Robb signing a push for "stability" for Juncos Hollinger Racing, says team principal O'Neill

There is a clear plan for Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) and the recent signing of Sting Ray Robb is just the start.

Robb, 23, was announced last week as part of JHR’s 2025 driver lineup, which will mark his third team in as many years in the IndyCar Series. He spent this past season with A.J. Foyt Racing, collecting his first career top 10 at Gateway en route to finishing 20th in the championship standings. A rookie campaign in 2023 came about via Dale Coyne Racing. 

JHR Team Principal David O’Neill, who joined the team in May after starring in previous roles such as the former sporting director and team manager of Haas F1 Team, told Motorsport.com that Robb is a key component of the vision for the future. 

“The bit for us as a company, which I would like to move the company forward, is to have some form of stability within,” O’Neill said. “Obviously, in order to do that, he has brought money. I guess there’s no secret there, but also we have to make the company function correctly. It can’t just be funded by one guy. We’re trying to make it work properly. 

“We also want to make sure that the second driver, which there’s three or four that we’re talking to, is someone that we can put in the car at the Indianapolis 500 and stand a chance of winning, and also bring stability to the team in road courses, but also bring stability to the engineering department. So, have a decent criteria there with the two different drivers that we’re going to introduce to the team.”

While O’Neill would not go into specifics on the drivers in consideration for the second seat to partner alongside Robb, it is believed the candidates are Conor Daly, Romain Grosjean, and Rinus VeeKay. 

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet, Patricio O’Ward, Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, Conor Daly, Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, podium

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

Daly was a late edition to JHR in 2024, joining after the team parted ways with Agustin Canapino and helped vault the entry back into the top 22 in the standings and earning $1 million for finishing in the Leaders Circle. Meanwhile, Grosjean came over to the organization this past season and showed flashes of brilliance, even vaulting them to a team-best fourth-place result at Laguna Seca. And VeeKay became one of the more surprising names to join the list of free agents, especially after having spent his entire IndyCar career — five years — to this point with Ed Carpenter Racing. However, there is history between the Dutchman and JHR as the two united to win the 2018 Indy Pro 2000 title before finishing as the championship runner-up in Indy NXT the following season. 

Although filling the second seat is high on the priority list for O’Neill, he delved back into Robb’s results from this past season and not only compared them to Santino Ferrucci, his former team-mate at Foyt, but Canapino as well.

“The main thing is that if you look at last year’s results and then also, splitting from the side, we don’t really know how good Ferrucci is,” O’Neill said. “We have to assume that he’s very good from the results, certainly on the ovals. 

“So, assuming they have the same car, there is definitely a difference there. But the bit I’d like to go back to is that if you look at Sting Ray’s results, technically he was quicker than Canapino, results-wise, over the course of the year. He had three mechanical failures to my knowledge, which would’ve put him straight in the 22, and he was five points outside the 22nd place. So, if you’re looking for consistency, the first thing I guess you look for is to make sure you have two drivers that can finish within the sub-22nd position.

“He definitely didn’t have the consistency that we can give him and also the knowledge of the engineering department, the consistency within the pit stops that we can give him. So, we figured that, yes, there’s a little bit of risk there, but if we can put our arm around him and get him comfortable in the team, I think that he can produce decent results race by race. What decent results means is trying to get into the top 10, for sure, but consistently finishing within the top 15 is where we would set our sights on to put the championship together.”

Uniquely, this move to JHR is a reunion for Robb. He first joined the team for the 2019 season in Indy Pro 2000, placing fourth in the overall standings before winning seven races en route to the championship the following year. He moved up to Indy NXT with JHR in 2021 and placed eighth in the standings before switching to Andretti Global the next season, where he won one race and finished runner-up in the championship. 

Sting Ray Robb, Juncos Racing

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

That history together is part of what team co-owner Ricardo Juncos expressed to O’Neill, further noting how the strong results were not necessarily instant but clicked as Robb gained more experience.

“Not only has he won the championships, but he has taken three years to get there to win the championships,” O’Neill said. “Now, I’m not saying he’s going to win the IndyCar championship, but what I can say is that he’s there to produce some decent results in year three, which he’s going into with our car, which I think is better than better than the car he was driving last year.”

Overall, the formula that O’Neill wants to establish is having a pair of drivers that bring a level of funding that can help raise the floor of JHR, especially with the possibility of a new car being introduced to the IndyCar Series by 2027. 

While this likely means a more cautious approach as the team builds a more firm infrastructure across engineering and other departments, the focus is more on the long-term future of the organization.

“The main thing is to stabilize the system, understand why we were as good as we were, but also have a little bit of a glide path into how we are going to tackle the new car,” O’Neill said.

“We need to take a breath as a team at that point to come up with some form of structure. The first thing we’d look into the structure is putting someone in place to understand how we’re going to tackle the new project and also all the different dimensions the new car brings to us and disciplines that we have to learn. So yeah, stabilizing but also trying to move forward at the same time at a decent pace — not a silly pace — but also structuring the new car and facility to be able to facilitate that new program.” 

And with that plan, there is little aim to move to add a third entry exclusive to the Indy 500 and extend the team beyond its resources. 

“While it would be great to run three cars, I don’t think it’s worth stretching a team for that to earn a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” O’Neill said. “It’s more sensible to carry on as we are building the team now. Two or three years down the road, yeah, maybe, maybe it’ll be worth doing. But getting another 10-12 people in the house, letting out the secrets that we have, I don’t think is worth the gain, if you get what I mean. Plus, the thing that put the end to it all was that GM just didn’t have that extra engine for us to take.”