Yahoo Autos IndyCar Leaders Circle race heating up
Six races to go. Millions of dollars on the line. The NTT IndyCar Series’ race-within-a-race, the stampede to earn the final Leaders Circle contracts for 2025, is towards the bottom of the entrants’ championship, happening as it always does at this stage of the season.
With Penske Entertainment’s guaranteed prize money distribution system — one that was devised in the mid-2000s by the Hulman George family, the former owners of the series — the top 22 entries in the final standings are eligible to receive the contracts worth approximately $1 million apiece.
The Leaders Circle structure limits eligibility to a maximum of three cars per team, which only affects the five-car Chip Ganassi Racing squad, so outside of CGR’s No. 4 entry for Kyffin Simpson and the No. 11 for Marcus Armstrong, its other three entries, along with the full-time cars at IndyCar’s nine other teams, are in play for those 22 payouts next year.
Entering this weekend’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto race, and with an adjustment for the two ineligible CGR cars, the battle to stay inside or break into the top 22 is headed by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and its No. 30 driven by Pietro Fittipaldi with 124 points. Ed Carpenter Racing’s No. 20 Chevy shared by Christian Rasmussen and Ed Carpenter is next in 20th with 118 points. Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 66 Honda, which has David Malukas in the seat through the final race, is close to the cut line in 21st at 116 points. On the bubble in 22nd is A.J. Foyt Racing’s No. 41 Chevy piloted by Sting Ray Robb, tied at 116 points with MSR’s No. 66.
On the wrong side of the line, the key Leaders Circle pursuers start with the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy driven by Agustin Canapino in 23rd at 111 points. In 24th at 100 points it’s Dale Coyne Racing with RWR’s No. 51 Honda, which has cycled through six drivers this season.
And last among the entries that can contend for a contract, Coyne’s No. 18 Honda, which has welcomed four drivers into the cockpit — but lost crucial points by failing to qualify for the Indy 500 — is a distant 25th at 85 points.
Where the teams and drivers who are safely in the Leaders Circle zone are locked in on where they place in the drivers’ championship, those at the opposite end of the results are laser-focused on their entrants’ placement on Sunday and the remaining races.
“Obviously we are in trouble with the 78,” Juncos told RACER. “We need to score points, but then the mistakes keep happening and bad luck and all that. I think we are fast. I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to make it in For us, it’s important to get that done.”
Short on sponsorship for both of JHR’s entries, Juncos and co-owner Brad Hollinger continue to express their Leaders Circle needs to their team.
“We talk about it many times,” Juncos added. “We need points. Like last weekend, for example, it’s impossible to try to pass and I thought that it would be easy to finish without mistakes. But then Agustin spun on the outside of the pits, so that’s not good. But I feel like if I talk more about the need for points, it’s not gonna help. At this point, we just need a little bit more luck.”
Like Juncos, Larry Foyt is chasing an important piece of his future funding.
“It’s a good chunk of our budgets for sure, being in that Leaders Circle,” the program’s team principal said. “Sting Ray’s been racing really well here lately. That was a real shame about that accident at Iowa. We really thought we were getting out of Iowa with a pretty good team weekend and it was going to be another good finish for him, some good points. But hey, that’s racing, and we’re not giving up. If he can put in a couple really good events here to close out the year, we’ve got a good chance of making that top 22.”
Toby Sowery’s strong showing on his debut has hopes on the rise at Dale Coyne Racing for the chances of its No. 51 making the Leaders Circle cut. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images
Dale Coyne has better odds of getting the No. 51 in than the No. 18, and says he chose impressive Indy NXT graduate Toby Sowery to assist in cracking the top 22.
“The Leaders Circle has implications,” he explained. “That’s why we chose Toby for the last road and street races. He did a good job for us at Mid-Ohio, and hopefully that can have some impact. But in front of us, you’ve got the [No.] 78 car, the 41 car and the 66 car, which I expect to continue to do good. But you never know when all of a sudden, strategy or something can pop us up into a top-10 result and change things around.
“If we keep thinking about finishing around the high teens and the low 20s, it doesn’t change much. But if somebody jumps up into the top 10 for us, it changes. I keep an incredibly close eye on it. I’ve got a spreadsheet I use and both cars were safe after St. Pete, and both cars were safe after Barber. And then we had some big blows, and from Laguna on, they both have been below. So we’ll see what happens here. Getting a Leaders Circle is important, but in today’s world, in all honesty, a million dollars doesn’t get over far in the sport.”
For Shank and co-owner Jim Meyer, Malukas and the No. 66 Honda are in good shape at the moment, and getting it into the top 22 was a primary reason with the change they made after opening the season with rookie Tom Blomqvist.
“We played around with our driver lineup, and David’s finished 12th, 13th and 16th, which helped us a lot,” Shank said. “We feel like we’ve got the right guy going forward to make sure that we get that thing in the Leaders Circle. We’ve got some more ovals coming up. He had a little slip-up at Iowa in Race 1 there. And then the car wasn’t great for him in Race 2, but we hung on and got the points we needed.
“We look at this as, ‘What do we need to finish on average?’ to get the car in. We need to be around 16th or 17th, no worse than that, and if we do that and keep that in mind as we go forward, we can get that second Leaders Circle all buttoned up.”
