Written by Dan Jones
Katherine Legge will finish the 2024 IndyCar season in the No.51 Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing car at Nashville Superspeedway, as she races for the seventh time in 2024, and to finally end the year-long uncertainty surrounding the entry - which hasn't had a full-time driver for the course of the 2024 season.
The Brit has raced in the No. 51 for all other oval events in 2024, making it through last-chance qualifying at the Indianapolis 500, before being forced to retire with a mechanical failure after 22 laps. Legge would 17th and 24th in the Iowa 250 doubleheader, receiving a 'phantom penalty' Race 1, which cost her a top ten finish. Legge would have her day end after seven laps after colliding with Ed Carpenter at the Gateway 500. Legge would finish 19th at Race One at Milwaukee before a seasons-best 15th place at the second race.
Colin Braun initially drove the No.51 in the opening round on the Streets of St. Petersburg and the non-championship $1 Million Challenge before Nolan Siegel made an appearance in the car on the Streets of Long Beach, and raced the sister No.18 car in two events, before Arrow McLaren signed the 19-year-old, ending his planned four-race campaign with the team.
Luca Ghiotto did four events at Barber, Indianapolis, Road America and Laguna Seca, whilst IndyCar veteran, Tristan Vautier, made a surprise return to the series by racing in Detroit.
The car has since been shared by a combination of Legge, and fellow Brit, Toby Sowery, with Legge completing all the oval events in the No.51 entry this season, with Sowery stepping in for the road courses at Mid-Ohio, Toronto and Portland.
It will be the most races that Legge has completed in a season since 2012, where she completed a nine-race campaign for Dragon Racing, with a best finish of ninth at the season finale at California Speedway - the penultimate time the season finale was hosted on an oval - until this season.
Despite racing on-and-off in the series for 18 years, Nashville will be a new challenge for Legge, unlike her previous ventures at Iowa, Milwaukee and Indianapolis. Like most of the field, Legge has neither tested at the venue either, and will only have one practice session to get up to speed before Saturday's qualifying.
Legge still has an outside chance of dragging the No.51 into the Leader's Circle, a $1 Million prize pool awarded for the top 22 entrants in that years championship. Legge lies 15 points off the cutline, and would effectively need a top ten finish to give her any chance of pulling off the impossible - as the battle looks more prevalent between the No.30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan of Pietro Fittipaldi, the No.41 A.J. Foyt Racing of Sting Ray Robb and the No.20 Ed Carpenter Racing of Christian Rasmussen.
It remains to be seen if Legge's services will be retained after her spell of races in 2023, but it finally confirms the much-expected, and finally the uncertainty of the No.51 can be put to bed once and for all in 2024.
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