Getting-to-know-you phase underway for Schumacher and Meyer Shank Racing

Meyer Shank Racing is starting the onboarding process with its new IndyCar driver Mick Schumacher. The former Formula 1 driver spent his rookie season with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and moved across to MSR as the new teammate to Marcus Armstrong.

“There’s no ‘gardening leave,’ so we’re just getting him going now,” team co-owner Michael Shank told RACER. “We are going to be at the [driver evaluation] test on October 26 at Barber, and he is going to come to that test. He and Marcus aren’t testing; we’ve got someone else we’re running, but he’ll come to that.

“He’s just integrating into the team now, just getting all the fitting requirements for the car and trying to get going on getting integrated into our society to normal stuff here with engineering things. So we’ve started all that with Mick.”

The Ohio-based team has its ongoing technical alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing to help support Schumacher during his sophomore season, and with MSR’s deep ties to Honda, the 27-year-old should also see an uptick in tools to assist his pre-event preparations.

“I did not require him to move to Columbus,” Shank said. “But he has a place in Texas and he’ll come in and out for us whenever we need him, or to Indy (at Honda Racing Corporation US’s Midwest base) to do the sim. So the one good thing is he’ll get the sim a bit more this year, which is good, and work with the folks there even more and integrate quicker.”

MSR won the Indianapolis 500 and placed ninth in the championship with Felix Rosenqvist, who Schumacher replaces in the team. Armstrong took 14th in the standings and has been promoted from the No. 66 Honda to the No. 60 Honda formerly driven by Rosenqvist; Schumacher takes over the No. 66 entry. Outside of the Indy 500, the season was notable for plenty of adversity with multiple engine failures and a general struggle to turn potential into strong results.

The reboot with Armstrong as MSR’s new veteran and Schumacher as an intriguing solution who had a mostly forgettable rookie campaign has Shank focused on opening 2027 with a serious start for both drivers.

“There’s high expectations that we come out of the box swinging hard here,” he said. “So we’re going to give Mick every resource that we can to meet that expectation.”