IndyCar: Surprise late driver change confirmed for Road America

Juncos Hollinger Racing's tumultuous week has continued into race weekend at Road America, as the team have confirmed that Nolan Siegel is set to replace Agustin Canapino behind the wheel of the No. 78 Chevrolet in Sunday's XPEL Grand Prix.

The decision came less than an hour before the start of the weekend's opening practice session at the 14-turn, 4.048-mile (6.515-kilometer) natural terrain road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Siegel has made just one career IndyCar start, doing so on the streets of Long Beach, California in April. He also took part in the exhibition race weekend at Thermal Club, and he failed to qualify for the 108th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Road America race weekend is set to mark his first IndyCar race weekend with a team other than Dale Coyne Racing.

Agustin Canapino out at Juncos Hollinger Racing, for now

Canapino has reportedly decided to take a leave of absence after a chaotic week in which a contingent of his Argentinian supporters bullied, harassed, and threatened Arrow McLaren's Theo Pourchaire.

Pourchaire made contact with Canapino's No. 78 Chevrolet in last Sunday afternoon's race on the streets of Detroit, Michigan. Pourchaire went on to finish in a career-high 10th place, while Canapino finished in 12th.

Canapino put out a statement saying that he had not seen any death threats, and while he condemned the inappropriate behavior from a number of his fans, he also condemned the generalizations.

We are going to assume that Canapino does not have access to Pourchaire's DMs, so the claim that there have been no death threats is bizarre, especially since, on a number of occasions last year, Canapino's fans did the exact same thing to his former teammate, Callum Ilott.

Canapino also "liked" and replied to several comments on social media pertaining to this narrative, so while much of the blame can be placed on his fans, he did not exactly do himself any favors.

Earlier in the week, amid all of the talk about the situation on social media, Arrow McLaren decided to end their technical alliance with Juncos Hollinger Racing.

Now, in addition to the unexpected termination of a technical partnership, we have reached a point where the behavior of a driver's fanbase has ultimately resulted in that driver being sidelined for at least one IndyCar race weekend.

Sunday's XPEL Grand Prix is set to be broadcast live on NBC from Road America beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!