Written by Archie O’Reilly
It is early December and the start of the festive period as Jacob Abel sits down to speak with DIVEBOMB. And for the 23-year-old Kentucky native, it is a very different holiday season to that which he has become accustomed to.
For the vast majority of his junior career rising through the American open-wheel ladder, Abel has been wedded to his family Abel Motorsports team. But after a vice-champion Indy NXT campaign in 2024, his 2024-into-2025 off-season has an unusual spin of uncertainty.
“The off-season this year has definitely been pretty busy - a little bit less relaxing than my off-seasons in the past,” he says. “I’ve been very fortunate to be driving for a family team the past few years so there’s not a whole lot of silly season that I’ve ever really been involved in.
“It’s not the most fun at times but I’m definitely enjoying the challenge of trying to get something together for next year and trying to figure out where I’m going to end up.”
What does Abel’s future look like?
Since finishing his Indy NXT runner-up finish, Abel has been hard at work trying to find an avenue into IndyCar. But seats have quickly filled up and, now past the turn of the year, only a pair of Dale Coyne Racing drives remain.
“Everybody knows the seats that are left,” Abel says. “I’m trying to slot myself into one of those, essentially. It’s still my goal to be a full-time IndyCar driver and compete and succeed in that series. And I think I’ve done everything that I needed to at the lower levels to prove that I deserve a shot.
“But unfortunately that’s not enough these days. Obviously you need to find funding so that’s what we’re trying to put together. We’re working hard every single day on it. Those seats are going quickly but just trying to slot myself into one of them.”
With the only remaining seats being at Coyne, who ran nine drivers across two cars in 2024, there is the fallback prospect of possibly putting a part-season deal together. But with IndyCar’s first-ever charter agreement in effect, a new three-driver-per-entry limit could be a stumbling block.
“Not completely getting depressed if we don’t get something full-time together, knowing that there are options out there,” Abel says, referencing Linus Lundqvist securing a Chip Ganassi Racing drive for 2024 after a three-race opportunity with Meyer Shank Racing in 2023.
“The charter programme has changed a lot of that a little bit, just in the number of drivers you can have per seat. I think you’re going to have a lot more people looking at just getting full-time programmes. Every team wants to have all of their drivers in full time and be able to work throughout the year.
“But if nothing happens on the full-time side of things, I think we’ll definitely still be looking on the part-time side. Trying to find whatever opportunities I can to be able to prove myself is going to be the position we’re in.”
In prioritising searching for an IndyCar opportunity, Abel knows he is making a sacrifice given possible openings in alternative series are also filling up.
“I haven’t looked a tonne into [alternatives],” Abel says. “I’ve had talks with different teams in IMSA, both on the GT side and the prototype side. There’s definitely options out there. But it’s going to be interesting because the IMSA season starts before the IndyCar season.
“So I hope I don’t miss an opportunity in IMSA holding out for IndyCar but it’s the risk I’m willing to take. It’s been my dream to get into IndyCar, to race in the Indy 500, for my whole entire life.
“IMSA is fantastic - I don’t think it would necessarily even be really a fallback. The 24 Hours of Daytona, the 24 Hours of Le Mans… all of those are spectacular races that I would love to do regardless. I think it’s going to depend on that right time, right place thing.
“But the majority of mine and everybody that I’m working with, energy is directed towards IndyCar.”
A possible Indy 500 debut in 2025?
Abel’s first taste of IndyCar came in a test at Sebring International Raceway with Coyne last off-season. There were then some murmurs of a possible Indy 500 debut last May - possibly with Abel Motorsports - but that did not materialise.
But in November, Abel did get a first taste of an Indy car on a superspeedway with Ganassi at Texas Motor Speedway. Was that experience maybe with an Indy 500 debut in mind?
“Yeah, for sure,” Abel says. “I think nowadays they don’t let drivers essentially go straight to Indianapolis and get on track there and go through ROP; you actually have to go to Texas or I think they added a couple more ovals to that before they let you even go to Indy.
“So that was definitely a huge box that was checked. If it gets to a last minute situation, I can just start in May. I think that definitely puts me a little bit more in contention for any of those last-minute seats.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want to really be thinking about those. I’d love to have a programme set up in the next month or so and have a full season to be able to prepare and do everything. But if it were to come to it, I’ve already accomplished that goal.”
Where Abel could land for the Indy 500 is unclear. Abel Motorsports qualified for the race in their first attempt with RC Enerson in 2023 but were unable to compete due to supply issues in 2024, though this could yet be an option again in 2025. Abel also now has a relationship with Ganassi from the recent test, albeit that is unlikely to lead to an Indy 500 drive.
“I certainly wouldn’t say no if Ganassi called me and asked me to do the Indy 500 with them but I don’t think there were any intentions of that with that test,” Abel says. “On the Abel Motorsports side of things, we’re still working on it. We’re trying to find a solution.
“There’s two separate entities now: there’s Jacob Abel looking for a seat and there’s Abel Motorsports, who had a successful programme two years ago and is trying to have another entry into the Indy 500.”
Abel Motorsports is in a position where a return to the Indy 500 could be plausible and is being worked towards.
“I think we have chassis and we have cars ready to go,” Abel says. “But I think it’s all going to come down to getting an engine and the budget side too; those are two of the main things that need to come together and then everything else can fall into place after that.
“If you can get an engine for it, that means that we’ll probably be able to enter an entry, whether that be me or whoever else. I think Abel Motorsports definitely wants to do that but it’s whether they’ll be able to put everything together.”
Indy-only vacancies are quickly filling up too. With Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s lineup now secured, for Abel it is likely a matter of relying on either his family team fielding an entry or two or additional entries from some of the full-time teams.
“We’re still looking pretty squarely at trying to do the full season and I feel relatively confident about that,” he says. “I haven’t lost complete hope yet. But if we get further down the road and that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, maybe we can talk about doing an Indy-only thing or something like that.
“There’s no rush into doing Indy. Obviously it’s the biggest race on the calendar - it’s the one that costs the most money. So if I could potentially do four other races or do just Indy, that’s a decision we’re going to have to make.”
The story of the Ganassi test
Still in the infancy of his career, testing with IndyCar championship-winning organisation Chip Ganassi Racing - with the team utilising one of the limited driver evaluation test days - was a big moment for Abel. Requiring a driver with oval experience - possessed by drivers in Indy NXT - it was the team that first instigated the test.
“I’ve built a pretty strong relationship with a lot of people in the Chip Ganassi Racing camp over the past year or so, which is a really cool thing,” Abel says. “It was a really cool experience. Just to be driving with an organisation like Chip Ganassi Racing is a thing that very few drivers get to actually do ever in their career.
“So just to do that in the first place was such an honour. Seeing how they prepare for events, even just a rookie test, was super cool to be a part of. Being able to utilise all of their resources and prepare for things was awesome.”
Ganassi and engine partner Honda had a number of objectives that were the priority for the day, but it was still a valuable opportunity for Abel to experience IndyCar on an oval while working with some top-level engineers. It was also fulfilling for Abel that he was trusted to run without any veteran driver shaking the car down.
“It made me feel pretty good about myself that they just let me go out there and go for it right away,” he says. “I think I helped them a lot with that. I think my feedback from Indy NXT, my feel for the car helped me a tonne to get up to speed quickly and really help them maximise the day.”
Abel believes “a tonne” translated from Indy NXT to IndyCar on an oval. He also had the benefit of having driven a superspeedway-style track - a tri-oval with some similar characteristics, albeit a slightly different package - at Nashville Superspeedway in the 2024 NXT season finale.
“The test itself was pretty next level,” Abel says. “Everybody always says Texas is one of the most daunting tracks on the calendar. Just in terms of the sheer speed of things, it happens very, very quickly. You’re doing similar speeds to Indy but you’re only going half the distance.
“It was a really fun experience and one that I’ll definitely cherish forever. And hopefully I’ll take the experience from that test to wherever I go next year.”
Driving on a superspeedway for the first time meant Abel was exposed to speeds he had never experienced before in his racing career.
“You have to numb yourself to all of those feelings from the start,” he says. “They prepared me super well, Ganassi did, and the Indy NXT series as a whole prepared me really well. That was definitely a huge help going into that, just having an oval where you’re flat out and really pushing the limits the whole entire time.
“It’s fast. It’s really fast. The aeroscreen numbs your senses a little bit because in the Indy NXT car we don’t have the aeroscreen - we just have a halo - so you still get a lot of wind on your face, a lot of wind noise, a lot of head buffeting, where you get really none of it with the aeroscreen. But it was definitely still pretty quick.”
Abel’s previous outing in an Indy car - even being on a road course at Sebring in November 2023 - was helpful in allowing him to get up to speed.
“It was super valuable just with a lot of the processes and stuff too, [which] are very different in IndyCar,” he says. “You’re very closely related to your engine manufacturer because there’s an ongoing battle between Honda and Chevy and they’re trying to optimise things the whole entire time.
“Another thing at the [Texas] test was the whole hybrid system, trying to figure that out; it was one of the first times that the hybrid system had actually been used on a superspeedway. So they had a lot of objectives that they wanted to accomplish with that and I think it was really good for me to get up to speed with it.”
Finishing as Indy NXT vice champion
Abel entered the 2024 Indy NXT season - the third for both him and the Abel Motorsports team in the championship - a four-time podium-sitter with a best finish of fifth in the standings in 2023, albeit two DNFs denied a possible third-place championship finish.
By the end of 2024, the podium tally had risen to 15, including a maiden three wins. Abel was only off the podium three times across the season, leading the way early on - with two wins, two second-place finishes and three poles in the first four races - before the formidable charge of eventual champion Louis Foster.
“I think it was super super strong,” Abel says. “I’m happy with what we were able to do. Maybe I would be a little bit happier even if we weren’t leading the championship for the first part of it and made a late push to get up to second. But I’m very happy with the result that the whole team has done.
“We started this programme three years ago with one car basically from the ground up. Not to sound selfish but I’ve kind of been the guy fostering the programme along and been the lead driver for the past three years.
“So it’s been a super rewarding experience. It’s been a little bit bittersweet, especially as we got to the end of everything, just to see how far we’ve come.”
Abel says he owes the form shown across his third season at NXT level to the experience that both himself and the team have developed together.
“You rarely see rookies succeed nowadays in Indy NXT,” he says. “I think it just speaks to the competitiveness, the uniqueness of the tracks, the ovals, the street courses. It’s hard to really succeed in that first year.
“And for us as a team especially, we were a brand-new team that first year and I didn’t have winning drivers’ data and video and all of that from years prior. So I think from our first race to our last race, we just kept getting better and better and better.”
Naturally, Abel does look back at where his championship charge slipped somewhat and Foster was able to get control. But there is still a lot of pride reflecting on his journey.
“You always feel like you can get a couple more and I feel like there was a couple that got away,” he says. “And that’s probably when the championship started to slip away. But I think now the team is a race-winning and championship-winning organisation.
“I think I was getting there as a driver - obviously a race-winning driver now but not a championship-winning driver yet. But I think those two were happening in sync and that’s what led to that success.”
A rewarding journey with a family team
Going as far back as the United States Formula 4 championship in 2017, Abel’s racing career has run parallel with Abel Motorsports. His family - with father Bill at the heart of it - has been an integral part of his racing journey.
“Going all the way back to the start, my dad’s a businessman,” Abel recalls. “There’s no question that you have to essentially fund yourself in getting started in racing. For the most part, no one’s going to see you in go-karts and say: ‘Hey, I think this kid’s the next Lewis Hamilton and here’s a million dollars to go race for the rest of your career.’
“But the way that my dad saw it from the start was: ‘Instead of writing this check and just seeing it disappear and Jacob go race for this team for one year, why don’t we start to build something? Let’s buy a car, let’s get a trailer, let’s rent some shop space and do all those.’
“He had a lot of connections with people in the IndyCar paddock from friends of his growing up. And that’s what started the whole entire thing. And I think now more than ever it’s looking like it was a really good idea.”
Running often as the sole driver for a team venturing up the US motorsport ladder and on the journey of discovery at the same time as him, it was not without challenges for Abel. But both driver and team stood up to the might of stalwarts of the American open-wheel ladder.
“There were a lot of times in the past five or six years that I would have loved to go drive for a Juncos or a Cape Motorsports or an Andretti,” Abel says. “That would have been the easy option for sure - go in there and just get a race-winning car and just drive it the same that the guy did the year before and won the championship.
“But instead we started building this thing. And now with me not there, it’s still now a standing business on its own. And I think it’s going to be a race-winning team for hopefully years in the future.
“It is paying back for itself now just on an emotional side especially. It’s been super rewarding to really, really build something that isn’t just my career.”
The mark that Abel has left will remain for as long as the team exists, wherever it may end up in years to come. And the work he has done with Abel Motorsports will continue to put Abel on good footing for his own future.
“It’s something that’s going to help me, hopefully, for my whole entire career,” he says. “I basically got thrown into the deep end. I didn’t have a lead driver to learn off of. It’s been sort of: ‘You’re the guy and if we’re going to succeed or not is going to be centered around you. What are you going to do?’
“Yes, we have engineers that had experience with the Indy NXT car before. But in, I think, 2023 they threw a new tyre at us so it completely changed everything. And I was basically having to lead the charge on giving the engineers a direction to go and giving them feedback.”
Abel’s own success hinged on the manner in which he was able to support the engineers.
“It was basically my success, and if I wanted to win, I had to give them the right feedback to build a good car,” he says. “It was something that I had to make the decision on and I think that’s going to be something that’s really going to help me in the future.
“I think it was something that showed at the Ganassi test, my feel for the car, and we were able to efficiently work through a bunch of different changes. And the engineer was saying that that was a really, really good thing.
“I think that definitely stems from being with Abel Motorsports and being that lead driver for so long.”
Abel departs with the team now set to field as many as four cars for the 2025 Indy NXT season, with the lineup featuring sophomore drivers Myles Rowe and Callum Hedge, who won the USF Pro 2000 and Formula Regional Americas titles respectively in 2023.
“They’re going to be really strong drivers who are going to have a shot at running for the championship,” Abel says. “And I think that just speaks to what we were able to accomplish over this last year and the past three years and building a programme all the way up to what it is now.
“There’s a little bit of me that’s like: ‘Man, if I just went out there next year now, imagine what we would be able to do.’ But I feel like I’ve proved what I needed to prove. And it’s time to make that step in my career, to move on.”
They may well become entwined again down the road but, for the time being at least, Jacob Abel and Abel Motorsports are separate entities. That said, amid whatever racing commitments may materialise, Abel still wants to be of assistance.
“I will still be involved - I think a bit more than most drivers are who are leaving a team,” he says. “I really do want them to succeed and I want that team to be successful, for all the people that are there. They really are my family. I’m going to do whatever I can to help them.
“I don’t really need to be there - we have everyone in place. But I’m going to be there to help as much as I can. If I were driving in 2024 and I had Hunter McElrea, who finished second in the championship the year before, I would have been talking his ear off with questions and trying to use him as a resource as much as I can.”
The future of Abel Motorsports
Abel believes the team is now in a position where it can challenge for Indy NXT titles. The operation has grown to a point where drivers are joining Abel Motorsports from other top teams, with both Rowe and Hedge moving from HMD Motorsports
“We had so much interest in the team after this year,” Abel says. “Some of that was attributed to what I was able to do - at the front, winning races, getting on the podium a bunch of times. But also it was Yuven [Sundaramoorthy] too - Yuven really backed up a lot of what I was able to do.”
It was planned for Sundaramoorthy, who twice finished on the podium for Abel Motorsports late in 2024 amid a rapid ascension in his first full season in Indy NXT, to return for 2025. But that continuity has been denied by unexpected budgetary issues.
“From the outside, it’s very easy to look at Abel Motorsports like: ‘Oh, well, of course Jacob’s doing well. He’s the team owner’s son,’” Abel says. “But for Yuven to go out there and get on the podium and have really strong results showed what we were able to accomplish and showed how good our cars were.
“I think everybody feels confident coming here that they can go out and win a championship.”
There remains talk of expansion for Abel Motorsports, with the first foray into IndyCar with the 2023 Indy 500 a signal of intent at possible wider ambitions to join the series. New entries have been limited somewhat by the charter system, though hope is not yet lost.
“I think it definitely hasn’t killed it,” Abel says. “It certainly hasn’t helped it, that’s for sure. But I think my dad, he’s a businessman - he wants businesses to grow. And the next logical step for our team is - I don’t think we’re going to add any more Indy NXT cars - we’re going to try and grow to whichever championship it is.
“Obviously IndyCar is the easy answer but it’s an extremely hard championship to enter. I don’t think it necessarily kills the dream.”
The futures of Jacob Abel and Abel Motorsports - separately - are full of ambition. Titles are on the line for a Jacob-less Indy NXT team, though they are not yet settled with just where they are. And for Abel himself, the hard work to break into IndyCar continues.
“Looking back on it in 10 years,” he says, “all I can hope is that I’ve taken every opportunity that I’ve got and I’ve capitalised.”
