HMD Motorsports spent the past two years in a partnership with Dale Coyne Racing as part of an effort to field an entry for David Malukas, which ended following the 2023 season after he departed for Arrow McLaren.
Mike Maurini, general manager of HMD Motorsports, confirmed to Motorsport.com last September the team would be splitting from Coyne, putting to doubt its involvement in North America’s premier open-wheel championship for 2024.
As it stands currently, the focus is on the 10 entries HMD Motorsports will run in Indy NXT for the upcoming season, which features a stout driver lineup that returns reigning Rookie of the Year Nolan Siegel and has added 2023 USF Pro champion Myles Rowe.
“For 2024, we're 100 percent Indy NXT only,” Maurini told Motorsport.com.
“We won the Team Championship in '21, Driver's Championship in '22 and '23. We put together what I feel is probably one of our strongest lineups, driver wise, compared to other programs. So, our goal is to try and go three-for-three or three-in-a-row for Driver's Championship. If we can get the Rookie of the Year again, we have some in Myles Rowe, Callum Hedge and Jonathan Browne, there's some good guys that can fight for that as well.
“Those are the short-term goals.
“Long-term goal is to be in IndyCar. We would love to be in IndyCar, but until the dollars and cents makes sense for us, it's hard for us to make that jump. So, in '24, there'll be no affiliation with any team. There'll be no partnership.”
When pressed on if a one-off partnership for this year’s Indianapolis 500 was on the table, Maurini ruled it out for HMD Motorsports even if one of the drivers out of his Indy NXT stable stepped up for an attempt.
“No one-off Indy 500,” he said.
“If a driver does it, they're going to solely do it by themselves. It wouldn't be a collaboration with HMD. We are looking at '25 and '26. We would love to do it. There are plans to do it.”
Another element to factor into the decision is that HMD Motorsports will finally start to move into its new 65,000 square-foot shop located in Brownsburg, Indiana, at the end of February. The aim is to be fully moved in from its current headquarters, which spans roughly 6,500 square-feet, by the end of March.
“All that stuff has to come before anything else comes,” Maurini said.
With all of that, though, Maurini is open to the possibility of exploring another joint effort in the IndyCar Series.
“If there was a team that was looking for a collaboration or a partnership, coming to the table and discussing that is a possibility,” he said.
However, the idea is to have something different to the one HMD Motorsports shared with Dale Coyne Racing, with something closer to Maurini’s long-term vision for the team relating to increased activation, hospitality, along with recruiting key personnel and sponsors.
“We've discussed with a couple programs already, it's just we're not in the position to sponsor a driver and we don't have a program that can go out and find sponsors yet,” Maurini said.
“So, we would need to dip into maybe somebody else's knowhow in that to try and help us get up to speed. We don't want to go in and fail.”
