti.
He has since called the 2024 year maybe his best, but this writer can't agree - as while there were some standout results, ultimately there were still some errors and he was beaten over the last five races of the year by a new driver coming in, Daly.
That was mostly on ovals, which Daly excels at. But it's clear even Grosjean's first year in IndyCar was better than this one.
Despite his peaks, Grosjean has not been able to offer the consistency required - something quite a few drivers in IndyCar have struggled with, in Grosjean's defence - and given how explosive that first year at Coyne was, to finish this way will always be a disappointment.
Even a return there would likely come at a team trying to tread water and regroup, and Grosjean's talent should be paired with something better than that.
Sadly, that wouldn't be in IndyCar as there are no further options available.
