Written by Archie O’Reilly
If you were to ask Toby Sowery, he would say he is “just a normal lad” from England.
Spending summers at home in breaks from racing, he won’t turn down the chance for a barbecue or to go to the pub with friends. Or the opportunity to refine a self-admitted subpar golf game.
But as with every racing driver, two very different lives are led - the ordinary comes with a side of the extraordinary. And for Sowery, supposed off-time is still in part consumed by planning for his racing future - something he has never had the beauty of being a certainty.
“Racing for me has always been a last-minute deal, trying to figure out where and what we race,” he says. And that has been a big part of the compelling story of Sowery’s racing journey to date.
It was a journey that started at home in the United Kingdom, where Sowery jokes that he is one of countless British drivers to hail from the Cambridge area. His father had an old Formula Ford car in a garage, which meant race cars were on his radar from his early years.
But it was karting birthday parties a few years further down the line that led to a burgeoning love for the idea of racing.
Within a few more years, Sowery was karting at national level - and alongside the likes of current Formula 1 drivers George Russell and Lando Norris. He became a part of a budding generation of British racing drivers inundated with talent, something he says he feels “incredibly fortunate” to have been a part of.
To get to the highest level, it takes competing with the very best.
Sowery went on to progress through the ranks in the British championships and occasionally raced further afield too, winning early titles in MSV F3 Cup’s Cup Class and further from home in Asia’s MRF Challenge Formula 2000.
He was also podium-sitter as a British Formula 4 (then MSA Formula) rookie before establishing himself as a seven-time race winner across two seasons in the championship better known as British Formula 3, in which he finished third in the standings as a rookie.
Then at the end of 2017, as Sowery competed in his second season of British F3, racing in the United States entered his radar with prospects of continuing in Europe somewhat bleak.
“It’s been up and down but I feel lucky that I’ve done what I’ve done,” he says. “There are obviously some things I feel like I’ve missed out on - I’d have loved to have done some FIA single seaters.
“But at the same time, everything that I have done, I’ve had to go up against guys like Lando, guys like George. And it’s not so much that I’ve missed out on - it’s just a big platform that I never really got to in Europe.”
Making motorsport a livelihood was never a guarantee for Sowery. And since embarking on a career in racing, it has hardly been smooth sailing. Few things have ever been guaranteed for Sowery and clarity on his situation any distance down the line has been scarce.
“That’s quite stressful, I can’t lie,” he says. “But it’s something that I’m used to. This is, for me, how racing is. It’s taken a toll on my family, it’s taken a toll on me, it’s taken a toll on the team that I’ve got around me in racing. But that’s the sacrifice and the effort that it takes to become a professional racing driver.
“It’s not how I would have liked to have got to this situation, where we’re still having to put everything - all the blood, sweat and tears and effort - into finding money to race. But that is what it takes and that’s one of the reasons why I’m still here.
“It’s just… keep chipping away and every year we hope next year is going to be the one, next year is going to be the year it switches.”
The fact he has now reached a stage of making three IndyCar starts in 2024, along with a strong programme racing LMP2 and GT3, is a roaring success in many ways. The prospect of a possible IndyCar future is a far cry from years spent out of racing.
And where Sowery’s open-wheel career would be now without the decision - or opportunity at the time - to explore the American open-wheel ladder is uncertain. While the stateside scene was certainly not something familiar to Sowery or many of those in an F1-dominated British racing landscape, it has offered a lifeline of sorts.
An initial venture to the US came about through a phone call from an English associate from Sowery’s junior racing days in the UK seven years ago. He offered for Sowery to run as part of his USF2000 programme at Barber Motorsports Park.
“He literally went over to America himself and then said: ‘We’ve got this race. Do you want to come do it?’” Sowery recalls. “And my introduction to America was just a one-off, go explore over there, see how it is, see what’s different and just see if it was something that I could pursue as a career. And here we are. Never really looked back.”
The culture shock of racing in a different continent reared its head in unexpected ways initially. It did not take long before Sowery was in trouble for sporting a spoiler on his helmet - something not permitted in the US.
“As drivers, that’s something we take pride in, making a helmet look the snazziest,” Sowery says. “So I went over there, I got this new helmet that I’d been using for that year and the first thing they did is rip the spoiler off. And it’s like: ‘What on earth is this?’
“I remember having a bit of a bicker with the guy who did it. We’re actually very good friends now - he’s in the IndyCar paddock as well. He didn’t like me at the time and I didn’t like him at the time - we had a bit of a headbutt over it. But that was my first reality check.”
The racing is different too. But different does not equate to bad.
“The racing is just as good as anywhere else,” Sowery says. “I like to explain it as a bit more raw. If you push someone off it’s: ‘Don’t be there,’ kind of thing. And they’re not as eager to penalise you for something. I think it’s - I don’t want to say old school because I feel like people take that negatively - more old school regulation.”
Sowery achieved a top-five finish in the second of his two USF2000 races at Barber in 2017. And amid a 2018 combining Italian F4 and some sports car racing, he would return to the US for two more races in the championship now called USF Pro 2000 - one step above USF2000 - where he achieved a pair of second-place finishes at Road America.
And this really validated that the American ladder could be a viable option for more than one-off dabbles.
“When I went over there and saw them and heard them and smelt them, if you like, that’s when it was like: ‘Oh, okay, these are pretty cool,’” Sowery says. “And I think that was when for me it opened up that route where, if you do well with the ladder system they’ve got out there, which is fantastic, it could be somewhere that I could get to.
“There’s a lot more willingness to help out there in America that gives drivers the opportunities.”
And when it came to building on the one-off races on the Road to Indy in 2017 and 2018, opportunism proved a virtue again in building an Indy Lights campaign for 2019.
“I think there was a point where I was racing BRDC [British] F3 and we looked at what we could raise, what routes we could do in single-seaters and it was FIA F3 or that’s it,” Sowery says. “We certainly didn’t have the budget for that and I don’t think we had the resources to fund the sponsorship either.
“We’d actually gone back to the GT route, which I was having a great time with. I was part of the Lamborghini junior drivers, which for me was quite a big thing at the time.
“Again, it was a very similar situation to how the previous two category races in America had gone. I literally got the phone call completely out of the blue from the same guy who ran me in Indy Pro saying: ‘Do you want to do St. Petersburg in Indy Lights?’
“Obviously the answer was: ‘Yes!’”
Initially, it was planned to be only a single-event deal with Dale Pelfrey, who at the time ran Team Pelfrey. He partnered with BN Racing as there was a desire for David Malukas - now in IndyCar - to have a teammate to supplement his progress.
“It wasn’t like a commitment to Indy Lights at the time,” Sowery says. “It was just: ‘We’ll go do this one race. It’s going to be a steep learning curve but you never know what will come from it. If we go there and get a podium, fantastic.’ That’s what the goal was.
“We did a shakedown at Homestead the week before and it went terribly. The car hadn’t been out the truck for two or three years. So the thing was taken apart and we missed the first half of the morning getting the car back together, did a shakedown and install run, just to get used to the car and make sure everything was right before lunch.
“And then we had a few runs in the afternoon where we were pretty slow. It was just this one weekend that we had as a whole sorted and then we turned up to St. Pete, first time on a street course, first time at that track, first time in that car. It was a baptism of fire.”
But again, Sowery stepped in and impressed - something that has become a staple of and integral to his career.
To his surprise after the test in Miami, he managed to achieve a double St. Petersburg podium with second and third-place finishes. Coming that close to winning on debut helped to put him even more on the radar of those in the IndyCar paddock.
“I think that then sparked a few people to get excited and put a bit of money behind me,” he says. “And we managed, each weekend, [to] chip away, chip away and figure out how to stay in per weekend. It soon became a reality that there was a career that, if things pan out right, we could chase.”
Sowery ended up managing to complete the season and finished third in the standings, behind Oliver Askew and Rinus VeeKay, and took a victory in Portland. Eagerness only grew for Sowery to be kept on as the season progressed.
“It was tough,” Sowery says. “We had to work a lot outside of the race weekends to make sure I was there. But the team at the time, which turned into HMD, were incredible. They gave me a good car considering their lack of experience.
“The Portland race wasn’t a lucky win. We fought for the win and we got a genuine win. I think that was impressive considering Juncos at the time were incredible in Lights. Andretti were incredible in Lights and we managed to beat them on merit.
“I think that win actually helped my career in America a lot.”
But a matter of months later, there was yet another twist. The COVID-19 pandemic threw a significant curveball and saw the St. Pete opener called off midway through the weekend. Sowery’s planned team, Belardi Racing team, did not survive the year.
“Looking back now, I think it actually did more damage than we gave it credit for at the time,” Sowery reflects. “It was like: ‘Oh, we’ll just miss a season, come back next year.’ But it really stopped the momentum and, I don’t want to say hype, but hype that people had for Year Two. And I think that’s quite a powerful tool.
“When you’ve got momentum and people are excited to see you back in the car, it definitely helps a lot of different aspects that lead to you being in a car again. So looking back, I wouldn’t say [it was] detrimental but it definitely didn’t help.”
Being left in a state of limbo was not unfamiliar to Sowery but it was still far from ideal. Yet there were seldom thoughts of being sidelined long-term and a programme with Juncos Racing was secured for the 2021 Indy Lights season.
But Sowery’s campaign, despite three more podium finishes, came to an end after 14 races. And the following year, 2022, ended up being a quiet one aside from the Radical World Finals, in which Sowery won three of four races to be crowned champion.
“No matter what we did, we were going to find a way back to racing,” Sowery says. “It was just going back to some racing that I wanted to do. Momentum is quite important so when you have an average season and then you run out of budget to do the end of the season and then you don’t have another year racing, it’s almost two years on the back foot.
“Then trying to get anything to build your momentum back up is quite difficult, which I think any driver would struggle with, especially when you haven’t got the money just to go pay the check, jump into something serious again and not worry about it.
“For me, everything we do has to be quite careful, calculated and we have to be smart with how we raise and where we spend the money.”
The Radical races helped Sowery to get the ball rolling again after a 2022 that “wasn’t pleasant” so soon after the 2020 hiatus. Then in 2023, four years on from his rookie Indy Lights season, Sowery was given a route back into the championship, rebranded as Indy NXT, as he replaced Josh Pierson for three substitute appearances at HMD Motorsports.
And a podium in his first race back, in an 18-car field at Barber, has proven one of the most important results of his career.
“It was the whole purpose [to regenerate momentum],” Sowery says. “To get back into the car and instantly do well and get a podium and be on the pace, that’s I think what reestablished my name over there. Every time you get in the car, it’s making sure that these efforts count.
“It was very important and it reestablished my name in a paddock that I want to make a career in.”
No IndyCar opportunity came from Sowery’s return to its premier feeder series straight off the bat in 2024. So he deviated to an early-year Asian Le Mans Series campaign in the LMP2 class before running the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s endurance rounds in the same category, along with GT3 running with BMW in GT World Challenge Europe.
On top of his partial Indy NXT return in 2023, Sowery has viewed sports car racing as another proving ground.
“It’s been definitely an asset that I can leverage more seats from because anyone with the means can jump in a race car and have lots of practice and then do well,” he says. “Not taking that away from the people that do but sometimes drivers don’t get that opportunity.
“So to jump in something and be fast straight away is how I would measure talent personally. And I think managers and team owners and people who make decisions also see it that way. As a team manager, you want someone that you’re going to put in the car and they’re going to deliver - not crash, not be steady, not be slow.
“On their worst weekends, okay they might not win, but they’re still there carrying a fairly good result because that’s what wins the championships. It’s not the best weekends, it’s the worst.
“Everyone who’s allowed me to drive their car this year has been a massive key player in establishing myself and giving myself a career. A few years ago, I didn’t realise how much COVID had had an effect on my career.
“I think in five years’ time, I’m going to look back at this year and say: ‘That was the year where I established myself and that was what allowed me to have a career.’”
IndyCar had been on the table in 2024 as an option, stemming from a maiden IndyCar test run with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) towards the back end of 2023. It was a milestone moment for Sowery.
“It was amazing,” he says. “It was at Sebring, which obviously is a short track and you want to do a bigger track and spend more time with the car. But you have to do with what you’ve got. And RLL did a fantastic job in bringing me in, welcoming me, prepping the car extremely well. So we didn’t have any interruptions.
“It was hot, physical, sweaty but not as much as I expected it to be. I remember driving down the back straight and just thinking: ‘Man, I’m driving an Indy car. Enjoy this day. Yeah, we’ve got a job to do. Yeah, I’ve got certain things I need to achieve in myself and for the team. But man, you’re driving an Indy car. Enjoy it.’”
The test day went by in a flash for Sowery but reignited the flame of ambition to chase his IndyCar goal. And the test did almost lead to an IndyCar debut in late 2023 before RLL opted to field former Red Bull junior and ex-Formula 2 driver Juri Vips in the vacant No.30 Honda.
“We still have a good relationship with RLL,” Sowery says. “I’m not salty about Juri getting the race. Everyone gets picked for a reason, everyone gets chosen for a certain purpose. And they decided that Juri was the guy for that.
“There were conversations about racing with them for this season but our sponsorship deal kind of fell through and that is what it is. I’ve had that happen many times.
“There’s people who’ve got to IndyCar way sooner than me. Lando and George are in F1 and you’re sitting back way behind this watching everyone else get their opportunities. So it’s easy to get wound up and upset about that but, at the same time, it’s not productive. So you just accept that people get there sooner - doesn’t mean they’re better or worse.
“We’ve still got a great relationship with RLL. We didn’t fall out or anything. It just didn’t happen. And that’s racing.”
Conversations continued with teams into 2024 after an opportunity with RLL never materialised and they opted to field Pietro Fittipaldi in their open seat. Dale Coyne Racing’s revolving door of drivers in their No.51 entry - with no race-to-race driver confirmations - opened up a lane of promise.
“Honestly, I’m not too sure of the early details because there were conversations at the same time that my IMSA teammate Colin Braun had as well,” Sowery says. “He went to do an IndyCar race and I didn’t so there were conversations at the time and I thought: ‘Yeah, it’s probably going to be an unrealistic shot but you never know.’
“So you’ve got to be ready. It was a conversation because he hadn’t had a commitment for the whole season for the No.51 car. So I think Dale and his team were analysing and assessing who they could get and who’s good and valuable and who’s a trusted driver. It was a conversation but didn’t come to fruition.”
Come early July though, after a revisiting of the situation, Sowery was in position to make his debut at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. And while not announced at the time, he was also penned in for the late-season visit to Portland International Raceway.
“I think because of that [earlier] conversation, the name being in his mind already, that bridge was a lot easier to make rather than some random person that [Dale] had never spoken to,” Sowery says.
“I think in his world, he would rather have one driver for the whole season and that hasn’t happened. But we had the conversations quite early on to lead up to Mid-Ohio. We knew for quite a while before it was public.”
There was a lot stacked against Sowery for the Mid-Ohio weekend: an unfamiliar and debuting hybrid system, a new steering wheel, only a single IndyCar test the year prior, a repaved track and physical race without caution, a wet first practice restricting soft-tyre running and a qualifying issue. But he still delivered.
“It was just a weekend that flew past,” he says. “It was taking as much as I could in as little time… It was a steep learning curve for sure. Learning the steering wheel, that’s one thing that is new or different in IndyCar against everything else I’ve driven - you can make your own steering wheel.
“Learning how their procedures work and what’s on their dashes was the biggest thing for me. And especially when it’s an unfamiliar atmosphere, the car’s still relatively new, the weekend format still new, the crew and team personnel are new. And there’s a lot more things to absorb as well.
“So it was difficult but everyone at DCR did a fantastic job of making it as easy and as simple as they could. The hybrid system, there’s an art to it I think we’ve all established across the paddock but it’s not massively complex - it’s a fairly simple system.”
Sowery was as high as 12th place after the second pit stop but dropped a position to Malukas after an error. But a 13th-place finish - up 11 places from the start - matched the team’s best of the year and was the outright best result for the No.51 entry.
“The dash is saying P13 and it’s like four laps to go but no one’s behind me… we’re going to stay P13,” Sowery says. “They’re like: ‘Yep, yep. Keep going, keep it up, keep the pressure up.’ It felt a bit surreal… It was tough. And I wouldn’t moan about having to do it again. But at the same time, I’d also like an easier introduction to something if I was to do it next time.”
Sowery impressed enough at Mid-Ohio that he was welcomed back to the team for a further race on the streets of Toronto, adding to the existing two-event programme. Continuity has been a rarity for Coyne in 2024 but Sowery will have run the final three road-or-street races in the No.51 entry come Portland.
There was an audition-like feel to Mid-Ohio and Sowery references having Linus Lundqvist earning a Chip Ganassi Racing drive for 2024 - off the back of three deputy performances for Meyer Shank Racing at the end of 2023 - in mind.
“I always knew from back in 2019 that if you do well in a race, the doors open up,” Sowery says. “Jumping into the car and getting on and doing a good job does open doors so I was very aware of that and I perhaps put a little bit pressure on myself saying like: ‘I’ve got two races but publicly I’ve got this one opportunity to make it count.’
“They definitely warmed up to me after the weekend. I think the relationship built quite quickly and quite strong. They’re all great guys that get a bit of a hammering about the driver situation on social media. But at the same time, they’re just people doing a job and a passion that they love.
“They were very eager to get me back in for Toronto as they hadn’t had that confirmed. I was eager to do Toronto. We had to work hard to find some financial resources to do that. But the team were very cooperative in allowing me and helping me and assisting me to get everything together.”
The Toronto weekend - Sowery’s first on a street course - was not as straightforward as Mid-Ohio. The “unforgiving” bumps made it an unexpectedly physical challenge but Sowery still achieved his goal of reaching the finish in a race bound to be attritional.
He made his way up from 21st - a respectable starting position from his first complete qualifying session - and finished the race in 15th.
“It wasn’t how I’d want the weekend to go but I think my first goal of the weekend was to finish the race,” he says. “I knew looking back on how races had gone previously that if you survive you have a good chance of getting a fairly decent result.
“Finishing the race was key. I know the car’s fighting for a position in the Leader’ Circle and if I put it in the wall then I do nothing to help the team. For me, it’s about building something that teams can look at even now in the summer break and further around silly season and go: ‘He survived Toronto, he had a great result in Mid-Ohio. We trust this kid can do the job.’”
Portland will provide one more chance for Sowery to prove himself to teams and prospective partners with his performances on track.
“I’ve got to be in a shop window already,” he says. “Hopefully I’m putting myself in the window with the driving side. It’s also now utilising it off-track. The goal at Toronto was to beat P13 - we got close but in the not correct kind of way.
“Try and improve on P13 [at Portland]. If we can’t, at least beat P15. If you set the boundary high and you miss, you still achieve something. If I go in and just want to finish the race or do well, it’s not really pushing yourself. And I think in racing, you have to strive to do sometimes better than is realistic to achieve those results.”
Sowery is extremely keen for Portland still to be only the start of an IndyCar career. His sights are set “100 percent” on returning in 2025.
“We’re working on some projects, which I can’t really give too much information on,” Sowery says. “But on our end, we’re working on some bits that are a puzzle piece for next year. There’s obviously a lot of seats that are still available, there’s going to be a lot of movement, there’s obviously a new team coming in.
“With experience in IndyCar, it’s becoming a lot easier. However, there’s still a lot of money that you have to find - and different teams want different things. Some have sponsorship and funding themselves, others don’t. So it’s definitely something that we’re working to now and we have been for a couple of weeks and a couple of months or a couple of years even.
“We’ve got some sponsors onboard for this year and utilising them for next year and giving something back that they want and finding out what we can get and helping each other out to make it an achievable goal for everyone. Something we can actually put together as a programme is what we’re focused on at the moment.
“But there’s definitely movement - progress on our end. It’s just if we can put the right package together with the right team at the right time. And if those three things come together, then I think for me, it’s something that I’ll be in for next year.”
Even to Sowery, an exact landing spot is unclear at this point amid a market with too many suitors for too few seats. But relationships from his races with Coyne and test with RLL will not be harmful amid vacancies at both teams.
“There’s uncertainty of who’s going to be [at RLL] next year,” Sowery says. “There’s uncertainty with a lot of seats next year. Obviously David [Malukas] announcing his move to Foyt has thrown a lot more in the air than people are expecting.
“No one’s your enemy at this point. No matter if you’re falling out with the team, they’re still your friends. You’ve got to put the past to the side and work on building these relationships and futures for any seats that drivers can get.”
If IndyCar does not work out, Sowery has options to fall back on; not being in a top-level single-seater category by no means defines a racing career.
“I’ve had a great time in IMSA in LMP2,” Sowery says. “And if that’s where my career is, then I’m going to make a fantastic life for myself. It’s a great series racing fantastic cars with great drivers. So there’s no failure at all, nor is GT racing. But IndyCar is my goal.”
From all of his experience in putting deals together with the team around him, Sowery knows better than anybody that racing drivers have to be as savvy off-track as they are fast on-track. He has learned a lot from his single mother and father - both of whom have come together to assist their son’s career.
“It’s not like we just had the money to go and race so we’ve had to be smart with it and we’ve had to learn from a very early day how the business of racing works,” Sowery says. “And it’s something that my mum taught me from a very young age: racing is a business. It’s a sport but, behind the scenes, it’s a business…
“She’s been fundamental in moulding our minds to understand what companies want and what they get back out of racing and something that is achievable rather than: ‘You give me money, you get a sticker on the car.’ No one’s interested in that anymore, especially when money is so tight for people.
“So it’s been about having a product to sell as well as that. You’ve got to be personable, you’ve got to be likeable, you’ve got to be friendly, you’ve got to be fast. There’s a lot of elements that me as a driver has to do, as well as understanding how sponsorship works. And I think that’s really the reason why I’m here, having that understanding.
“Over the winter and over the summer, we’ve been working with people to figure out how IndyCar is as a selling point and figuring out where and what and who we can target to bring on as a partner, not a sponsor.”
Many drivers end up falling by the wayside due to the harsh business of racing. Sowery has been determined for that not to be the case for him.
“It’s a difficult process and a lot of drivers do fall down at that hurdle - not because they’re not good enough or they don’t understand it but because it’s just such a difficult game,” he says. “No one’s gonna spend seven million a year for the next 20 years just so their kid can race - unless you’re obscenely rich, it’s not something that is sustainable.
“Trying to break away from that ‘pay driver’ is difficult. So I think getting in, bringing the money and the sponsorship and then being a marketable enough driver - be fast enough, get podium results and do the job on track but also be able to be a sellable item off-track is really how you break away from that, become something that people will pay you for.”
Sowery’s priority now is to sort a deal for 2025 before too many puzzle pieces are already in place in the silly season jigsaw. It is a crunch time to bring reward for the occasional anguish of an exceptional racing journey.
“It’s trying to be ahead of the curve this year and really focus on putting a strong season together again for 2025 but as early as we can, so trying to get that programme again lined up for next year but earlier than say March and February,” he says.
“All I’ll say is there are some projects that we’re working on for next year in IndyCar. But there are a lot of them and I can’t give anyone more indication. So hopefully, at least by the end of the season, I’ll know more. But keep your eyes out.”
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