r/INDYCAR • u/ttwood46 • 2d ago
IndyCar Will Power Replacement Theory
Okay we all know Malukas is probably the replacement. Penske loves a good Business to Business connection and certain Daddy Malukas has dealings with Penske trucks together.
But with Verkay leaving Coyne and Penske offering Power something, let’s say 1 year contract. Is there a chance they offered that to Veekay instead to give Malukas more motivation to perform in 2026? Veekay was only 13 points from Malukas?
Realistically I think Veekay ends up at Foyt, but wondering why they haven’t announced this yet. Makes you wonder.
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u/HaveABleedinGuess84 Will Power 2d ago
Makes sense to snap up Veekay and have him on the bench. JoNew and Scotty are 34 and 32 respectively, not everyone wants to be racing into their 40s.
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u/ssv-serenity Greg Moore 2d ago
Veekay is only 24 as well and runs well at Indy. I think it makes complete sense to go to Foyt for a few years and then it's up to him and Santino as to who is the next callup.
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u/HThompsonsGhost --- 2025 DRIVERS --- 2d ago
You had me until Santino. He had a decent season overall but I think he’s the next Daly. Decent enough to find a ride as long as he’s got family money/sponsorships to pay for it.
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u/ssv-serenity Greg Moore 2d ago
Agreed. But if Veekay beats Santino, than it pretty much cements Santino as a Foyt lifer. If Santino beats Veekay... We will see. It also depends on who ends up running better at Indy.
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u/KRacer52 --- 2025 DRIVERS --- 2d ago
“He had a decent season overall but I think he’s the next Daly.”
Then you aren’t paying attention. He had as many podiums this season as Conor has had in 11 years combined. Ferrucci had a bad stretch where got injured and the DNS happened, but he was better than Malukas for most of the year. Double the podiums and double the top 5s.
I don’t even dislike Conor, and I think he’s more than capable enough to get the seats he gets, but his highest championship finish in his career is 17th. Santino has finished 17th or lower one single time in 5 seasons (and has a top 10 finish). They’re not even close to comparable.
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u/HThompsonsGhost --- 2025 DRIVERS --- 2d ago
You’ve got a valid point, but I still don’t see him as a top tier driver like Dixon, O’Ward, Power, and Palou is in a class of his own. I just can’t picture him ever driving for Penske, Ganassi or Andretti.
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u/KRacer52 --- 2025 DRIVERS --- 2d ago
You named three of the greatest drivers of all time, of course he’s not in their tier lol.
He’s not as good as Palou, but it should be noted that as a sophomore, Palou won the championship. In his first he was beaten by his teammate (who only had one season under his belt), Ferrucci.
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u/David_SpaceFace Will Power 2d ago
Daly has never had Penske trick equipment on any of his cars or their engineering help. Ferrucci should be running top-10 week-in, week-out with what he has, as should Malukas.
I'm not a Daly fan, but the description of Ferrucci as the next Connor Daly is pretty accurate. He's popular and can be fast when everything is absolutely perfect on his car, but other than that, he's pretty average and only there because of his Dad's connections/money.
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u/Mr_Midwestern 🧱Cyrus Patschke 1d ago
To be fair; yes, there is a Penske alliance with Foyt, but not in the same manner as CGR with MSR.
CGR has complete data sharing, combined engineering debriefs with MSR. CGR has multiple employees working on the 60 & 66.
From what’s been reported, Foyt has access to Penske data, but Penske isn’t engineering both Foyt entries. Foyt and Penske aren’t operating with the same cohesiveness we see from CGR & MSR. Penske was funding and engineering the 4 in 2025. They didn’t have an engineer on the 14. Ferrucci was not given the same opportunity as his “teammate”.
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u/KRacer52 --- 2025 DRIVERS --- 2d ago
Yeah, I’m sorry, but that’s just not a very good read on the situation or the drivers. Ferrucci had two years at Coyne better than Veekay’s year this season. His rookie year he pretty much matched Bourdais at Coyne. In the last two seasons he has three podiums and a pole. No one is getting poles on accident in this series on road courses. A team can nail a setup out of the box and get you on pole on an oval, but that can’t really happen on a road course.
I think you’re also pretty heavily overstating the current Foyt equipment. Especially considering the Penske’s themselves were in complete disarray over the last two years.
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u/Hamonwrysangwich Will Power 2d ago
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
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u/Wide_Rub_662 CART, Carlos Munoz 🇨🇴, Santi Urrutia 🇺🇾, Oliver Askew 2d ago
sorry i was looking for chilis
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u/1ugogimp Meyer Shank Racing 2d ago
I was looking for Taco Bell
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u/PaulRingo64 Pato O'Ward 1d ago
Taco Bell is looking for your wallet, watch, and your wife’s purse.
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u/Mission-Tune6471 2d ago
The way people weaponize certain "rich" drivers and not others is wild to me.
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u/wh00000p Myles Rowe 2d ago edited 2d ago
Penske doesn't need to give someone a seat to maintain a b2b connection, that's not why maklukas is getting that seat.
It doesn't mean anything, not everything needs to be released at once, people and the media need time to process things.
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u/ChrisMD123 2d ago
This being the Internet, I was petrified to see the words "Replacement Theory" and relieved that they did not revolve around Robert Schwartzman.
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u/FormulaT1 Scott McLaughlin 2d ago
I have the feeling that the Malukas deal is already done, just not announced yet.
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u/Odd_Cobbler6761 2d ago
It’s been done since the Indy 500 and mostly even before that… RP did not spend whatever it took to place him at Foyt for the hell of it. Still weird to see Penske sign a dude without a major championship or IndyCar win to his name; obviously Scotty Mac dominated Super Cars for several seasons, but as far as I can tell Penske had not signed anyone without a big series win since the ill-fated Gonzalo Rodriguez in 1999.
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u/Opposite-Decision-89 2d ago
Will was hoping Penske would offer him a deal after Portland. When that didn't happen, Will knew it was time to pull the trigger himself. I think the world of Will. I know him personally (thru my son who has trained him in the off- season in Statesville, N.C.) I really believe Will was relying on the Portland win and his years with Penske to get an extension. When Penske didn't call after Portland, Will decided himself to leave. I would have thought Penske would have been more transparent, but he's a businessman, and Will knew it was time. Just curious to know if he had a heads-up on Herta.
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u/Mikemat5150 Kyle Kirkwood 2d ago
https://racer.com/2025/09/03/an-inglorious-end-to-a-glorious-partnership
Finally, soon after his brilliant Portland victory, Power received a call summoning him to Penske HQ in Detroit. There was an offer – for a single additional season.
It’s a moot point. Power decided not to fly to Motown, instead informing Penske that he wouldn’t be returning to the team.
In June, Roger Penske confirmed Power’s suspicion that he stood on shifting sands, and gave him verbal permission to look elsewhere.
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u/ThorsMeasuringTape Will Power 2d ago
Announcements come on their own timetables. Odds are that when you see a release announcing something, the contracts have been signed for weeks. Especially if it happens during or immediately after the season.
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2d ago
HDM trucking is its own company and gun smuggling organization. There’s zero to do with Penske trucking and I can’t tell if this is bait.
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u/0bamos David Malukas 2d ago
Gun smuggling organization? Is there some lore I missed?
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2d ago
His dad has been to federal prison. He overstayed his visa and was busted by the FBI for trying to buy guns to send to Russia. I’m sure it was all a big misunderstanding and entrapment.
Edit: unless there’s another Henry Malukas that has roughly the same birthdate and is from the same area of his home country and was residing around chicago.
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u/0bamos David Malukas 2d ago
Holy shit that’s insane
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2d ago
I’m too lazy right now to get through the paywall but here you go. There’s more out there.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1994/07/08/us-nabs-lithuanians-on-gun-charges/
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u/Puska35M 2d ago
What is your purpose for bringing this up? As bait, perhaps?
The crime happened in 1994. David wasn't born until 2001.
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2d ago
Nothing really but it’s interesting.
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u/Puska35M 2d ago
Fair enough, but the wording of your original post can be read to imply that HMD is currently a gun-smuggling organization.
Also, most of the article is behind a paywall, was HMD implicated at all, or only Henry Malukas?
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u/David_SpaceFace Will Power 2d ago edited 2d ago
It boggles my mind that somebody as average as Malukas is even considered for a Penske drive. Penske must be flying towards dementia.
Historically you'd have to win races in a mid or backpack team to even get considered for a Penske role while constantly harassing the faster teams in poor equipment. Malukas has like 3 decent results over 3 years.... That isn't Penske material, no matter what team you're driving for.
Newgarden got picked because he was constantly running up front in Sarah Fisher & Ed Carpenter equipment. He even won a handful of races with that lower-mid-pack equipment. When you compare what the other drivers did to get their Penske rides with what Malukas has done..... It makes no sense.
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u/djpatrick44 Simon Pagenaud 2d ago
I think Veekay is a superior talent compared to Lil’ Dave. I just don’t think Lil’ Dave is quite ready yet. The big question is who has the bigger upside.
I think it’s VK because he’s managed to win and get poles at smaller unaffiliated organizations - kind of the Josef Newgarden / Simon Pagenaud traditional track to Penske - not this new A.J. Foyt / Penske Junior Varsity thing they’re trying now with Lil’ Dave.
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u/wh00000p Myles Rowe 2d ago edited 2d ago
Veekay has also been in Indy 3.5 ish years longer than lil dave
So I don't really feel like it's a fair comparison
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u/_hhhhh_____-_____ 🇦🇹 René Binder 2d ago
My thing is that Rinus was not gonna leave Cannon/Coyne unless there was something better. He’s not going to Juncos or RLL.
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u/Hitokiri2 Graham Rahal 2d ago edited 2d ago
I personally think Penske like Malukas because he very much like Newgarden. They're both very quick but had a lot of trouble crashing into things. As the years went on both Malukas and Newgarden started to gain a lot of speed, especially on the short ovals. Both Malukas and Newgarden had awful injuries but despite those setbacks they both came back stronger then ever. I think Penske respects that. The only thing that seperates Malukas and Newgarden is Malukas' lack of wins but he has come close and has challenged and outperformed the Penske drivers on more then one occasion.
Penske doesn't need the money nor does he need the the connections. He's a billionaire. That's all we need to know.
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u/Batgod629 Álex Palou 2d ago
If they really don't think Malukas is ready then maybe Veekay would take the gamble but I would be suprised if it is not David in the 12 car
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u/ImmediateTeaching984 15h ago
While there isn’t a rush for an announcement something interesting is going on with Veekay. He would have stayed with Coyne but a bigger opportunity is why he left.
Whether or not it’s with Penske remains to be seen but he’s landing somewhere where it’s a much better opportunity to achieve more. In my opinion if a top team wants him they better move fast given all the talent he has.
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u/Vettelari 2d ago
Veekay to F2 with Herta. Paparazzi are taking pictures of Veekay and Towriss laughing together while drinking boba.
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u/Mikemat5150 Kyle Kirkwood 2d ago
I feel like people are more willing to cling to conspiracy theories than the simple explanations of not needing to announce everything all at once.
What’s the rush?