Ricardo Juncos shrugs off pressure of fast start, Argentine fans, Callum Ilott's future

Ricardo Juncos knows pressure, and it’s not this: Delivering an IndyCar race to his motorsports-crazed country of Argentina, where he would expect a race day crowd of 150,000 people.

Juncos has made the introductions – welcoming a delegation from Argentina for last May’s Indianapolis 500, before the country returned the favor last month – hosting a traveling party that included Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO Mark Miles.

“There are internal issues that make it complicated,” Juncos said of the prospect of IndyCar’s second international race date, “so we’re in the process to understand what it will take to make it happen. Once we know that, we’ll find out how we can do that.”

There's also no pressure in the furrowed brows of an entire paddock over his hiring a little-known 33-year-old open-wheel racing novice as Juncos’ little-engine-that-could of a race team's second full-time driver this offseason.

When Juncos ran Agustin Canapino in the 2019 Rolex 24 in the race’s highest category, “Pretty much every time he was on-track, he was the fastest Cadillac out there – and that included Fernando Alonso. When I saw what he did then, I knew how good he was. I’ve always believed that if you’re a good racecar driver, you can drive anything.”

Hoping his team can deliver the mistake-free crew and reliable car to allow his one-time Formula 1 prospect Callum Ilott to show his true capabilities as an IndyCar race-winner, knowing the Penskes, Ganassis, Andrettis and McLarens will be (and likely already) are circling?

“I don’t feel any pressure at all, and I don’t think anyone does. I think (Callum) is the fastest driver, and that’s why I hired him,” Juncos told IndyStar this week. “I’ve said publicly that if he had a chance in F1, and you give him a Red Bull car, he can be a world champion, because he’s as good as (Max) Verstappen, (Lando) Norris and (Charles) Leclerc. Unfortunately, he wasn’t lucky enough to be in that position.

“And I understand now that if you give him a Penske or Ganassi car, he would fight for a championship right now. He’s just that good. But remember, we were the ones that looked for him, chose him.”

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To Juncos, that’s just reality. He left everything he knew in 2001 as the Argentine economic collapse took down his family’s car repair shop to search for his own American dream with $400 and a backpack. The next couple days racing the streets of Long Beach are merely the next steps in that journey. He’s now calling race strategy for the first time in his career on Canapino’s radio. He’s racing in arguably the world’s most competitive top-level series with several roles still to fill in his two-car program. And 50% of those he does have under his shop’s roof are brand-new to IndyCar.

So while the relative “veterans” he has on staff give his crew rookies a crash course in the sport – many have come from various ladder series open wheel levels, though some were hired without racing backgrounds – JHR has had to forgo running pitstop practices again and again and again. There’s just no time, he said. And neither is there money and resources to go wind tunnel testing, which had Juncos nervous heading into Texas, where Ilott could only muster 16^th a year ago in JHR’s first IndyCar oval race since Kyle Kaiser failed to finish the 2019 Indy 500.

“So to go to a high speed oval and try to be a hero on pole, we’re most likely going to be crashing, so we made sure we knew our limits and qualified where we think is best for us, knowing we won’t be top-10,” Juncos said. “And then in the race, it’s different. We’ve got full downforce, and we’re able to have two really fast cars.”

And now, at tracks Ilott, Juncos and JHR had two of its worst five non-DNF finishes last year (19th at St. Pete and 16th at Texas), the team owner has seen his drivers finish 5th, 9th and 12th twice (both from Canapino). By himself, Ilott doubled the team’s all-time IndyCar top 10s, the other two of which he recorded a year ago. Albeit with nearly 90% of the season left, Juncos has both his drivers ahead in points of each driver at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing, Meyer Shank Racing and AJ Foyt Racing, with Ilott 7th and Canapino 12th.

Behind the scenes, Juncos has had to try and soften expectations from racing fans in South America, who aren’t in tune with how competitive and deep the IndyCar field is in 2023. According to the Argentine team owner, Gaston Mazzacane’s partial-season Champ Car campaign with Dale Coyne Racing in 2004 marks the last time an Argentinian race car driver competed in the heights of open-wheel racing. His 10 races nearly two decades ago featured one top-10 (6^th at Toronto), following parts of two years in Formula 1, where he logged three top-10s in 21 starts. Should Juncos be believed, you’d have to go back more than 80 years to find the last Argentine driver to qualify and race in the 500, a streak Juncos hopes Canapino can snap in a matter of weeks.

But back home, merely the hint of success, Juncos said, can send sports fans into a craze akin to the mania seen during last year’s title-run in the men’s World Cup.

“We do have a lot of pressure from our fans, because they’re expecting us to win and be good. We’ve tried to educate them on how hard IndyCar is,” Juncos said. “But we feel a little bit of responsibility and pressure for this success to continue. Then again, as a team owner, you’re constantly balancing pressure on the business side, the driving side, and you just learn how to live with that, so it’s no real problem at all.”

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Talk to the team owner one time, and you’ll come away knowing this: he cares as much – if not more – about the journey and process he’s taking to get to where he wants to go as the results he dreams of. There is no rushing Juncos’ meticulous, particular plan, whether that be hiring just to have more bodies or getting into gray ethical areas of trying to poach other teams’ talent.

Two weeks ago at Texas, Ilott was asked by reporters at a media bullpen about his future status with the team. It had been announced last July that he and JHR had signed a “new long-term contract” to keep the 24-year-old British driver the foundation of the team “for the foreseeable future.” Of course, no terms of the deal – details on team or driver options, out-clauses, buyouts, etc. – were released.

Regarding the length of the deal, Ilott said, “It’s for whatever I want it to be,” indicating either he may have a driver option to push it beyond 2023, or both sides may hold a mutual option that would have to jointly be agreed upon for him to return for a third full-time season. There may also be certain performance parameters JHR may have to help him reach in order to hold onto his rights, among other options.

“I’d love to talk to some other big teams,” Ilott continued. “Nothing stops me from talking. Look, you’ve got to be fair. I agreed (to the deal), but it’s pretty obvious I’m quite interested, as people are interested in me as a driver. I’m confident that whether it’s in one year, two years, three years, four years, that if I’m wanted now, I’ll always be wanted.”

In response, Juncos confirmed that, despite the wording of last year’s extension release, he only currently has Ilott locked into the No. 77 Chevy for the remainder of 2023.

“For anybody in his shoes, and knowing how good he is, I’m sure the expectation would be to drive for top teams, but at the same time, we have our agreement,” Juncos said. “As we move forward based on performance and our decisions, we’ll see whether (Ilott) will continue with us or not. At some point, we’ll need to define things for (2024). I think in the second half of the year, we’ll have more understanding on where we are.

“We’re going to do our best, but I cannot rush. We cannot feel this pressure of, ‘Oh, we have Callum now. He’s the best, and we need to perform.’ It takes years to put together a proper team, and who knows? We may never become a top team. How many teams have been here for decades and aren’t top teams? Those are really just Penske and Ganassi – that’s it, and that’s where we want to be. Right now, we just have to maximize what we have. If we try and do more, it’s like a driver over-driving the racecar. You’re going to slide off-track and crash. The best you can do is drive within your limits.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ricardo Juncos on 2023 start: 'We're doing our best but I cannot rush'