Coyne drivers satisfied after solid start to 2026 IndyCar campaign

It wasn’t the exact result they were hoping for after qualifying third and sixth, but rookie Dennis Hauger and veteran Dale Coyne Racing teammate Romain Grosjean were able to secure a pair of top 10s to open the IndyCar season at St. Petersburg on Sunday.

For Grosjean, it was a run to eighth in the No. 18 Honda and for Hauger, his 10th-place finish was filled with education he’ll put to good use going forward. As a team, Coyne’s squad out-ran the entire Meyer Shank Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, ECR, and AJ Foyt Racing organizations with a young driver making his IndyCar debut and another driver who sat out for 18 months before being signed a few weeks ago.

Coyne tends to excel at St. Petersburg, which makes the results less of a surprise – the real test will come this weekend on the Phoenix Raceway oval – but for now, the punchy outfit from Illinois has every reason to celebrate a statement-making start to the championship.

"It was a good day; whenever you start in the top six, you are just looking to capitalize on the qualifying effort and today I think we did that starting the year with a P8 finish,” Grosjean said. “I think we could have done more and gotten a few more spots, but if you told me going into this weekend that I’d be in the Firestone Fast 6 and be top 10 in the race, I would have been very happy with that.

“It’s only the first race of the year, but it is finishes like this that make a good impression on the final point standings, so it’s a productive start for myself and the team.”

Hauger was all smiles after the 100-lap race.

"This weekend is a dream come true,” he said. “I have dreaming of this for a long time, to get P3 in my first ever qualifying performance in an IndyCar was surreal and to turn that into a top 10 finish is such a great feeling. I think we did good this weekend, but I know we have more we can find in ourselves to finish even better going forward. We can build off of this performance and I'm excited to go out and do this all again next week."