Mid-March Indy 500 drivers update

Overall, IndyCar is doing pretty great right now, but if there’s one element of the sport that I’d say is still lacking in the Penske Era, it’s Indy 500 entries. This is the greatest race in the world, and it used to be worth it to people to come from all over the world just to attempt to make it, and half of them wouldn’t. Last year, we wound up with one extra entry, and even though that gave us an exciting, tense Bump Day, it ended up just being sad that Jacob Abel didn’t get to race. This year, it’s not even clear we’ll get to 33 entries.

Engine leases are a chokepoint. We don’t know what’s going on with Prema Racing, and therefore we don’t know whether one or both of their leases will be available. There seems to be some momentum on still running one Prema car with Callum Ilott, which would be nice. Katherine Legge and her devoted sponsors are wrangling for the other one, but there’s also the minor detail of a Chevy team who would be willing to run it.

On top of the 25 regular-season drivers, Helio Castroneves is back with MSR to continue attempting to win a fifth 500, and Takuma Sato is back with RLL. Arrow McLaren has confirmed Ryan Hunter-Reay in its fourth car, and Ed Carpenter will drive his team’s third car as per usual. Andretti usually runs a fourth car, and Marshall Pruett reports that people contacting the team with interest have been told the seat is taken. We can presume that’s for Colton Herta. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing intend to run Conor Daly, and Abel Motorsports hope Jacob will actually get to start this year. That would be 32, some of which are not confirmed.

Will we get to 33 with Callum or Katherine — or better yet 34 with both? Stefan Wilson and Devlin DeFrancesco are also reportedly seeking rides. The problem is the rides don’t exist. The best case seems to be 34 if Prema gets its act together and some Chevy steps up to prepare Katherine’s car.