Whereas standing on the grid on the 2024 season opener, his first collection race outdoors the cockpit because the 2021 season finale, Devlin DeFrancesco promised IndyStar he’d be again within the cockpit in 2025.
Monday, the 24-year-old Canadian made good on that promise, as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing introduced it had signed DeFrancesco to a multi-year deal to drive its No. 30 Honda full-time beginning with the 2025 IndyCar marketing campaign. The entry’s sponsorship program shall be introduced at a later date, in keeping with the information launch.
DeFrancesco joins RLL veteran Graham Rahal, who’s getting into his 18th IndyCar season, together with 2024 Indy NXT champ Louis Foster,. RLL’s latest addition had beforehand spent two full seasons in an entry that partnered Steinbrenner Racing with Andretti Autosport (now Andretti World).
“I am very excited to be again within the IndyCar collection. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has a tremendous historical past and can be on a formidable trajectory,” DeFrancesco stated within the information launch. “Seeing all of the work that is happening from the women and men behind the scenes, it’s simple to see that this staff and myself are very hungry for outcomes.”
Insider:
Each side of this new pairing are little doubt aiming to write down a narrative totally different than the final couple years. RLL entered this offseason bracing for a pair of sizable losses. Christian Lundgaard, the staff’s lone race-winner because the 2020 Indy 500, and .
Rahal completed 18th in factors, the second-worst full-season end of his profession — worst in a decade — and the 35-year-old’s first IndyCar season with out no less than one top-5 end in his profession. Full-season IndyCar rookie Pietro Fittipaldi completed 11 factors and a single spot again in nineteenth with a best-finish of thirteenth. Even Lundgaard fell again to eleventh in 2024.
As a staff, outdoors of one-off driver Takuma Sato, , with Rahal nabbing the thirty third and last qualifying spot, with Lundgaard (twenty eighth) and Fittipaldi (thirtieth) on the second-to-last row.
Throughout his two IndyCar seasons with Andretti in 2022-23, DeFrancesco completed twenty third and twenty second within the championship, taking third-to-last amongst full-season drivers each years with a pair of Twelfth-place finishes as his greatest outcome (2022 World Extensive Expertise Raceway, 2023 Detroit Grand Prix). Although he was confirmed to not be returning to Andretti midseason, his No. 29 Honda program was shuttered after the 2023 season when that will’ve assured simply over $1 million in assured funding for working the full-season calendar in 2025.
Indy 500 driver information:
Regardless of purchasing what was rumored to be a large sponsorship bundle final offseason, the younger Canadian driver didn’t safe one other full-season IndyCar experience and as a substitute landed with an Endurance Cup experience for 2024 in IMSA’s GTD class with Forte Racing’s Lamborghini program that included a runner-up end in school within the season-finale at Petit Le Mans.
“I am very happy that we’re in a position to welcome Devlin to the staff,” Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, stated in a launch. “We had the possibility to witness his capacity whereas he was at Andretti, and there have been clearly occasions when he was fairly aggressive, so I am assured that we will have numerous good races collectively. We’re wanting ahead to his contribution to the staff.”
With DeFrancesco’s affirmation, three of the 27 full-time IndyCar seats for 2025 stay, together with each at Dale Coyne Racing and one at .
