The stage was set for Yuven Sundaramoorthy to make a run at battling for the Indy NXT championship in 2025, but that was before his expected financial support faded just a couple of weeks ago.
“At this point, we're just focusing on finding money for '26 and trying to do the same thing,” Sundaramoorthy told Motorsport.com. “I don't see any reason why, if we do find money for '26, that it wouldn't be the same situation."
The 21-year-old Wisconsin-born product, who has the distinction as the only driver of Indian descent to not only compete, but also win in the ladder system to the IndyCar Series, was poised to take on more of a leadership role entering his second season with Abel Motorsports. Everything was in place for him to help grow a program that was expanding to four cars, with new teammates Callum Hedge, Jordan Missig, and Myles Rowe — the only Black driver in the series who is part of Penske Entertainment’s Race for Equality and Change program.
Now, though, Sundaramoorthy is left wondering what could have been. While his withdrawal from the championship was a surprise, even more so was the timing.
Partners come and go in racing for a wide variety of reasons — performance, visibility, etc. However, there is some thought that companies could be more cautious about committing to motorsports, or even entertainment for that matter, and moving forward, another possible factor that could put pause on such an investment is the looming uncertainty surrounding global tariffs.
Whatever the reasoning, it makes for an unfortunate situation. Especially for the upcoming Indy NXT season where exposure is expected to reach historic heights as it joins the IndyCar Series in the move to the FOX family of networks. Indy NXT, in particular, will have its races broadcast on FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2 — a massive uptick for a series that was regularly behind a streaming service paywall of NBC’s Peacock brand.
“It's such a major deal for IndyCar and it's also a major program in general, FOX and FOX Sports,” Sundaramoorthy said. “It's the thing of, I sit down on my couch and I'm going to turn on a game. I'm a big sports fan of all sorts of sports and usually that's turning on FS1 or FS2 and watching; whether it be college volleyball or college football. And that's the thing is you sit down and you watch FOX Sports. For that to be able to be this sport, too, is great. With more people comes more eyes for partners and for even just the drivers ourselves. So, it's going to bring so many more people in and bring a lot more eyes in and also make it much more attainable.
“There's a lot of people who just didn't want to buy Peacock, so they're not gonna watch it, but everyone can watch FOX Sports. That's one of the big things for me. And then also with the IndyCar side being on it, too, it's along the same lines of everyone knows the (Indianapolis) 500, but not everyone knows the rest of the IndyCar Series. We've already seen IndyCar ads in NFL games, which we've never seen before. NBC never was advertising any other normal IndyCar race besides the 500. That's going to be a massive thing. To have those extra eyes, extra viewership is great for us as drivers to get our names out and also great for any partner to get their branding out.”
Sundaramoorthy, a University of Wisconsin graduate, made leaps and bounds of progress as a rookie during the 2024 season. Early struggles gave way to rising promise as he flipped the script and captured two podiums — including a runner-up in the season finale at Nashville — and two fourth-place finishes over the last eight rounds. Although he ended his first year showing eighth in the overall standings, he was among the shortlist of drivers able to eventually battle at the sharp end of the field and take the fight to series champion Louis Foster.
“In the second half of the season, I think it was third in points,” Sundaramoorthy said. “So, I definitely picked it up towards the end of the season. And I think mainly attributed to just learning the car, getting used to everything. Detroit was really helpful for that because it's a nice slow track that you're really only dealing with the mechanical grip; there's not as much of the aero, so you get a good idea of what the mechanical grip the car has. From then on, I was just more comfortable with it.”
That is all part of why there was belief Sundaramoorthy was building towards something special for 2025.
“I was feeling really confident coming into next year,” he said, “because I was like, 'Okay, now I've got that experience already on these tracks, so I feel like I should be able to put all the laps together pretty quickly.'”
And Sundaramoorthy also feels the weight and the privilege to represent his Indian roots, which will undoubtedly be missed if he can’t return to the grid next season.
“For me, it's about inspiring the younger group because there's not as much representation now,” he said. “But, I'm hoping that other people can see it and say, 'Oh look, I want to do that' and the stereotype that usually Indian families don't allow their kids to do that kind of stuff can get broken, and more families will be like, 'Yeah, you should try to do something like this,' even if it's non racing.
"That's the main part to me, is just inspiring the other people who are coming up, to be able to do something like that and think that they can do it, not have to go for the classic stereotypical career path.”
