September brings some surprising wrinkles to IndyCar's silly season

September is almost finished and we’ve had limited movement since the IndyCar season ended earlier in the month at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. But don’t mistake the relative silence for an absence of silly season action behind closed doors.

Some big changes have come to light since our last update that will shape where a few drivers – ones we anticipated were on their way to new homes – are no longer in play or find themselves on the cusp of saying farewell to IndyCar.

AJ FOYT RACING: Lineup partially complete with Dennis Hauger while the second seat remains open.

Well that seemingly came out of nowhere. The team has made a hard pivot with the removal of Santino Ferrucci from its lead car and the installation of 2025 Indy NXT champion and 2026 IndyCar Rookie of the Year Dennis Hauger as its new focal point.

It came as a surprise to most of us… and Hauger’s now-former team at Dale Coyne Racing. And to a number of free agents who’ve told me they were convinced the No. 14 Chevy was going to bear their name in 2027 before Hauger’s out-of-left-field acquisition by Foyt.

First, good on the Foyt team for doing something bold and different. This team has been the gold standard for sitting idle and taking two or three years to act when it was in need of an obvious change in two or three months. For the first time in a long time, and after a lot of introspection, it opted against keeping Ferrucci as its primary driver for a fifth season and has taken a leap of faith on Hauger whose rookie season had a few standout moments, but rarely left the Norwegian in a position to showcase the full measure of his talents.

With all of the car failures and crashes and little issues that kept him off track in 2026, Foyt’s secured Hauger with the knowledge that his second IndyCar season will include the need to complete a lot of the lessons that were lost as a rookie. He’s far from a finished product, but there’s faith that Hauger can become something special.

As much as I hate to see Ferrucci’s full-time career take a hit, this is a team that took multiple steps back after peaking with his run to ninth in the championship back in 2024. While Ferrucci certainly wasn’t at fault for Foyt’s retreat, consecutive finishes of 16th in 2025 and 17th in 2026 – all while receiving dampers and technical support from Team Penske – led to increased scrutiny and an eventual loss of faith that he would bring the program back to the top 10.

Based on his NXT title run in 2025, and his star performance to qualify third for his first IndyCar race, the Foyt team is hoping Hauger will bring more to its road and street course game while harboring no expectations for the 23-year-old to match Ferrucci’s oval prowess as a sophomore. It’s a somewhat curious decision to trade a true veteran for an entirely unproven solution, but I love the ambition being shown by a Foyt team that rarely rolls the dice.

And now we’re in wait-and-see mode with who’ll join Hauger and occupy the No. 4 Chevy used by Caio Collet last season. Collet isn’t expected to return to the team, and in a remarkable shift since our last silly season update, the Brazilian’s rookie campaign with Foyt – after placing second to Hauger in the 2025 NXT championship – might be his last in the series.

Collet was understood to have come with $6 million in funding from Brazilian sponsors, and if the rumors are true, that budget has been downsized by a considerable amount, which would take him out of play to stay in a car that Foyt needs to be heavily assisted by a qualified driver.

We’re on the clock to learn whether young NXT veteran Josh Pierson will be granted a license to race in IndyCar, and from what I’ve heard, Monday, October 26 at Barber Motorsports Park, could be where the determination is made as an evaluation test is said to be on the calendar for the 20-year-old Oregonian to demonstrate his capabilities in a Foyt car in front of the series.

Former Juncos Hollinger Racing, Arrow McLaren, and PREMA Racing driver Callum Ilott has been busy raising sponsorship behind the scenes and is believed to have a decent budget to offer. He’d bring a lot of experience to a Foyt team that’s significantly lacking in that area, and his oval ability was always an underappreciated aspect of his game.

Former Coyne, Juncos Hollinger Racing, and Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel is also understood to be among the candidates for Foyt, but like Ilott and any others, there are few seats left to fill and needing to wait more than a month to learn if the 4 car will be taken by Pierson and his sizable funding package of $12.5 million per season could have limited appeal.   

Ferrucci's looking for somewhere to put his signature for 2027. Perry Nelson/Getty Images

ANDRETTI GLOBAL: Lineup complete with Kyle Kirkwood, Marcus Ericsson and Will Power...

...but that doesn’t mean the team has been left out of the silly season debates.

Former Andretti IndyCar driver Colton Herta has inspired hot takes aplenty over the last week after declaring he was uninterested in returning for a second season of Formula 2. Herta’s comments have led to a volley of questions of where he’ll race in 2027, and for some, there’s an assumption he’ll return to IndyCar.

But Herta simply saying he no longer intends to race in F2 doesn’t mean Andretti’s parent company TWG Motorsports has abandoned its plan to continue preparing the American for its Cadillac F1 program. Herta is staying in Europe and is on the same path to F1, minus the F2 part once the 2026 season is done.

For the sake of repetition, the effort to acquire enough super license points and position Herta to qualify for a Cadillac race seat has not changed. I’m told by those who know that he can gathering the final points required to receive an F1 license by doing more Free Practice 1s with Cadillac, so returning to F2 isn’t viewed as a necessity.

In fact, after the interview where he said plenty of positive things about F2 while also mentioning he wasn’t planning to do a second season, Herta has done a TPC F1 test (testing of previous car) in Portugal, which is said to have gone well. Herta wouldn’t be conducting a TPC F1 run in recent days if the path to F1 he’s been on for the last year was shuttered.

Hopefully he’ll be confirmed as part of the F1 team’s program again in 2027, and for the sake of sharing, Herta was in high demand back in IndyCar a few months ago as the June bombshells of Scott Dixon leaving Chip Ganassi Racing and Felix Rosenqvist leaving Meyer Shank Racing for a reunion at Arrow McLaren emerged.

Before inquiring about the likes of Christian Lundgaard, Rinus VeeKay, or any of the other candidates who were on the market, I’m told calls were made to ask about Herta’s availability to join Ganassi and MSR, and in that late June/early July window, the answer was a firm no. Months later, the answer hasn’t changed.

As the most successful recent and active IndyCar driver on the planet (who is currently competing outside of IndyCar) with nine wins, 16 poles, and a run to second in the championship as recently as 2024, trying to recruit Herta to join Alex Palou at Ganassi or to lead MSR with Marcus Armstrong made a lot of sense and also spoke to the high regard he’s held by the defending series champions and its affiliate team. Nonetheless, he wasn’t free to sign so both teams went in different directions.

CHIP GANASSI RACING: Lineup partially complete with Alex Palou and Kyffin Simpson.

As we’ve done for the last few months, the waiting game continues with Ganassi to announce Christian Lundgaard as Scott Dixon’s replacement in the No. 9 Honda.

I’ve heard it could finally happen before the end of the month, but we’ll see if that proves to be true.

Honestly, Herta could have a full F1 ride and he'd still probably find a way into IndyCar silly season. James Sutton/Getty Images

DALE COYNE RACING: Lineup incomplete with both seats open.

No guarantees were in place without signatures on contracts, but I heard of an ambition held by the Coyne team to reboot itself with Hauger as its new lead driver, and 2026 NXT champ Nikita Johnson as the latest in a long line of junior open-wheel title winners to get their start with Coyne.

With Hauger’s unforeseen exit from Coyne, the fielding of IndyCar’s top two recent NXT talents as a tandem has gone awry and leaves the team in the position of needing to find a new lead driver to wield the No. 18 Honda. Johnson is also commanding interest from every other team with a vacancy, and he’s rumored to have a decent sponsorship portfolio to entice the Coynes, Foyts, and Hollingers, so until he’s locked down, it’s difficult to say where the teenage Floridian will begin his IndyCar career.

If it’s with Coyne, a veteran would be needed to lead from the cockpit and to mentor Johnson, which could put Romain Grosjean back in the mix, provided he wants to continue. Someone like Ilott, with a bit of new funding to share, could be a great fit for the team. He’s spending the season in IMSA as both the lead driver and daily driver coach to his teammate/team owner, and with his deep technical expertise and feedback, tuning up a rookie while also leading the 2028 car testing for the team would seem to be a natural calling for Ilott.

Santino Ferrucci got his IndyCar start with Coyne, but I’m not sure he’s in the frame for a return. The same can be said with Sting Ray Robb, who debuted with Coyne but isn’t on the team’s short list. Linus Lundqvist is also among the drivers whose names I’ve heard mentioned, but I don’t have a feel for whether the 2022 Indy NXT champ has a realistic shot with Coyne. Would Collet be an option, given his oval runs and the ability to bring a few dollars to help?

Other than wanting Johnson, I can’t say where the team’s interests will take them for 2027.

DREYER & REINBOLD RACING: Lineup complete with Conor Daly.

But there’s an interesting wrinkle with its second Indianapolis 500 driver.

DRR’s Jack Harvey has spent the last two Indy 500s with the team using Chevy power, but with the program’s switch to Honda, the reception to Harvey’s return by Honda is said to be rather frosty. His first seven seasons and those seven 500s were contested with Hondas in the back of Harvey’s cars, so there’s no lack of familiarity between the Briton and the brand, but continuing with the new DRR-Honda dynamic wasn’t met with an easy yes.

The cause of the cool initial response is beyond me, but I’ve since heard the impasse has thawed to some degree. Whether that reaches a point where Harvey and his sponsors are able to continue with DRR is unknown, but it’s a topic to follow as the single-car team readies itself for its first full-time campaign since 2012 and looks to maintain a wider multi-car footprint at the Speedway.

Harvey Honda harmony. Geoff Miller/Getty Images

ECR: Lineup complete with Alexander Rossi and Christian Rasmussen.

JUNCOS HOLLINGER RACING: Lineup partially complete with Rinus VeeKay, while the second seat remains open.

As we chronicled in a previous silly season update, the team is known to have signed Rinus VeeKay to a multi-year extension, so while it has not been confirmed publicly, we’ll go ahead and work from a place where there’s only one available car to occupy.

Along with the Coyne/Hauger/Foyt shuffle, the Juncos Hollinger outfit is atop the list of teams who’ve undergone significant change since our last update.

After hearing for months and months that Juncos Hollinger was expected to align with Arrow McLaren once the buyout between Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger was completed and the team was left solely in Hollinger’s hands, the latest intel suggests the union with Arrow McLaren is less likely for 2027.

I’m told it’s still possible for 2028, but the short-term concept of launching the relationship next season with technical support, and where Arrow McLaren would also use the second Hollinger seat to place and develop a young talent like Caio Collet or Leonardo Fornaroli, could be in jeopardy.

Of the two, Collet is who I expected to get the nod and switch from Foyt to Juncos via the McLaren connection, but Collet is in danger of being one-and-done in IndyCar after a rough rookie season with the rumored reduction in sponsorship and the new question mark hanging over the 2027 alignment between McLaren and Hollinger.

Minus the solid funding, and in the absence of the placement by McLaren, Collet has gone from being a key player in a two-team plan to unsure where he’ll land.

There’s plenty of time left in the offseason for things to change if both teams elect to engage in whatever capacity, but for now, I’m looking at Hollinger’s unassigned No. 77 Chevy with a more immediate interest in who will partner with VeeKay.

It’s hard to offer precise insights on which driver has the best chances of securing the drive because we don’t know which direction Hollinger intends to take the team once the divorce with Juncos is finalized.

We’ve been writing about Hollinger’s goal of welcoming new investors for more than a year, but I can’t say if that will happen right away in a post-Juncos scenario, or if he’ll operate the team on his own in 2027 while continuing to seek the right partner or primary investor to go out and hire a bigger name to complement VeeKay in 2028.

That’s a big development to consider, since Hollinger has been paying for almost everything on his own for the last five years, and if an entity like McLaren or an investor isn’t paying for a next-generation talent to be in the second car in 2027, I could see the seat being offered once more to a funded driver.

Sting Ray Robb, the No. 77’s former driver, isn’t necessarily gone from IndyCar, but he isn’t part of Hollinger’s plans. Depending on where Foyt ends up with Pierson, and IndyCar’s position on continuing to license Robb, he could be a well-funded solution there where he spent the 2024 season.

But with three teams left to shop, and Coyne and Hollinger disinclined to reopen their doors, the Idahoan’s future might be found in IMSA GTP, where he’s said to be on the radar for the JDC-Miller Porsche 963 program, or Formula E where his rumored $15 million budget would go a long way, or in European endurance racing where multiple options exist in multiple series.

In a callback to the start of today’s Juncos Hollinger team which debuted in 2021, I continue to hear Callum Ilott, its original driver, is being considered, and as we noted with Coyne, Nolan Siegel is also a possibility.

With Hollinger, I’m in a similar place as Coyne and Foyt where key decisions need to happen before certain drivers make financial or competitive sense.

Hollinger just took VeeKay to 10th in the championship, and an NXT champ like Johnson will always want the best seat in the best available team which, based on 2026’s results, point to Hollinger. Then it’s down to the price point, which could sway Johnson’s interest or send him elsewhere to find a better deal. At Hollinger, a teammate gets a veteran and a real front-running star to learn under with VeeKay. That’s a strong selling point for a young or new driver.

For Collet, Ilott, Robb, and Siegel, finding a way back into the series is the first job, and if it can be done with a strong team, it’s even better, but they aren’t in positions to dictate terms to any team. Not with the new licensing restrictions.

Where will the silly season take us in the days and weeks ahead? Will we have any new names from Europe of elsewhere enter the market? Beyond the race to onboard Johnson, the rest of the race to complete IndyCar’s 2027 grid is wide open and far from being finished.

MEYER SHANK RACING: Lineup complete with Marcus Armstrong and Mick Schumacher.

RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING: Lineup complete with Graham Rahal and Louis Foster.

TEAM PENSKE: Lineup complete with Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and David Malukas.