LONG BEACH, Calif. — Callum Ilott will compete in the full NTT IndyCar Series season next year aboard the Juncos Hollinger Racing No. 77 entry.
Ilott, who will finish his three-race line-up in the season finale at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this weekend, joined the team in early September.
“Coming into the final weekend of our three-race run on the west coast, it’s great to announce that I will be continuing next year with Juncos Hollinger Racing for the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season,” said Ilott, a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy. “Obviously, we have had a steep learning curve here the last few races to try to put everything together. We have had some real positives and know the things we need to work on.
“Knowing what Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger have in place for next season and especially over the winter of what we can do in testing, I definitely feel we can put ourselves in a great position to start off the 2022 season strong. I look forward to continuing the work that we are doing and heading into the winter to start a new journey over here and I would like to thank the Ferrari Driver Academy for allowing me to take this opportunity.”
Juncos Hollinger Racing team owner Ricardo Juncos is happy with the announcement.
“We are very pleased to announce Callum to the team full time for the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season,” Juncos said. “His maturity, speed on track, and feedback is surprisingly good for being 22 years old. We were very impressed with his feedback and the physical condition of Callum after Laguna. After a long tough race at Laguna, he got out of the car not even showing any signs of fatigue. Considering Laguna was a full green flag race, Callum proved to be in incredible shape.
“We know we are not the fastest car on track and have a lot of developing to do, but Callum pushes himself to get everything out of the car and has shown great speed. Over the past few weeks, Callum has shown us he is the right driver for our full-time run next year, so we are thrilled to have him join our program full time.”
Brad Hollinger is the team’s second co-owner.
“We are very excited to have Callum commit to us,” Hollinger said. “Our goal was to secure a talented driver for the final three races of the 2021 season so that we would have a strong baseline going into a full run in the 2022 season. Therefore, we were quite happy to have a driver like Callum to work with these final three races. He proved he can perform during the past two races in a variety of areas. Callum has maturity beyond his age and has a very enthusiastic personality.”