In anticipation for the start of the 2026 NTT INDYCAR season, twenty-six drivers came for video shoots, photos, and media interviews over two days in Indianapolis, IN. Dressed in their shiny new firesuits, all had an air of confidence that they could and would win races this season.
Arrow McLaren, Chip Ganassi, Ed Carpenter, and Meyer Shank Racing return with the same driver lineup. Andretti Global, Dale Coyne, AJ Foyt, Juncos Hollinger, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and Team Penske all had driver changes.
This is the final of three IndyCar previews. To read about series news and notes, click here, and to read part one of our team previews, click here.
Stability at AJ Foyt Racing
Santino Ferrucci, now 27, returns as the veteran driver to compete alongside the 2025 NXT runner-up Caio Collet (age 23). Consistency should help elevate the team’s results as engineers and mechanics remain the same on Santino’s car. Plus, long-time sponsor ABC Supply, owned by the Hendricks family, returns with a season-long “Homes for Our Troops” sponsorship.
“We’re way further ahead than we’ve ever been as a team,” stated Ferrucci. “Some of the inconsistencies were more on my side of things than anything else (last season). It’s always good to try and find that 101 percent and then dial it back to about 98. It’s been one of those things to where I’ve been able to do that in the races very well this past season. In qualifying, I’ve had a harder time of going from 98 to 100 percent. That’s where my focus is this season.
“We’ve had no turnover as far as staff, crew, or engineering goes,” continued Ferrucci. “Just building off of that into the season is going to be a big deal for us. There’s no reason as to why we can’t continue to fight to be in the top-five of this championship, given the consistency and the prep that we’re at. The odds for us to win the 500 for our car are higher than they’ve ever been (finished third in 2023). There’s a lot of momentum that I’m very excited about.
“Caio (Collet) has been much easier to deal with than some of the past rookies I’ve had (as teammates),” explained Ferrucci. “He’s just very straightforward and easy going. I’m looking forward to having someone with very similar driving styles this year. He’s more similar to me than the past few teammates I’ve had. We can be quite competitive together. My advice would be just to start off trying to finish every race. If he’s doing that, he’ll be in the top-15, top-10 in no time. Coming up from INDY NXT or any junior series, the races are just so long in INDYCAR that the adjustment takes a lot.”
No Surprise that Team Penske Adds Malukas, but Cindric’s Return Is
Normally the most competitive team in INDYCAR that everyone wants to beat, Team Penske only earned two victories in 2025 (Will Power at Portland and Josef Newgarden at Nashville). Since the utilization of the DW12 chassis, Team Penske has won at least five races in 10 of the last 12 seasons.
“We’ve all got to work hard to be where we want to be,” described Newgarden, hoping to help the team reclaim top status. “It’s going to take all of us. We’re helping each other in a lot of respects. We just want to have great cars at every track we show up to. ‘Little Dave’ is going to be great and do a stellar job. We’ve always been an open-book team. That’s the great thing. You come to Team Penske, whatever tool, whatever insight, information to maximize yourself, you’re going to have it available to you. Dave’s smart, fast, and capable of winning races.”
Starting his fifth INDYCAR season, David Malukas (nicknamed Little Dave) joins Penske after driving for AJ Foyt Racing last season, where he ranked 11th. The American injured his wrist before the start of the 2024 season and, while recovering, lost his seat at Arrow McLaren.
“This is the most prepped and ready I’ve ever felt going into a season,“ said Malukas. “I’m not overthinking things and actually feeling super prepped. It’s been awesome. The guys, the crew, everybody is treating me very well, with open arms. What really matters in INDYCAR, where we have so many different circuits – street, road and ovals, is to have consistency. That would be a successful year for me.”
Scott McLaughlin returns for his seventh season, having joined INDYCAR following three Australian V8 Supercar championships.
“It was a terrible year on my part last year,” revealed McLaughlin, who finished 10th in the title fight. “We left a lot on the table. There are things I’ve got to tidy up, the team has to tidy up. We’ve had a really good off-season and the morale on the team is so high.”
Working with McLaughlin as his strategist, Tim Cindric returns after being one of three top management firings last May over the modified attenuator box fiasco at the 109th Indy 500. Cindric had considered options to return to the series with other teams but called to see if there was a need at Team Penske.
“Six months ago, this isn’t something I thought I would have wanted to do,” Cindric told Trackside Online, having first served as race strategist for Bobby Rahal in 1995. “People reached out to me about a lot of different things, but most of them I had already done, and didn’t want to do again. I did miss the competitive side of being at the race track.
“This is a natural progression of my career because I have no other role on the team,” reminded Cindric. “It’s a good balance for me because I get to pursue other things in life and do this on race weekends. I’ve always felt Scott is a very capable guy and he can do this at the highest level. I look forward to getting the most out of him and hopefully I can be a positive influence for him moving forward.”
Driver and Personnel Changes at RLL
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) team is trying to elevate itself to be at the level of the Ganassi, Penske, Andretti and McLaren teams. There have been several hires, including Brian Barnhardt and Michael Pawlowski (serving as Rahal’s strategist and engineer, respectively), both coming from Arrow McLaren. Ryan Briscoe will serve as a driver coach for Mick Schumacher, having joined after filling that role at PREMA. And, former Arrow McLaren Team Principal and previous Penske engineer, Canada’s Gavin Ward, has also joined the team following his non-compete period.
“Gavin is probably the most important link because the rest of our engineering core is the same,” disclosed Rahal. “The ideas that he presented to us were phenomenal right away. I was pretty excited about a lot of what I heard. What I liked about Gavin was that he came in and fundamentally told us where we were lacking, that the data we had, the aero information, which is what we were relying on, wasn’t accurate. That’s really critical because, when we look at where we were at last year, these are question marks we all had. Gavin gave us some good directions. He also validates a lot of the good things we were doing too. We got a couple of tests coming up that are particularly critical, such as Phoenix.
“We need to make improvements on the short ovals, which has been our Achilles’ heel the last few years as a team,” admitted Rahal. “If we can do that, we’ll be sitting in pretty good position. We’ll be strong at the road and street courses.”
Louis Foster, the 2024 INDY NXT champion and 2025 INDYCAR Rookie of the Year, starts his second season at RLL. He agrees with the benefits of Ward joining the team and having Briscoe as a driver coach.
“As soon as Gavin came in, we had a big meeting about ovals, short ovals, discussing from the driver’s perspective what we feel in the car and the reasons why we can’t achieve what we want,” explained Foster. “That gave him an understanding of where we’re at, what we’ve tried, what we think works, and what we think doesn’t work. It’s not an overnight fix. We don’t get a lot of testing in INDYCAR. It’s something we need time on. Ovals on a simulator are very tricky. You can do stuff on road and street courses on simulators, but ovals on simulators are very difficult to get any useful information from.
“Driver coaches are extremely important,” continued Foster. “If it’s done right, they can be extremely valuable to the team. Not only to the drivers, but also to the engineers. Briscoe did a great job for PREMA last year (coached rookie and Indianapolis 500 pole winner Robert Shwartzman). He is a very well-versed driver in INDYCAR, understands it very well. Driver coaches can be quite good at translation between drivers and engineers.”
Schumacher Moves to INDYCAR
Mick Schumacher, the son of Michael Schumacher, enjoyed an INDYCAR test last fall and signed to compete for RLL this season. New to Schumacher will be racing on ovals.
“Mick is a really impressive kid,” said Rahal. “He’s very, very humble. Very down to earth and easy going. He’s asking me about oval racing. I told him if the car is good, you’ll have more fun oval racing than anything in your life. It’s a blast when it’s right; not so good when it’s not.”
Schumacher, at age 26, decided to race in North America after 43 F1 starts.
“We’re in a transition where I’m trying to understand everything and putting everything together,” explained Schumacher. “The team has been great in helping me doing those things and helping me along the way. The adjustment is really about putting the dots together, mostly the different vocabulary. Instead of talking about meters, we’re talking about feet or yards. It’s quite tough for me at the moment. The car guys are amazing. Every race in a season is important, so that’s the way we approach it. We’re all in a pretty good place to start off the season.
”Oval racing offers very different challenges,” continued Schumacher. “I’m trying to understand what the high lines are, what the low lines are doing, what we can do in terms of aero disruptions from the front or the back. All stuff that is very new to me. I’m very curious and interested in learning about that.”
Smaller Grid to Start the Season?
Absent from Content Days were the two PREMA drivers, Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman, as funding is still being sought. Of the 27 cars on the grid during the 2025 INDYCAR season, PREMA was the only team not eligible to obtain a charter that guarantees 25 grid spots and pays over US $1M as a type of season appearance money.
PREMA’s parent company, DC Racing Solutions, has been reported to have financial struggles that resulted in the recent departure of Italian team principal René Rosin. The team, which was founded by Angelo Rosin back in 1983, has amassed more than 70 lower formula driver and team titles that includes F2 and F3. Lance Stroll had great success driving for PREMA during his driver development years before moving up to F1.
A recent social media report indicated that PREMA’s INDYCAR team may miss the first four races and return starting with the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The 2026 INDYCAR season begins with the Streets of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 1.