Callum Ilott talked exclusively with Pit Debrief about his journey in IndyCar so far, his form in the current championship, and the goals he has set for the near future.
The British driver joined the top single-seater category in the Americas in 2021 with Juncos Racing, taking part in the last three rounds of the season. He recalled the difficulties and struggles he had to overcome alongside a team starting out in the series:
“Coming from European racing, I wanted to get into Formula 1, but there was no possibility of Formula 1 so I started to look at other options. At the same time Ricardo Juncos, the owner, wanted to go into Indycar from Indy NXT, at the time Indy Lights, and he was obviously expanding, going to go full time in Indycar but wanted to do those three races at the end of the year.
“I was one of a couple of drivers that he was speaking to, and I was probably the only one at that time to go: ‘You know what? I’ll do it and I’ll give it a go’, and it went from a test in a race, to a test in three races, and then by the third race I had signed to continue into the next year full time.
“It was interesting, especially those first three races were super tough. Definitely not an easy championship to jump into and as a brand new team as well, we went through a lot of discovery, good and bad, of problems and issues, trying to work through those as well as increasing the performance.”
2022 was another season of discovery for Ilott as he had to adapt to a whole new type of racing with the first ovals of his career as a sole driver for Juncos, while also collecting data in order to improve the pace of his car no. 77. His highlight of the season was undoubtedly at Laguna Seca when he put his car on the front row.
“Then I came into the season full time, I was the only one car team, which is again not easy, especially when you are learning on the ovals and you have no reference, but I think overall we did a good job to get some results and show the speed we had as a one car team, which was impressive.”
The new season brought yet another new challenge. Juncos Racing set up two cars for the full season for the first time and signed Agustin Canapino as his new teammate. It was an extremely positive move for Ilott, but it also was a change which turned completely upside down the usual way of working with the team that he had settled into after a year as a one car entry:
“Continuing into 2023, expanding to 2 cars was always the goal of the team, and in some way it’s a little bit early because you end up having to increase the personnel a hundred percent. And now instead of having twenty people you’ve got forty people, and that can be sometimes quite difficult to manage and understand, and the way of working changes.
“But at the same time the data that you need to collect, the information, the people, the development just increases a lot. So it was really good for the team, and to have a teammate provides a lot more information for me as well, and as a driver there is a good reference. So yeah, it’s been a journey, an interesting time.
“IndyCar is some good fun, very competitive racing. Yeah, I’m still learning.”
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | James Black
The 2021 Le Mans podium finisher also discussed with Pit Debrief his campaign to date, which sees him currently in P14 in the drivers’ standings with 116 points to his name:
“It’s been an interesting year, obviously. It started off very strongly with two top tens and a good result in St. Pete, and then it kinda tailed off. Like, arriving to Barber I expected to be quite a bit quicker than we were, and we really struggled. That was the same place where we had done pretty well last year.
“Indy GP as well was not ideal. Obviously the two ovals racewise have both gone pretty well for us. I expected more on the speed but it just shows how competitive this series is, you know? We had developed a bit, I feel that the car is better, but you have got so many teams.”
Ilott went on to explain how difficult it has become to achieve very impressive results like Top 5 finishes with McLaren at the front of the grid expanding their team and the sheer pace of the other big squads as well.
“The other thing is that you’ve got three cars with Penske, four cars with Ganassi, four cars with Andretti, and three cars with McLaren. They kinda take up the top twelve, thirteen, fourteen spaces. And so, the moment you break into that area, you have done a good job because those are the powerhouses of development. They are all developing like crazy, doing a job at it and pioneering the championship in that sense.
The last round out on the new Detroit track, Ilott’s race ended on the first lap as he drove right into and over the back of Kyle Kirkwood’s Andretti, a mistake which left him disappointed in more than one way.
“Detroit I messed up a little bit, that was my mistake and the first kind of big mistake I have done in a while like that. It’s something to learn from and shake off, but it was a shame because I felt that the car was very, very competitive in Detroit, and we had some good speed, especially on the race pace.
“I was more annoyed that I didn’t get the opportunity to use that and to show that, but yeah, I just had to take that on the chin and move on.”
On a more positive note, the British driver is looking forward to racing at Road America, where he had achieved a P11 while returning from the hand injury he had picked up following a crash at the 106th run of the Indy 500:
“Road America was a great race for us last year, considering as well that it was within two weeks of my broken hand, so I was in a lot of pain every time I touched the curb, but we got through that and it was great. We did a test there last week, and we were pretty competitive, so hopefully we can continue that into the race weekend, and get home with another good result.”
Asked if he believes that he can achieve a podium with Juncos before the end of the season, Ilott was definitely positive, even if he had to admit that with such a strong pack of cars at the front of the field it will definitely be a challenge:
“It’s definitely tougher than I was kind of expecting this year, because they have all stepped up a little bit. Like Andretti’s performance has got a lot better since last year, I would say, on an average, then Ganassi is very strong, Penske is always there and McLaren are improving lot and added an extra car.
“But I still think that when we get it right, on the weekends we get it right we are definitely very competitive. We have improved on the strategy, we have improved on the pit stops, so there’s no doubt that we can do a great job at a couple of these places, but you have to do everything right to put yourself in that position.
“Especially, there are some teams who can just find that extra bit of pace when they need to, and we haven’t found it yet, but that’s still the goal. Every weekend the goal is to finish within the top ten, and that is the first goal, the first step, then it is the top 5, and we achieved that in St. Pete. Definitely if we did that in St Pete, there is no reason we can’t get even closer or, if not, do that again,” he concluded.
