One driver is now off the table with speculation building over who gets to drive the Ganassi 10 or the Andretti 1 next year. Callum Ilott and Juncos-Hollinger have a new two year agreement. Ilott a rookie, is 21st in points, but has qualified well on the road courses. He finished 11th and 12th last weekend at Iowa after starting 22nd in both races.

As for why he chose to stay at juncos-Hollinger Racing, Ilott said,

“At the end of the day Ricardo and Brad have put a lot of
investment in from the beginning, gave me the opportunity
to come out here. The trust in them and the trust in me,
vice versa, I really respected that.
We did the deal quite early on this year to continue. I’m a
man of my word. Of course, there was a lot of interest
from other people, but I was very honest from the very
beginning if anyone approached me, Look, this is what the
situation is.
But, yeah, I’m very happy to continue. I think we’ve got a
lot of momentum. Also there’s interest for engineers and
people to join as well. I think as a team we’ll grow,
hopefully quickly. It could be slowly, but we’re definitely on
the right track to improve.”

The team has done a great job as a one car team, but they are looking to expand. Co-owner Brad Hollinger announced,

“We’re targeting (a second car) next year right now.
Ricardo can allude to that a little bit more for that. We’re
happy to say that is the game plan for sure.
In terms of drivers, I’ll turn that over to Ricardo.”

Juncos added,:

“It is quite difficult, INDYCAR, right?
One of the key components is the system, the engineers,
how you apply all that.
We’re going to prioritize the quality. Having one car, you
still can perform quite okay. No question the second car
will put us to the next level. That’s intention. But, like I
said, we need to make sure is properly first, not just do two
cars just because, because otherwise can be the whole
program damaged.
We’re working very hard to see how we’re going to put the
program together. As of today, we don’t know that yet, but
that’s clearly the way to go.”

Ilott is looking forward to having an experienced teammate.

“I mean, from my side, I would like
someone to teach me what I haven’t been taught.
Obviously that’s a hard one to learn what you don’t know in
a sense.
So, yeah, if someone was super experienced and can
teach me some stuff on the oval, someone who can
develop the team. Otherwise I think they’re going to have
a tough time competing against me for speed. Otherwise,
yeah, help develop the team as much as possible, see
what I can get out of them. That’s my personal side of
things.”

Juncos explained why his team chose not to form a technical alliance with a larger team.

“If we are doing good now with one car team, no technical alliance, if you can add a second car, I think we’re going to be doing our own
things.
I’m quite happy and secure doing that more than a
technical alliance. Also there is no one that I can see
willing to align with us on the technical area as well.”

The team has performed quite well this year considering they are the only single car team on the grid and the driver is a rookie. It will be interesting to see how much they improve in 2023.