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He’s arguably been the story of the 2023 championship so far, so why haven’t we heard more about Agustin Canapino in IndyCar’s busy 2024 silly season rumour mill?
His team boss Ricardo Juncos says Canapino has nothing left to prove and deserves three years to settle into IndyCar, while the driver himself says he doesn’t want his “sacrifice” of making the most almighty of jumps from touring cars to single-seaters at the age of 33 to be for only one year.
Canapino came to IndyCar this year from Argentinian touring cars, and despite being fooled by a pre-season test where he was off the pace, he’s proved to be a revelation.
After two 12th-place finishes in the first two races with Juncos Hollinger – in only its second season and its first with two cars – he matched that best finish in Toronto earlier this month in what was comfortably his most impressive performance so far.
He’s 21st in the points standings, ahead of four full-time drivers and second of four in the rookie standings behind Marcus Armstrong, who drives for Ganassi (albeit skipping the oval rounds).
Staying in the top 22 would earn his team $1million as that would include his Juncos entry in the Leaders’ Circle programme which pays out cash to the leading full-time entrants.
“I never thought it would be possible but we have a chance to be in the Leader Circle,” says Canapino.
“For me, it’s a really good opportunity, I didn’t expect that.
“The results are really good, especially on the street courses and ovals. We need to improve our performance on road courses.
“I think we have a chance to do a good job in the second part of the season.”
The team’s overall road course form has been poor, with Callum Ilott struggling in the other car, too. But in terms of Canapino himself, his physical conditioning and flattening of the learning curve are the key places for him to develop.
Quality in- and out-laps were evident in Toronto as part of his improvements, and driving a single-seater competitively in the wet for the first time in qualifying that weekend was a huge test, where he ended up 18th but Juncos felt he could have been in the Fast Six had things gone differently.
Canapino says he “always wants more” and that driving a single-seater still doesn’t feel “normal” yet.
“I said when we announced him at the press conference in Argentina, any driver, if they are a good driver, they should have three years,” Canapino’s team boss Juncos tells The Race.
“Because it’s fair. Otherwise it’s just impossible to demonstrate what you can do in year one.
“In my mindset, he’s doing even more than we expected to do, so in my mind he doesn’t have to do anything anymore, I know his performance.
“By comparing to top drivers today, going back to their first time, that means Agustin, if you give him two, three, four years in the series he will be a champion, no question.
“Because other drivers are doing that and they were thrown in maybe even more their first time.”
Juncos clearly wants to keep Canapino, But there’s no certainty of that for now.
“It’s about the economics behind the deal and all that which is not easy, nothing to confirm yet,” he explains.
Canapino added that there’s plenty of time to work on a deal, because “the season is finished in September, really early.
“We have time to wait for Ricardo and his team to see if we can do another year.
“Of course, I want to do it, all of this effort, all of this sacrifice, for only one year, honestly I want to do another year.”
Coming from a tin-top background is nothing new in IndyCar, it’s even happened recently with Scott McLaughlin’s move from Supercars in Australia to Penske’s IndyCar line-up.
The biggest difference there is that Canapino joins a relatively new team with a sophomore team-mate, unlike McLaughlin who was signed by one of the best teams in the series with team-mates boasting an Indianapolis 500 win and three titles between them.
One of those team-mates, Josef Newgarden, called Canapino “one of the most impressive drivers I’ve ever seen” at the Indy 500 he won two months ago.
“I am really happy with that of course, for me it’s a big honour,” Canapino says.
“I am very proud. The difference is because the people who must know how difficult it has been for me are the drivers. It’s happened to me with other drivers too. They always talk really well for me.”
Proof of how difficult the leap into IndyCar is was provided by Tom Blomqvist’s tough weekend in Toronto standing in for Simon Pagenaud at Meyer Shank Racing – something Canapino noted.
“I think everyone knows how difficult IndyCar is,” he said.
“You’ve seen Blomqvist’s situation, he’s probably one of the best drivers in the world, a champion in IMSA. Of course with time he can be really good, probably one of the best drivers in IndyCar.
“The first time for him was really difficult, imagine for me coming from touring cars from South America. This is the reason I think Josef and other guys are saying nice things about me and I am really happy with that.
“Thank you everybody! It’s a really big jump, and these words are big motivation for me.”
I wonder if Canapino’s rapid adaptation has left some of his peers wondering about just how good Argentinian racing is, and whether it helped to foster his talent.
🔋 Nos vemos en Buenos Aires 🔋 pic.twitter.com/qndnc4cKlg
— Agustín Canapino 🇦🇷 (@AgustinCanapino) July 29, 2023
After Canapino announced he would return next month and race in the Turismo Carretera championship he won four times – where his nickname is Titan, and he’s referred to as the “Messi of motorsport” – a host of drivers started by McLaughlin expressed interest in giving the series a try.
What’s happening here ? When are we flying to Argentina ? https://t.co/1cHhoVZG1q
— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) July 28, 2023
Canapino has attempted to find those drivers seats and discuss opportunities for them in the future, no doubt reflecting the mutual admiration also seen in the praise Canapino has received.
The Race asked Juncos about the praise Canapino had been getting, too.
“When I talk to Tony Kanaan, Will Power, Josef, they say the same and they know how hard it is, they have suffered,” Juncos adds.
“There was a first time for them too.
“For me it was a big risk when I made the decision, tried to convince everybody, saying to Brad Hollinger [co-owner] ‘I want to go with this guy, not just because he’s from Argentina’, because I was trying to have the proper mindset to make the decision based on performance and nothing else.
“But it was very hard to convince the guys, like, ‘wow, Ricardo is losing his mind’. Lucky for me, now everyone is seeing what I saw, that nobody else saw.
“There’s still a long way to go, IndyCar is so difficult, when you think about three years a driver needs to be in the series to do something decent.
“That’s what I mean, when you compare all the top drivers’ first years, compared to Agustin, he’s very impressive.”
Canapino needs to take another step forward to build on this strong start. But so does his team. It’s easy to forget how new this team is and how far it has come since starting this journey with three races in 2021 before its first full season with rookie Ilott the following year.
Despite all of that inexperience across drivers and team, it has a better average finish across its cars than Ed Carpenter, Meyer Shank, Dale Coyne and AJ Foyt this year. Given both ECR and Meyer Shank have won races as recently as 2021 and Coyne is a conveyor belt of talent, it’s no mean feat.
There’s been some personnel turnover and that’s one of the areas Juncos needs to improve. It has 64 people, so adding more is not a problem according to Ricardo.
“We have mechanics in IndyCar who are rookies completely for motor racing.
“The big teams are taking everybody. I don’t think it’s a matter of how many people we have, it’s just who we have. For us as a new team it’s very difficult.
“I can just keep adding people if I want. But it’s not what I need. I need people with experience, quality people.
“You can see even with the people we have we are getting better every weekend even on tyre changes, strategy and stuff like that.
“We are learning. I’m really happy with the people we have, but we just need time.”
Strategy calls and pitstops in particular have been a massive thorn in the side of Ilott especially. There’s work to be done in this off-season but Juncos knows that.
“Next year will be the first one we repeat the programme,” he adds.
“It’s important to learn from the mistakes we are making now, obviously so we don’t do it again, but to find out why and just keep learning to keep trying to catch up to the top teams.”
It’s clear there is plenty of learning and improving to do on both sides here, but the upside for team and driver is huge.
Last year Ilott put the team on the front row in the last race of the season at Laguna Seca, so that’s the sort of standout performance JHR will be looking to deliver again in the second half of the season here.
But an even bigger goal has to be sorting pitstops and finding a step on road courses.
Canapino’s gains will come from being in the car more, but as Juncos says, he’s already proved what he needed to. He definitely belongs in IndyCar and deserves his seat.
