With the recent driver moves in the IndyCar offseason, the No. 12 entry at Team Penske is currently without a driver for the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season.
Conventional wisdom has the seat going to David Malukas, and why not? Malukas races for A. J. Foyt Racing, which has a technical alliance with Team Penske and he turns 24 near the end of this month, making him a good young replacement for Team Penske’s winningest IndyCar driver.
However, there are questions about Malukas’ performances. Other than a disqualification-assisted second at the Indianapolis 500 and a fourth at Iowa Speedway’s second race, the Chicago native had no other top-five finishes in a Penske-engineered car.
That doesn’t mean Malukas can’t do well, but that it appears that Team Penske might be taking a gamble going after IndyCar’s meme lord and there’s almost as many risks as there are positives.
Especially after some great qualifying efforts that resulted in finishes further down the running order.
However, there is another driver for Team Penske to consider for the vacant seat. It’s a long shot for this to come true, but in a parallel universe, Rinus VeeKay could be a valid option to replace Will Power for 2026.
I know what you’re thinking. VeeKay (14th) finished worse than Malukas (11th) in the 2025 IndyCar points table, but let’s look deeper into VeeKay’s season and why he might be the guy for Team Penske to consider.
Dale Coyne Racing in 2024 was all over the place, to put it mildly. The team had setback upon setback upon setback that included massive instability in their technical department, a rotating cast of characters in the driver’s seat and no true solid foundation to build upon.
The team signed Jacob Abel and VeeKay for 2025 and VeeKay went ahead and finished ninth in the season-opening race on the streets of St. Petersburg while setting the race’s second-fastest lap.
Wait, what?
Yeah, you read that right. VeeKay set the race’s second fastest lap on Lap 37, just under two tenths of a second slower than the race’s fastest lap by Josef Newgarden.
So we’re already at a top 10 finish in the first race of the season but business picked up significantly at Barber Motorsports Park when the Dutch racer qualified fifth and finished fourth.
Yeah, a top-five finish. The team’s first on a road or street course since Romain Grosjean at Laguna Seca in 2021. How did VeeKay follow that up? Finishing ninth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after starting 24th.
You see what’s happening here? This isn’t a normal season taking place.
Sure, the next two races were back-to-back 27th place finishes at Indianapolis and Detroit thanks to mechanical misfortune, but VeeKay had three top-10 finishes in a row at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Road America and Mid-Ohio after not qualifying better than 18th at any of those three races.
Fun fact by the way, VeeKay only got the biggest mover award at Mid-Ohio.
Now the rest of the season didn’t have the kind of results VeeKay was hoping for, but there was one glaring exception.
VeeKay finished second at Toronto after leading 16 laps with the help of an excellent strategy call from Dale Coyne.
The last time that Dale Coyne Racing had a podium on a street circuit?
Anybody?
Think you know the answer?
Yeah, I had to look it up too. St. Petersburg 2018.
VeeKay did a lot with a little in 2025. The resources Dale Coyne Racing has pales in comparison to what Ed Carpenter Racing had back in 2016 when Newgarden finished fourth in points to lift himself into Team Penske or most other teams on today’s grid.
That’s what makes VeeKay’s 2025 season all the more impressive.
So while many people expect Malukas to get the No. 12 Penske seat, it might be worth it for the North Carolina squad to take a gamble on a former Road to Indy champion.
Fortune favors the bold. Team Penske can be very bold for 2026.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.