2022 Indy Lights champion Linus Lundqvist was stuck on the sidelines for the 2023 IndyCar season after a reduction in the feeder series’ scholarship. Similarly, Simon Sikes struggled with funding throughout his time in USF2000 – a factor which effectively made 2023 a do-or-die year for the Atlantan. However, both drivers persevered: Lundqvist secured a 2024 IndyCar seat with Chip Ganassi Racing, and Sikes won the 2023 USF2000 Championship, earning a scholarship that will allow him to step up to USF Pro 2000 in 2024. Feeder Series reflects on how Lundqvist and Sikes overcame their struggles to progress on the Road to Indy.

By Jeroen Demmendaal

It was an absurd situation at last year’s Indy Lights (now Indy NXT) winner’s banquet. 2022 season champion Linus Lundqvist went into the evening not knowing any better, believing that there was a $1.2 million check waiting for him. There already was a pro forma agreement with Dale Coyne Racing which would allow the young Swede to team up once again with his old stablemate David Malukas, who had made the step into IndyCar the year before.

And then came the bombshell. Lundqvist was told he would only receive half a million dollars, a sum that in 2023 doesn’t even cover the budget for one Indy 500. Coyne hired Sting Ray Robb instead and Lundqvist was left on the sidelines. All he could do was to keep up his physical fitness regime and pester IndyCar teams whenever he had the chance. Rather than sitting on the couch, nursing his frustration and waiting for the phone to ring, Lundqvist got to work and never became complacent.

Vindication for Lundqvist

“I never believed that it was going to work out, ever,” Lundqvist told Feeder Series last week. “I basically had the mindset of: I’m hoping for the best, but I’m preparing for the worst. I always told myself: no one is going to call you, you’re going to have to make the calls and just hope that they pick up. And if not, then you’ve got to make timely run-bys outside of their trailer until they actually walk out and you remind them. That’s basically what I did since Laguna last year.”

As Lundqvist tested everything available under the stars – Formula E, LMP2, IndyCar with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – Feeder Series reached out to him from time to time over the past year. What’s up, what’s happening, and was there anything new? In June, after a good test with Ed Carpenter Racing, Lundqvist told us he was hopeful he would be considered for 2024. Then, barely a month ago, he finally got his shot at Meyer Shank Racing, replacing Simon Pagenaud in Nashville.

Lundqvist clinched the opportunity with both hands, impressing everyone on the bumpy street course and performing strongly again in the two races that followed at Indianapolis and Gateway. While MSR was very keen to keep him aboard for 2024, an even bigger opportunity suddenly appeared: Lundqvist was snapped up by Chip Ganassi Racing, arguably the best team in the IndyCar paddock, on a multi-year deal. All his financial and career worries disappeared in one fell swoop.

Asked by Feeder Series whether his deal with Ganassi feels like vindication after everything that happened since last year, Lundqvist was emphatic: “One. Hundred. Percent. And I think that’s also what makes it sweeter in that sense. This is the first time ever in my career that I’ve actually known that I’m going to be racing full time next year. And obviously, as part of a multi-year deal, I know that I’m going to be racing for a few years ahead of me, which is something unbelievable.

“Every year that I’ve gone into in the past has been like: I don’t even know if I’m going to finish the season. To be in this position, racing in IndyCar, together with this team: yeah, my life has made a drastic change in the last couple of weeks. It’s going to take a long time for my smile to fade.”

Champion despite the odds

Not as far along in his career yet, but just as familiar with the perennial struggles of finding sufficient funding to keep racing is Simon Sikes, the 22-year-old from Georgia who did a few part-time USF2000 campaigns with Legacy Autosport in recent years. Last weekend at Portland, he secured the USF2000 championship. The prize? A scholarship worth USD 433,200 that will allow him to make the step up to USF Pro 2000 in 2024.

But as with Lundqvist, life looked a lot less certain for Sikes at the beginning of this year – even if he had demonstrated his obvious skill while driving for Legacy. When Feeder Series spoke with Sikes in February, it had just learned he would race with Pabst Racing at the season opener in St Petersburg. And that was it. “I will start the season in St. Pete. I don’t currently have funding beyond that, but I will at least be at the race with Pabst,” Sikes told us.

Imagine having to drive with that amount of pressure on your shoulders. You can’t afford a single mistake or any damages, a tricky task on a street course like St. Petersburg. At the same time, you must perform in order to possibly attract more funding, which is no easy task in a series like USF2000 as it often takes place outside of the general limelight reserved for bigger categories.

Sikes did well at St Petersburg, finishing fourth in Race 1 and taking second place in Race 2. But he knew it wasn’t good enough and that he needed to do better at the next round at Sebring – assuming he even got there in the first place.

“If I get to Sebring it’s going to be a do or die weekend for my career,” he told us in March, shortly after coming back from St. Petersburg. “Probably anything less than a full weekend sweep isn’t going to keep me in a car. We need to go to Sebring and really show that we’re the car to beat this year.”

He didn’t quite achieve a full sweep, but with another second place and a win at Sebring, Sikes made clear he was ready and able to take Pabst Racing to its first USF2000 drivers’ championship. More importantly, his early season form was enough for Doug Mockett, owner of a large furniture firm and a longstanding sponsor in the USF Pro Championships paddock, to step in and support Sikes.

No doubt, Sikes’ case was also helped by the fact that team manager Augie Pabst was very keen on securing his first drivers’ championship. Pabst would only take Sikes out of the car if he really had no other choice. In other words, in the end everything worked out for Sikes. He went on to drive like the potential champion he always was, winning six races and grabbing eight more podiums across the 18-race season.

Talent wins out

It’s telling that earlier this season, Sikes hinted on the series’ own documentary series “The Climb” that he would probably end his racing career if he wouldn’t win the title. Now he is heading to the next level on the Road to Indy ladder. Just like with Lundqvist, his performances on the track did all the necessary talking. That is how motorsport is supposed to work, even if the reality is that financial factors play an outsized role in picking winners and losers.

Drivers like Lundqvist and Sikes don’t have a rich dad, or a big corporate sponsor that effortlessly funds their seat. All they have is their skill behind the wheel, their work ethic, and their perseverance. As the events of the past week show, even in the world of motorsport – which so often deals talented drivers a poor hand – sometimes good things still happen to good people. Long may this last.

Header photo credit: Joe Skibinski / Penske Entertainment