Juncos Hollinger Racing announced on Wednesday that Callum Ilott, 2020 Formula 2 runner-up and current F1 reserve driver, will join the team’s part-time number 77 for the Portland Grand Prix this month. The announcement marks the beginning of the renamed team’s efforts to test potential candidates for moving to a full-time position at IndyCar in 2022.
The team will test on the IMS street circuit on Thursday prior to the September 12 race at Portland International Raceway.
Here’s what you need to know:
Ilot is the newest F1 driver to join the series
The 22-year-old Briton had a strong run in Formula 2 in 2020, where he won three races, took five poles and six podiums, finishing second in the championship. At the beginning of 2021 he was appointed test driver in Ferrari Formula 1 and substitute driver for Alfa Romeo in Formula 1.
He joins a number of drivers with F1 or F2 ties to either drive in the series in 2021 or join the pool of potential drivers who could compete at IndyCar in 2022. Above all, the former Haas F1 driver Romain Grosjean came with Rick. to Dale Coyne Racing Ware Racing in the past off-season as a road and road circuit driver in No. 51. His team-mate on three of the four ovals, Pietro Fittipaldi, is currently test and reserve driver for Haas in F1 and completed his first two F1- Starts in the year before.
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Grosjean’s longtime teammate at Haas and former F1 driver Kevin Magnussen jumped in for a race at Arrow McLaren SP for his own IndyCar debut earlier this year when Felix Rosenqvist had to miss a second race due to his accident in the first race of the Detroit Grand Prix . Current F2 driver Christian Lundgaard tested and later drove for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in the team’s part-time number 45 on the IMS street circuit last month. Lundgaard is considered a candidate for this seat when the team moves it to full-time in 2022.
Former F1 driver and current F1 seat candidate for 2022, Alex Albon, also visited the IndyCar paddock at IMS this weekend, spoke to almost every team and also spent a lot of time with Grosjean and the DCR team and even got into the car to get a feel for it while working on it near the team’s van.
Series veterans Alexander Rossi, Sebastien Bourdais, Takuma Sato, Max Chilton and Marcus Ericsson also drove in Formula 1 for various stages of their racing careers.
Juncos will drive the last 3 races in 2021
Last month, team owner Ricardo Juncos announced a new partnership with Brad Hollinger, a long-time Formula 1 shareholder of Williams, whom Juncos met at the Indy 500 in 2017 when his team entered the race with two cars for the first time. Together they formed what will be known as Juncos Hollinger Racing and revitalized an IndyCar team that hadn’t raced in the series since its Cinderella run in the 2019 Indy 500.
Since then, the team has driven several cars, in both Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000, on the Road to Indy ladder system. In August, the team announced that they would compete in the final three races of the 2021 IndyCar season with either a single driver or multiple drivers to evaluate who will take over the reins of the car when it moves full-time in 2022.
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Wednesday’s announcement said that Ilott will drive the # 77 Chevy in Portland, leaving the chances open that he will also drive the last two races or choose another driver to best evaluate all of his options. The team is known for being interested in current sports car and ex-F1 driver Felipe Nasr as an option, and also had ex-IndyCar driver Kyle Kaiser in the car for his first test earlier this summer.
27 drivers will run Portland
On Wednesday, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing announced that Oliver Askew will lead the team’s part-time operation in the No. 45 Honda for the final three races of 2021, starting with the Portland Grand Prix at Portland International Raceway. Like Juncos, RLL is looking for drivers to include in its new full-time entry for the 2022 IndyCar season.
Helio Castroneves will also compete part-time for Meyer Shank Racing at No. 06 in Portland, Laguna Seca and Long Beach before moving to full-time in the car next season. Combined, there are at least 27 drivers on the grid for each of the last three races in the series on the West Coast, with IndyCar’s three part-time entries and 24 full-time programs.
Email IndyStar motorsport reporter Nathan Brown at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.
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