Insider: What happens next for Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing after shocking split

A move that had long been expected involving one of IndyCar's brightest young drivers has come to fruition.

Thursday afternoon, Juncos Hollinger Racing announced it had "mutually agreed to part ways" with Callum Ilott, the ex-Formula 2 runner-up from 2020 that brought the team back into IndyCar full-time in 2022. Just 12 races into that initial full-season campaign, Ilott and team co-owners Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger sat at a podium inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway media center to announce a multi-year extension.

In just over a year, that relationship appeared severely frayed on and off-track. That it took a more than six weeks following the end of this season to become official will hurt the future prospects of Ilott, who bookended his second full-time IndyCar season with 5th-place finishes while driving for one of the most under-funded, low-resourced teams on the grid.

Here are three thoughts on the news:

What did both sides say?

In its release, JHR said it "regretted" to announce the news and characterized the split as a "mutual agreement." For what it's worth, Ilott's statement posted to X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) said, "My time at Juncos Hollinger Racing had come to an end."

Juncos noted the announcement came with "mixed emotions" but expressed "gratitude" and "appreciation" for Ilott's contributions to the team across 37 IndyCar starts. Hollinger said he "wished (Ilott) every success in his next chapter." Similarly, Ilott gave "thanks to all the incredibly hard-working individuals within JHR for their huge effort and support" since he made his debut at Portland in 2021. "I greatly appreciate the opportunity that I had to step into the world of IndyCar and be a part of building something from the ground up," his statement continued.

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What led to this move?

With a team option on Ilott until mid-December for the 2024 season, there can be no reasonable arguments made claiming JHR let go of Ilott for a lack of results. In 2023, Ilott finished 16th in driver points, behind only one driver outside of IndyCar's five most well-resourced and experienced teams (Ganassi, Andretti, Penske, McLaren and RLL). He finished ahead of both cars from Meyer Shank Racing, Dale Coyne Racing and AJ Foyt Racing, plus one car each from Andretti Global, Ed Carpenter Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and his own rookie teammate, Agustin Canapino.

Ilott finished 4th in the "best of the rest,” considerably behind RLL's Christian Lundgaard but just 12 points from beating Rinus VeeKay and Graham Rahal. Ex-Andretti Global driver Romain Grosjean, considered to be Ilott's most likely replacement, finished three spots and 30 points behind Ilott.

The move can only be explained by a relationship that began deteriorating in April when JHR team officials sent Ilott out from the pits right in front of Canapino, who had not pitted during a caution and briefly taken the lead of the Long Beach Grand Prix. Ilott did his best not to slow his rookie teammate, but a log jam of front-runners, mid-pack drivers and others hoping to pass the leader and get back on the lead lap created a mess for the Argentine JHR driver. After the race, Ilott received a barrage of hate-filled messages from fans of Canapino and JHR who failed to understand that Ilott wasn’t culpable in the incident.

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At the season-finale in Laguna Seca, with both JHR drivers running in the top-5 in the back-half of the race, Ilott attempted a pass around the outside of Canapino, a move the latter driver -- who was fighting to secure his team a spot in next year's Leaders Circle program worth roughly $1 million -- did not expect after general team miscommunication regarding possible "team orders" that Ilott had or hadn't been given about aiding and protecting Canapino's No. 78. During the pass, Canapino bobbled mid-corner and bumped Ilott with his front-wing, leaving the former with damage that would drop him outside the top-10 by the end of the race.

Though the No. 78 managed to clinch a Leaders Circle spot for 2024, having finished three points clear of Andretti Global's No. 29 that would up the first car that missed the cut, Juncos and Canapino criticized Ilott's decision post-race multiple times in interviews with Spanish media. Ilott was again greeted with vile messages online, and similar to April, JHR delivered a delayed and relatively tepid statement in response to the hate directed at their driver.

Earlier that weekend, Ilott had told reporters he would certainly be returning to the No. 77 for 2024, but Juncos told IndyStar post-race that both his drivers' futures with the team remained uncertain until JHR secured the funding necessary to field their rides.

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Given the return of Canapino, which was confirmed last week after the 33-year-old Argentine touring car legend finished 21st in points (five spots and 86 points back of Ilott) as a rookie, a casual fan would've been right to assume a similar confirmation of Ilott's return would've been not far behind. After all, when neither driver is bringing budget to the table and only one has a multi-year deal, a front-row start and a pair of top-5s on his resume, one would presume the younger, higher-performing driver with a much deeper open-wheel background who you could rightfully argue outperformed his equipment in 2023 would see priority.

And not only did JHR speak to coming across Argentine backers that helped keep Canapino in place, but earlier this month, the team announced a "strategic alliance" with Arrow McLaren that, at its heart, represents an overflow of sponsors Arrow McLaren simply doesn't have car space to give landing at the feet of JHR. Though Arrow McLaren is believed to think highly of Ilott's potential, the team had no say in JHR's driver lineup within the fine print of the alliance agreement.

Thursday's news indicates this was clearly about move than dollars and cents or results. It comes down to a relationship that was no longer tenable -- tension that Ilott dealt with admirably, publicly, in recent months and did his best to downplay.

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What's next for both sides?

It’s a shame it took six weeks for the 'parting of ways' to be finalized. IndyStar last spoke to Ilott four weeks ago in a text exchange that made clear the driver expected to return to the No. 77 in 2024.

And if Juncos and Hollinger already had thoughts of cutting their young driver loose, there was no realistic upside in waiting 46 days to make an announcement.

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The delay, though, does mean that rides at RLL and ECR -- the former, admittedly one that likely required budget that Ilott lacks -- are now off the table. What's left are a handful of somewhat unpromising leads, including an Andretti Global team that hasn't closed the door on a fourth full-time car; a Dale Coyne Racing team that has two open seats that almost always require some level of funding brought by the driver; and an AJ Foyt Racing team that says it will bring back Benjamin Pedersen on the rookie's multi-year deal and would like to come to terms with its strongest 2023 performer, Santino Ferrucci.

For JHR, their list of realistic candidates is little different than it was six weeks ago, outside ECR securing Indy NXT champ Christian Rasmussen and his $850,000 scholarship and RLL signing Haas F1 reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi. As mentioned above, Grosjean continues to be the driver most heavily linked to the team within the paddock, under the thought that the name well-known by casual fans around the racing world might make securing additional sponsor partners easier. Already well-funded drivers like Devlin DeFrancesco and Sting Ray Robb remain available.

How that trio, or any other potential free agents, position JHR better is unclear. Because as difficult as it might've been internally, one side of this partnership seemed ready to put on a determined face and press on.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: 3 thoughts after Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing split