IndyCar: Simona de Silvestro still pursuing sponsorship for 2014 season - MotorSportsTalk

The sponsorship hunt continues for IndyCar Series fan favorite Simona de Silvestro, who completed her fourth season in the series last year for KV Racing Technology but currently doesn’t have a ride lined up for 2014.

In an interview with Curt Cavin of The Indianapolis Star, the driver fondly known as the “Swiss Missile” revealed that she’s been back home in Switzerland trying to drum up support; Cavin reports that she was not in attendance for last week’s IndyCar winter meetings in Indianapolis.

“There are companies here that are kind of interested [in IndyCar],” de Silvestro told Cavin. “At the end of the day, I want to be in IndyCar, so that took a little bit of priority [over meetings].”

De Silvestro overcame a rough mid-season stretch and finished 2013 strong, earning her first career IndyCar podium in Race 1 of the Shell/Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston doubleheader last October.

The breakthrough in Houston had her optimistic about her future path in the sport, but she wants to make sure that wherever she ends up on the IndyCar grid, she’ll continue to have a chance to flourish.

“The big challenge is what [can] field me the right way,” De Silvestro said to Cavin about teams that could acquire her services. “It has got to be the right environment.”

Considering that De Silvestro had to go through the 2012 season with the devastatingly poor Lotus engine – in hindsight, a season that no racer would wish upon even their most bitter rival – it’s understandable why she wants to make sure she has a competitive program.

But while there are more than two months to go before the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 30, there’s only a handful of potential rides remaining to be filled.

Returning to KV opposite Sebastien Bourdais could be an option, but there are also second cars open at Dale Coyne Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Also unconfirmed at this time are drives at Barracuda Racing and Panther Racing (although they recently tested Colombian driver Carlos Huertas at Sebring).

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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports