IndyCar: Will Tony Kanaan be back for his 23rd season in 2020?

Will Tony Kanaan return to IndyCar for what would be his 23rd consecutive season in American open-wheel racing next year?

A.J. Foyt Enterprises are set to lose full-time primary sponsor ABC Supply after the 2019 IndyCar season, although the company is slated to continue working with the team for the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Despite the loss of this full-time sponsorship, team owner A.J. Foyt has stated that his team will be back in IndyCar full-time next season, and likely with two cars once again. They have been a two-car operation since the 2015 season.

Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to RACER.

"“I think we’ve got three or four potential sponsors lined up and we’re probably going to keep running two cars. I’m going to keep our shops in Indianapolis and Houston. I just want people to know we’re not leaving.”"

However, what remains uncertain is the team’s future driver lineup.

For the first time since between the 2015 and 2016 seasons, they retained both of their drivers from one year to the next ahead of the 2019 season with second-year driver Matheus Leist behind the wheel of the #4 Chevrolet and 22-year veteran Tony Kanaan behind the wheel of the #14 Chevrolet.

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But one way or another, that looks poised to change ahead of the 2020 season, and there has been a decent amount of speculation about it, particularly as it pertains to the 2004 IndyCar champion and the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner.

Will Kanaan be back for what would be his 23rd consecutive season in American open-wheel racing next year?

Prior to Kanaan’s first podium finish at A.J. Foyt Enterprises in last month’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, which came about largely due to a timely caution flag period late in the race, the 2019 season had been a total disaster for the team.

They recorded only four top 10 finishes in the season’s first 14 races, and there was a chance that Kanaan and Leist would end up finishing the season as the lowest two of the 19 full-time drivers in the championship standings.

In an attempt to prevent the 2020 season from becoming a similar disaster, A.J. Foyt Enterprises are set to undergo a number of big changes. That said, replacing Kanaan should not be one of them considering the fact that he has been the better of their two drivers since joining the team ahead of last year.

It doesn’t appear as though it will be.

Richmond Raceway was added to the IndyCar schedule for the 2020 season, which you can see here, marking its return to the series after a 11-year hiatus.

Last Tuesday, Kanaan and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, two of the six active drivers who have previously competed in at least one IndyCar race at the track and the only two of these six drivers who have won there, took part in a press conference with IndyCar CEO Mark Miles, IndyCar president Jay Frye and Richmond Raceway president Dennis Bickmeier about this addition.

Based on some of the comments that Kanaan made during this press conference, it appears that he is planning, or at least hoping, to compete in the race at the four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) oval in Richmond, Virginia on Saturday, June 27, 2020.

“I’m not expecting anything less than 800 passes here when we come back,” he stated. “Hopefully I’ll pass Scott for the lead on the last lap and I’ll win.”

Hard to pass someone without competing, wouldn’t you think?

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Tony Kanaan doesn’t have anything shored up for next season with A.J. Foyt Enterprises or with any other team on the grid, and this quote certainly doesn’t confirm anything.

But it’s pretty clear that he sees himself returning to IndyCar in 2020 one way or another. There are certainly other seats open for which he could be a candidate, but a third season at A.J. Foyt Enterprises would make a lot of sense on many levels.