While standing on the grid during the 2024 IndyCar season opener, his first series race outside the cockpit since the 2021 season finale, Devlin DeFrancesco promised IndyStar he would be back in the cockpit in 2025.
On Monday, the 24-year-old Canadian made good on that promise, when Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing announced that it had signed DeFrancesco to a multi-year contract to drive its No. 30 Honda full-time starting in the 2025 IndyCar campaign. The entry will be announced at a later date, according to the press release.
DeFrancesco joins RLL veteran Graham Rahal, who enters his 18th IndyCar season, alongside 2024 Indy NXT champion Louis Foster, one of two full-time rookies on the grid. RLL’s latest addition had already spent two full seasons in a team combining Steinbrenner Racing and Andretti Autosport (now Andretti Global).
“I am very excited to be back in the IndyCar Series. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has an incredible history and is also on an impressive trajectory,” DeFrancesco said in the press release. “Seeing all the work that goes on from the men and women behind the scenes, it’s easy to see that this team and I are very hungry for results.”
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Both sides of this new duo undoubtedly aim to write a different story than the last two years. RLL entered this offseason bracing for two significant losses. Christian Lundgaard, the team’s only race winner since the 2020 Indy 500, has opted to leave RLL for Arrow McLaren and RLL’s primary sponsor of three years, Hy-Vee.
Rahal finished 18th in points, the second-worst full-season finish of his career – the worst in a decade – and the 35-year-old’s first IndyCar season without at least a top-5 finish in his career. All-season IndyCar rookie Pietro Fittipaldi finished 11th with 11 points and just one place, with a best finish of 13th. Even Lundgaard has fallen back to 11th in 2024.
As a team, outside of sole driver Takuma Sato, RLL once again struggled during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, with Rahal taking the 33rd and final qualifying spot, along with Lundgaard (28th) and Fittipaldi (30th) to the penultimate. row.
In his two IndyCar seasons with Andretti in 2022-23, DeFrancesco finished 23rd and 22nd in the championship, placing second-to-last among full-season drivers both years with two 12th-place finishes as his best finish (World Wide 2022 ). Technology Raceway, 2023 Detroit Grand Prix). Although it was confirmed that he would not return to Andretti mid-season, his No. 29 Honda program was shut down after the 2023 season when DeFrancesco failed to secure the final Leaders Circle spot which reportedly secured just over $1 million in guaranteed funding to execute in full. -season calendar in 2025.
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Despite purchasing what was rumored to be a major sponsorship program this past offseason, the young Canadian driver failed to secure another full-season IndyCar ride and instead landed with an Endurance Cup race for 2024 in IMSA’s GTD class with Forte Racing’s Lamborghini program which included one racer. -up finish in class at the season finale at Petit Le Mans.
“I am very pleased that we are able to welcome Devlin to the team,” Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, said in a statement. “We had the chance to see his abilities when he was at Andretti, and there were definitely times when he was quite competitive, so I’m confident we can have a lot of good races together. We’re looking forward to his contribution to the team.”
With DeFrancesco’s confirmation, three of the 27 full-time IndyCar seats remain for 2025, including two at Dale Coyne Racing and one at Juncos Hollinger Racing which was recently linked to Conor Daly.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Devlin DeFrancesco to return to IndyCar in multi-year deal with RLL