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IndyCar’s longest silly-season is still at fever pitch

The 2021 IndyCar silly season is one of the silliest of all, but it’s satisfying to see so many talented drivers in play – including Callum Ilott. David Malsher-Lopez reports.

David Malsher-Lopez Sep 11, 2021, 2:46 PM

Upd: Sep 15, 2021, 3:34 PM

The who-goes-where-for-2022 gossip started early. One of the reasons for this was that youngsters were regularly matching and/or beating the series veterans in a season when many of the elders are in the final year of their current contracts. Team owners therefore cast a wandering eye around the paddock, and the sharper ones also looked at the drivers making stars of themselves in Indy Lights and Formula 2.

The speculation then gained momentum in the summer break, caused by the Olympic/NBC void, although it’s doubtful whether anyone expected Meyer Shank Racing to trigger it with the announcement that Helio Castroneves was joining the team fulltime in 2022 and that Jack Harvey was departing. Hell, even MSR themselves were somewhat shocked by Harvey’s decision to leave.

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Author David Malsher-Lopez

David Malsher-Lopez is Motorsport.com’s U.S. editor, covering the NTT IndyCar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Since completing journalism college in 1994, he has worked for Autosport, TRMG, Motor Sport, Autosport (again) and Racer, before joining Motorsport.com in 2015… where he has found himself enjoying a third spell writing for Autosport. Over the course of those 27 years, he has served as a journalist, sub-editor, features editor, deputy editor and editor. In 2015, he also wrote Will Power’s biography. David lives with his wife Sophia in California and when not writing about racing, he will be found reading about planes and classic cars, attending airshows, listening to a wide variety of music or watching cop shows from the ’70s. He intends to one day own a grand piano, an Airedale terrier and a vintage Pontiac. He doesn’t do Facebook and doesn’t understand Instagram but can be found @DavidMalsher on Twitter.