Two-time IndyCar champion and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power has shown that his winless 2023 season, which produced by far his worst championship finish since joining Team Penske full-time in 2010, was nothing more than a fluke and that he is still capable of delivering the high level of performance we have all become accustomed to from him over the past decade and a half.
With his two wins in the first twelve races of the 2024 season, he is tied with teammate and two-time series champion Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing in the championship standings, with five races still on the calendar.
But Power is now 43 and the topic of retirement has been raised more than once. He even recently admitted that he had been thinking about it over the past year as he dealt with his wife’s health problems.
His contract with Team Penske currently runs through at least the 2025 season, and there’s little reason to believe an extension wouldn’t be possible if he decides to continue competing in his late 40s. Like 44-year-old Scott Dixon, he continues to prove that age is just a number, having just moved up to fourth on the all-time wins list, ahead of Michael Andretti.
Rumors suggest that David Malukas would either sign a contract extension with Meyer Shank Racing or move to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to replace Christian Lundgaard, who is moving to Arrow McLaren.
Malukas, who drove for Dale Coyne Racing in the 2022 and 2023 seasons with support from his father’s team, HMD Motorsports, moved to Meyer Shank Racing midway through the 2024 season to replace the struggling Tom Blomqvist after recovering from the preseason wrist injury that led to his premature – and subjectively unwise – release by Arrow McLaren.
In six races, he never qualified worse than 14th, achieved an average starting position of 7.67 and even finished sixth at the wheel of the No. 66 Honda.
He is expected to start today’s race at the World Wide Technology Raceway from the front row.
The 22-year-old Chicago, Illinois native has taken the No. 66 team into the top 22 in the entry standings, putting it in position to move into the Leaders’ Circle and receive a $1 million payout from IndyCar. The team’s prospects of such an outcome looked extremely bleak following Blomqvist’s accident on the first lap of the Indy 500 in late May.
But rather than stay or join a larger Honda organization, Malukas decided to move to AJ Foyt Enterprises for the 2025 season. It has not yet been announced if he will replace Santino Ferrucci at the wheel of the No. 14 Chevrolet or Sting Ray Robb at the wheel of the No. 41 Chevrolet.
AJ Foyt Enterprises are currently on track for their best season in more than two decades after forming a technical alliance with Team Penske during the offseason, and Malukas mentioned that partnership when his new contract was announced.
Could the knowledge that the No. 12 Chevrolet might need a new driver within a few years have played a role in Malukas’ decision to make a move that would bring him as close to Team Penske as possible?
Malukas has done nothing but impress since joining the IndyCar racing series two seasons ago, and while pretty much everyone expected him to struggle when he returned to the cockpit following his injury, he has done just the opposite – and in a car that has had almost no success at all over the past year and a half.
A similar success with AJ Foyt’s team in 2025 and beyond would certainly be enough to attract the attention of one of the IndyCar Series’ top two teams. Even his success with Dale Coyne Racing was enough to secure a deal with Arrow McLaren, albeit after Palou resigned from his contract, unexpectedly leaving the seat without a driver.
Team Penske is also not a team that rushes driver decisions or signs an untested rookie. They have only signed a handful of full-time drivers in the last decade and all of them have been very rewarding.
Juan Pablo Montoya was a CART champion and Indy 500 winner who had success in many other motorsports when he joined in 2014. Simon Pagenaud was coming off three top-five championship seasons with Sam Schmidt’s team when he joined in 2015. Both drivers won multiple races and an Indy 500 after joining, and Pagenaud added a championship title.
Despite failing to achieve a single top-10 finish as a rookie in 2012, current Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden had established himself as the team’s top free agent before signing with the team as a six-year veteran in 2017.
And although his teammate Scott McLaughlin had no IndyCar experience, the team’s decision to sign him in 2021 came after several successful years with Roger Penske’s team in Australian Supercars (and, of course, his success during the COVID-19 IndyCar iRacing Challenge in 2020).
Newgarden has since won two championships and two Indy 500s, while McLaughlin has established himself as a contender for victory at all kinds of race tracks, recently taking pole position for the Indy 500 at an all-time record speed.
Now Malukas, who has been testing for Team Penske, finds himself in a position to impress Team Penske with an affiliated IndyCar team in the fourth (and presumably fifth) year of his IndyCar career, having signed a multi-year deal.
It is perhaps also worth mentioning that as rookies with Dale Coyne Racing, both Malukas and Palou achieved one podium finish, two other top-10 finishes, an average of 14th place and a 16th place championship finish.
Palou is now a two-time champion, reigning series champion and current points leader and has eleven wins to his name with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Next. IndyCar: Two Ganassi drivers risk losing their positions, but not the ones you’d expect. IndyCar: Two Ganassi drivers risk losing their positions, but not the ones you’d expect. dark
If he continues to perform as he has, Malukas can establish himself as exactly the type of driver Team Penske is looking for when it comes to replacing Power. It’s hard to imagine he’s not already on their radar, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else being at the top of their list of possibilities.
