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Jacob Abel Running Full IndyCar Season With Coyne

Jacob Abel will move up to the NTT IndyCar Series with Dale Coyne Racing in 2025, DCR announced Jan. 13.

Abel will pilot the No. 51 full time.

He comes to the team from the Indy NXT series, where he was the vice champion in 2024.

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2024 Frontstretch NTT IndyCar Series Awards

“We are excited about running another Indy NXT vice champion here at Dale Coyne Racing,” team owner Dale Coyne said in a team release. “We have watched Jacob over the years and did an evaluation with him at the end of the 2023 season, where he showed great promise in these cars. It will be good to get back to one solid driver for the whole season again.

“Our plans for our second driver are coming along quite nicely, and we will have more news on that in approximately three weeks.”

“I can not tell you how excited I am to get a full-time Indy Car ride for 2025,” Abel added. “I have worked my whole life for this opportunity. The test at Sebring with Dale and the test this fall with Chip Ganassi only made my resolve greater. I know it is a competitive road ahead but we look forward to hard work and showing what we can do together as a team.”

Abel takes over a car that was driven by six different drivers in 2024, paced by Katherine Legge‘s six starts. Its best finish, 13th at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, came with Toby Sowery.

Frontstretch.com

Rutherford is the managing editor of Frontstretch, a position he gained in 2015 after serving on the editing staff for two years. At his day job, he's a journalist covering music and rock charts at Billboard. He lives in New York City, but his heart is in Ohio -- you know, like that Hawthorne Heights song.