David Malukas says he's unlikely to return to Dale Coyne Racing for 2024 IndyCar season
LEXINGTON, Ohio – David Malukas fully intended to build a foundation with Dale Coyne Racing to help kickstart his young IndyCar career and deliver consistency for a team that’s seen very little of it the last decade. But at the halfway point of his second campaign driving Coyne’s No. 18 Honda, the 21-year-old told IndyStar on Friday that he’s held no talks with DCR management about a second deal and doesn’t intend to return after his first contract ends at the end of the 2023 season.
A year after fighting for Rookie of the Year honors until the season-finale and logging three top-10s over the back-half of 2022 – including an impressive runner-up finish at WWT Raceway – Malukas said Friday he was disappointed to see the team struggle to capture similar results following runs to 10th and 4th to start this season.
Entering this weekend at Mid-Ohio, where he logged his first IndyCar top-10 a year ago (9th), Malukas is on a streak of four consecutive DNFs, dating to the May 13 GMR Grand Prix – the longest streak of any driver in the paddock this year.
“We started off strong, which kinda surprised everybody. We weren’t expecting it because we had a lot of changes in the team (over the offseason), but now even throughout the season, we’ve had new people almost every race. We just haven’t had a consistent team where we can build chemistry off of, and I feel like that’s definitely been one of the issues,” Malukas told IndyStar. “The guys work so hard day and night, working their butts off, and at the end of the day we end up not getting the results, so morale really starts to decrease in the team, and I can sense it. I can only give so many donuts to keep the team happy.
“We’re very much talking with other teams, and there’s plenty of offers from people who still want me, and it’s looking very good for next year, but the trajectory as of now looks like I’m not going to be with (Dale Coyne Racing) next year. I’ll be somewhere else.”
Asked whether that was his intention when he entered his second season, Malukas said he could’ve seen himself returning to the ride for another contract or exploring other more competitive options. The rough run of recent results – which have included a crash with teammate Sting Ray Robb (GMR Grand Prix), a crash with competitor Agustin Canapino (Indianapolis 500), a late-race solo crash (Detroit Grand Prix) and an engine issue that ended his day (Road America) – have helped solidify his decision.
The 2021 Indy Lights runner-up described the likely parting of ways as more of a “mutual” decision.
“I very much do want to go somewhere else, but I think from (the team’s end), it’s somewhat similar,” Malukas said. “Going into (the 2023 season), we wanted to continue with Dale, and make it work and make it one of those teams that you always talk about. That’s why we initially signed a two-year deal. We didn’t want it to be a ‘come-and-go’ type of thing.
“Dale is very, very impressive with the team, and they’re all very good with what they do and the people they have, but with the way things have been going mentally on my end, it just hasn’t been the chemistry I really wanted – which was what we had at the start (in 2022). So, going to a different team, a bigger team – something just in a different environment – would be helpful on my end.”
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With Malukas likely to move on to a new IndyCar ride for 2024 and beyond, it isn’t immediately clear whether that move will also see DCR lose the partnership and the related funding for the No. 18 Honda from its deal with HMD Motorsports that began when Malukas, the young Chicago-native, was given his debut IndyCar ahead of the 2022 season. This past offseason, HMD Motorsports, owned by David’s father Henry Malukas, purchased a new shop in Brownsburg that will eventually increase the team’s operating space 10-fold (6,500 square-feet to 65,000 square-feet). HMD began the 2023 Indy NXT campaign with nine full-time entries in the development series one step below IndyCar after breaking onto the scene in 2019 with just two.
As his motorsports team has grown in both size and success at a rapid pace, the elder Malukas has recently spoken about future hopes to run a full-time IndyCar program. Both David and his father, though, have made clear that the young driver’s future isn’t immediately tied to HMD’s development – similar to how Graham Rahal cut his teeth for several years in the sport before eventually landing at his dad Bobby Rahal’s team for a long-term stint starting in 2013.
At the moment, the younger Malukas said, HMD’s new shop is slated to be finish by the end of 2023. What happens from there – and whether it will immediately include his driving services – isn’t immediately clear, the driver said. Notably, Honda is currently at-capacity on full-time IndyCar entries at 15, and Chevy doesn’t have much more room to grow either while at 12 and shouldering extensive development costs (like Honda) while currently helping develop IndyCar’s future hybrid engine package for 2024.
“My dad has large ambitions, but those also require large sums of money, and unfortunately, you can’t print it these days,” the younger Malukas said. “The motivation is there, and me and my dad both have our own dreams. My dream is to be in IndyCar, whether that’s with HMD or not – though, who would say they wouldn’t want to be in IndyCar with (their family team)? But is it going to happen? I don’t know.
“We signed a two-year deal (with Coyne) to work and help with the team, and we’ve tried a lot from our end to bring in people from HMD (to DCR) in all different sectors to help the team grow and get some sort of involvement in there, but things kinda didn’t work out the way we’d wanted. With what we wanted to accomplish, things turned out a little differently, but it all comes down to losing a few key people we didn’t want to lose.”
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Among an expansive free agent market that includes more than half of the full-time grid of 27 drivers, Malukas could be a player for some of the more competitive open rides for 2024, including as many as two or three full-time rides alongside Scott Dixon at Chip Ganassi Racing – two of which that likely require the funding Malukas may be able to offer.
Andretti Autosport is also likely eyeing a replacement for Devlin DeFrancesco in the No. 29 Honda, and Meyer Shank Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing are among the teams either with a certain or likely vacancy to fill. From a performance standpoint, Malukas lags behind other free agents on the market like Alex Palou, Marcus Ericsson, Felix Rosenqvist and Callum Ilott and may need to wait for other dominoes to fall before he can solidify his home – unless his family’s funding comes into play.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: David Malukas unlikely to return to Dale Coyne Racing in 2024
