With only a little more than a month to go until the Verizon IndyCar Series season opener in Brasilia, Brazil, there’s, as mentioned previously, still a number of outstanding seats and items to get resolved.
First up on the list – you’d think, anyway – would be filling the seven or eight remaining cars set to make up the balance of the grid.
And these two photos from Josef Newgarden and Pippa Mann at IndyCar’s preseason driver meeting in Indianapolis – both of whom should figure in the 2015 Indianapolis 500 – give away some faces of drivers not currently on the 2015 grid but who could well be on the grid in a little more than a month’s time.
Among those spotted include: Justin Wilson, younger and taller brother Stefan Wilson, Conor Daly, Zach Veach, Carlos Huertas and Sebastian Saavedra.
Justin Wilson has been linked to Andretti Autosport’s vacant fourth seat, while budget is still needed to put that together for him. Stefan had been announced for a Fan Force United seat back last summer, but that deal has gone quiet since it was announced. Both drivers were in Daytona for the Roar Before the Rolex 24 test searching for rides, but due to their professional status as Gold or Platinum-ranked drivers, were strangely less valuable to teams who could instead opt to utilize Silver-ranked drivers per the 2 Silver/Bronze-ranked driver minimum in the pro-am classes.
Daly was also in Daytona staying with good friend James Hinchcliffe, and has an IndyCar test upcoming (more on that in a separate post to come on MST).
Veach, like Wilson, is on the Andretti Autosport short list and is still working towards a program there.
Colombians Huertas and Saavedra are, frankly, surprises in the room. The pair finished 20th and 21st in the 2014 championship – the last two positions among full-time drivers – although Huertas won Houston race 1 in the rain and Saavedra scored the pole position at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Neither has been mentioned in the conversation for the vacant rides as yet, but both found deals late last year and could well be poised to do so again this year.
With IndyCar news still pretty much at a standstill until the dominos start falling, the “Where’s Waldo!” driver approach is a good clue-finder to see what could be happening.
