The initial goal for Dale Coyne Racing was to have their full-time driver lineup for the 2026 IndyCar season solidified by Halloween.
Not only was it ambitious, given their history of waiting until deep into the offseason to confirm their roster, but it would have meant that they would not have been the last – or even the second-to-last – team to shore things up for next year.
Instead, the calendar is set to flip from 2025 to 2026 in two days, and Dale Coyne Racing have been, for roughly a month, in a familiar spot: they are the one and only team without a fully confirmed driver lineup for the 2026 campaign.
Dale Coyne Racing's IndyCar seat still open for 2026
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing confirmed in late November that Mick Schumacher is set to replace Devlin DeFrancesco after just one season, and Juncos Hollinger Racing confirmed in early December that Sting Ray Robb is set to be back for a second season with the organization.
In total, 26 of the 27 full-time cars across IndyCar's 11 teams have confirmed full-time drivers for 2026.
Dale Coyne's team would have liked to have Rinus VeeKay back for a second year in the No. 18 Honda, but he left for Juncos Hollinger Racing to replace Conor Daly behind the wheel of the No. 76 Chevrolet. Reigning Indy NXT champion Dennis Hauger was confirmed as VeeKay's replacement through a new technical partnership with Andretti Global.
Jacob Abel also drove for the team in 2025, but he was underwhelming to say the least. He was the only driver who failed to qualify for the Indy 500, and he finished last of the 27 full-time drivers in the standings without a single top 10 finish.
The hope is that the team will opt against the pay driver route for the No. 51 Honda in 2026. Daly was said to be in the running, but he recently confirmed that those talks had stalled.
The top two candidates would appear to be Linus Lundqvist, who won 2024 Rookie of the Year honors but was left without a seat in 2025, and Romain Grosjean, who got his IndyCar start with Dale Coyne Racing as a part-time driver in 2021. However, it doesn't mean that others aren't still in the running; just look at their history.
But at this point, it doesn't appear that Dale Coyne Racing are in any great rush, and maybe that's a good thing. First of all, they're used to waiting until the last minute; it's become somewhat of a running joke among the IndyCar fanbase, yet they've been in this spot before. And secondly, they've proven that timing isn't always everything.
VeeKay was confirmed to drive the No. 18 car just before the 2025 season began, and he went on to have an impressive year in his sixth season in the series after being surprisingly dropped by Ed Carpenter Racing.
He kept alive an underrated Dale Coyne Racing streak as well. Since 2012, Dale Coyne Racing have run at least one full-time driver in 12 of 14 seasons.
In all 12 of those seasons, the team quietly secured at least one podium finish, while in the other two (2015 and 2024), with strictly part-time drivers, they failed to do so. VeeKay kept the streak going with a runner-up finish on the streets of Toronto.
All things considered, VeeKay's 2025 season made one thing abundantly clear. Though Dale Coyne Racing remain one of the sport's smallest teams, as they've been for their entire existence, they are fully capable of running at the front when they put the right drivers in their cars.
So perhaps that Halloween deadline was a bit arbitrary, because what really matters is how things look come March. Now the focus is rightfully on getting it right and pairing Hauger with the best possible teammate, not by making an announcement by a certain inconsequential date.
The 2026 IndyCar season is scheduled to begin on Sunday, March 1 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, and all 17 races on the schedule are set to be shown live on Fox.