As the machine in which he achieved his greatest career successes, Ryan Hunter-Reay’s pick for his favourite car comes as no surprise. The more pertinent question is establishing the 2012 IndyCar champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner’s preferred specification of the stalwart Dallara DW12.
So named after the late Dan Wheldon, who completed most of the development work on the car and was slated to be Hunter-Reay’s team-mate in 2012 before his death at Las Vegas in 2011, the DW12 can be considered as a family of cars that share the same name in a similar vein to Audi’s R18. The original guise was used in 2012-14; manufacturer-specific aerokits spanned 2015-17; a revised spec bodykit given the IR-18 designation appeared in 2018, while the arrival of hybrid earlier this year represented another ‘new’ era.
PRIME: The long evolution of Dallara's Indy 500 winner
Hunter-Reay picks the Chevrolet-powered version he raced in 2012-13, above the Honda-propelled iteration he drove to victory lane at the Brickyard, as his favourite example of the DW12. That Hunter-Reay’s ongoing Indy 500-only deal with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing means he is preparing for a third straight year using Chevy engines in 2025 is merely circumstantial when expressing his preference.
“I really got on well with the DW12 when it came out,” he says. “I've got such a great memory of that DW12 when it was producing a lot of downforce; it was way lighter than it is now and that really suited my driving style.
“I need a lot of front aero, a very positive front end, and that car allowed me to develop my set-ups to suit me. It was something that we started with a clean sheet of paper and that really benefited us.”
Hunter-Reay points to 2012 being “such a special time in IndyCar” as the first time since he’d arrived at the pinnacle of the US open-wheel scene in 2003 that he’d been involved with developing a brand-new car. The DW12 also ushered in a new era of 2.2-litre V6 turbos and Hunter-Reay, who had joined Andretti Autosport in 2010, was heavily involved with test and development work for the GM brand.
“It was the first time I had ever done anything like that, where I was one of the lead development drivers with Chevy in developing not only the powerplant, the drivability side of it, but everything else that went along with trying to get the most out of that new chassis,” the 43-year-old explains. “That was a big not only learning point in my career, but a huge maturation process for me.”
A driver who had won twice in his first two seasons in Champ Car had struggled to find a consistently competitive ride before landing at Andretti. Wins at Long Beach (2010) and New Hampshire (2011) followed, but Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing had come to be the dominant forces challenging for titles with the venerable Dallara IR-05. As such, Hunter-Reay welcomed the DW12’s arrival as “a new car re-stacked the deck, it was an opportunity to take advantage of. Once we were able to start all over again, it levelled the playing field”.
Hunter-Reay believes DW12 “came at exactly the right time” in his career as “I was just starting to hit my stride”. And a perfect combination of factors helped yield the crown, beating Penske’s Will Power.
"Penske also had Chevy power, so it was tight competition, but I just was able to get on well with it"
Ryan Hunter-Reay
“I was firing on all cylinders, the team was as well,” he reflects. “Chevy also had an advantage, in especially the first half of the season, and you have to strike while the iron's hot. Penske also had Chevy power, so it was tight competition, but I just was able to get on well with it.”
It also helped that Hunter-Reay didn’t waste opportunities when they came his way. “His knack for stepping up on crunch weekends paid off in a big way,” remarked Motorsport.com’s season review.
Hunter-Reay’s first win didn’t come until June, in round eight at Milwaukee, where he ran at the front all day and the team made the right tyre calls to get him ahead of Helio Castroneves (Penske). But that began a hot streak of three on the spin, across as many different configurations of track (flat oval, banked oval, street track).
He went unbeaten across Iowa – heading team-mate Marco Andretti – and Toronto, where a well-timed early stop before a caution that scuppered Power helped vault him into victory contention, and duly usurped Power as the points leader until engine failure at Mid-Ohio swung the needle back in the Australian’s direction.
Hunter-Reay then responded well to being turned around by Alex Tagliani and finishing 18th at Sonoma, a result that left him 36 points behind Power with two races to go. His fourth victory of the year in the penultimate round on Baltimore’s bumpy street track was “huge” for his championship: “Winning that race is what really put us in the title fight going to Fontana,” he says.
When rain hit, Hunter-Reay stuck with slicks while leader Power opted for wets that he later ditched. The inspired call put Hunter-Reay into contention for victory, which he grasped by passing Ryan Briscoe (Penske) at a late restart.
The result still left him with work to do heading to the 500-mile Fontana finale. But facing a 17-point deficit, Hunter-Reay says “we just never gave up”, even in the knowledge that Power would need a bad day. That’s exactly what transpired.
He inflicted Power’s third straight narrow defeat in a nail-biting conclusion after an early crash for the Australian, whose spin while battling Hunter-Reay nearly eliminated both cars. A brave effort from Power to return to the track in his hastily repaired car and gain one more position meant Hunter-Reay needed to finish fifth, which was far from certain until attrition hit in the closing laps.
He was running fourth, battling Takuma Sato, with Castroneves closing fast on new tyres in the closing laps, when Sato too shunted. That froze the order and crowned RH-R as champion after a race that “felt like it went on for four days”. He adds the experience of “operating under that pressure also prepared me and set me up for the 2014 Indy 500 win” when fighting tooth and nail with Castroneves.
“I have always thought within the industry, a season championship is respected more than one race result,” he considers. “The Indy 500, however, transcends motorsports, so from a removed perspective, the Indy 500 carries more weight and value to a driver's career. However, within the racing industry and within that paddock, amongst teams and everything else, the overall championship is the real mark of respect.”
It also meant Hunter-Reay had the chance to run #1 on his car in 2013. Although things rarely went to plan as factors often beyond his control limited him to just two wins at Barber and Milwaukee, the Dallas native is proud that the opportunity was there to alternate with his regular #28, chosen to represent the 28 million people worldwide fighting cancer.
“You've worked your entire career to be able to put one number on your car, and that number's #1,” he says. “We went back and forth on 'should we just keep the #28?' But when I thought about the history of that tradition of the champion taking the #1, it was too significant to pass up.”
It was also the last time an Andretti Autosport [now Andretti Global] driver carried that number. The team is still waiting to add another IndyCar title to its roster, with Ganassi (seven) and Penske (five) resuming hegemony.
Today the DW12 features “the same safety cell, the carbon fibre monocoque, the tub is the same”, but has little else in common with its 2012 spec. Hunter-Reay is clear that a car in which his most recent win came in the 2018 Sonoma finale is so far removed from the original package – with more weight resulting from the halo, aeroscreen, hybrid units and anti-intrusion panels – as to be “a completely different car”.
“The car drives completely different, not even close to where it was prior to the manufacturer aerokits,” he points out. But like Hunter-Reay himself, for whom the passion for racing burns as bright as ever, it has no end in sight.
