Have Harvey and RLL formed IndyCar’s next winning match-up?

Of the many silly-season driver/team changes that started brewing around springtime earlier this year – or even before that in the case of the split between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Andretti Autosport – Jack Harvey’s departure from Meyer Shank Racing was not foreseen. Not even by team owners Michael Shank and Jim Meyer.

It was unexpected, perhaps largely because Harvey seemed to have a job for life there. His gratitude to Shank and Meyer for having winched him out of a post-Indy Lights no-man’s-land to become a part-time IndyCar driver in 2018 and ’19, then a full-timer from 2020, was palpable in his every interview. And in reciprocation, the team owners’ affection and respect for the 28-year-old from Lincolnshire for making the most of the part-time deal – a way trickier proposition in this era of extremely limited testing – knew no bounds.

As a former driver, Shank truly appreciated that Harvey had to punch above his weight in those early seasons. If he had missed the previous couple of races, he was expected to blow the rust off in opening practice and then compete toe-to-toe with the full-timers, and he became quite adept at that. In those first two years, MSR had a technical alliance with what was then called Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, and there were occasions in the second season when Harvey made his ASPM teammates – a former multiple IndyCar race-winner and an ex-Formula 1 driver – appear flat-footed.

Going full-time at last in 2020, albeit still with only 19 IndyCar races under his belt, Harvey had a new set of drivers with whom to pool data, as MSR hooked up with Andretti Autosport. And again, Harvey frequently shone – mainly in qualifying – as he regularly matched and sometimes outpaced Andretti’s incumbent stars Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi. True, Colton Herta usually led the Andretti/ASPM group, but not always – and anyway, that’s no insult to anyone concerned, for the second-generation American 21-year-old is a phenomenon. Yet in the races, when the points are distributed, Harvey never got the rub of the green, and finished an appallingly unrepresentative 15th in the championship.

This past season was barely better, producing 13th; despite six times starting from the top six, two fourth place finishes were his highlights. And so, 49 races into his IndyCar career, that brilliant drive to third in the wet GP of Indianapolis in 2019 remains Harvey’s only podium finish.

On his way to third in the 2019 GP of Indianapolis.

Photo by: Scott R LePage / Motorsport Images

For Harvey, the problem hasn’t always been one of simple misfortune, such as getting caught in other people’s wrecks, or full-course yellows falling at the wrong time, nor has he made many mistakes, either in combat or while running solo. Instead there were strange strategy calls and also inexplicable losses of pace at crucial moments. As a recent example of the latter, Harvey was in the top five in both practice sessions at Portland, and part-time teammate Helio Castroneves’ pace appeared to prove this was no fluke. Yet in the qualifying session in between, Harvey could muster only 20th despite making no obvious driving errors.

Come the race, MSR’s strategy was spot-on, the car was fast and Harvey drove superbly to come home fourth – just behind Scott Dixon and just ahead of Josef Newgarden – but we could only ponder where he might have finished if he’d started nearer the front. Second place would likely have been feasible.

After the race, Harvey was satisfied yet rueful, as if again being reminded why he had elected to move on, despite MSR proving able to send Castroneves to Victory Lane at the Indy 500.

“I think we could have had these kinds of results a lot of the time,” the two-time Indy Lights runner-up told Autosport. “To be able to chase a multi-time champion like Dixon for third, and hold off another multi-time champ like Newgarden, that’s the kind of thing we should be capable of. I do feel we’ve been there plenty of times but just not been able to get the end results.

“Today, nothing went wrong and we showed the potential which we’ve all felt we had. You could say it’s too little, too late.”

That was as close as Harvey ever got to publicly expressing frustration with his situation at MSR. Not only is he very much of the “you make your own luck” breed, he’s also extremely loyal and never disparages the people who work with him and for him. Indeed, for more than three months he respectfully refrained from revealing where he was headed for 2022, even if we did draw our own conclusions and had it confirmed by others. It seemed he didn’t want to be quizzed about what RLL offered that MSR didn’t, but nor did he want to put Takuma Sato in an awkward position.

“I have so much respect for Michael and Jim that I didn’t want to create any extra difficulty in that situation,” he said. “And also I have respect for my colleagues, my rivals. I know how I would feel if someone was being linked to the seat I was currently occupying!

“I pride myself on being respectful – my parents are that way, I was brought up that way. I’m not perfect, far from it! But I do try and keep integrity, which is why there’s no animosity between me, Michael and Jim. It was all done in a decent way, and I never wanted to be the source of any drama.”

While he looks back on his time at MSR with no regrets, Harvey is open about the Indy 500 this year.

“Mate, I won’t lie,” he says. “As happy as I was for the team to win, I can tell you it was an absolute gut-punch to watch someone else in their first race with Meyer Shank score the team’s first IndyCar win. It wasn’t because it was the biggest race in the world. It’s because the team I’d worked with for four years, the sponsors I’d worked with for four years. It felt like that first win, wherever it came, was going to be something that we’d all been working toward together.

“I’m not sure I talked to anyone for the next week! It was unfortunate because our car had been really quick, too. But then we had that strange problem with the rear tyre in our first qualifying run [a dramatic-looking delamination], we went out for our second run at the peak of the heat – and even then our times were good for the time of the day – so we could only get 25th. In the race, we worked our way toward the top 10 but then one bad pitstop and suddenly we were back almost to where we started.

New colors for Harvey in 2022 and Hy-Vee steps up as a full-time primary sponsor on the #45 RLL-Honda.

Photo by: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

“So yeah, although I was happy for Helio, that day was a real sting. And that’s nothing against the team – or Helio. I enjoyed working with him, I think we worked together well, helped each other a lot, and so we helped the team. He’s a really great guy and I’ve probably learned more from him than from anyone else so far in my career, on the track and off the track. Trust me, I’m happy for him that he’s able to come back full-time.”

And so it wasn’t Castroneves’ arrival as a full-timer – nor depression after any particular raceday disappointment – that pushed Harvey into changing teams.

“No, no, definitely not!” he says. “My mum and dad have always been good at teaching me and my sister to make the right decisions for the right reasons, to not make a decision in emotional haste. I thought about it a lot, like you’d expect, right? Believe me, I know how strong MSR can be, and I would not have walked out on that for just any old ride. This was just a great opportunity.”

It’s all about feeling ready in his third full season in the series to start winning and even contend for championships, and Harvey believes Rahal Letterman Lanigan is a team with which he can do that. In fact, he’s utterly convinced.

“I don't have the words to really explain it,” he said this week. “I guess the way I would try to is that I've been working for this kind of opportunity since I was nine years old at my local go-karting track in the UK. So all of those years, days, hours, high moments, down moments have been trying to get to this level of opportunity. I'm so thankful and grateful to Bobby [Rahal], Mike [Lanigan], David [Letterman], Piers [Phillips, team president], everybody at [principal sponsor] Hy-Vee for showing me that interest and ultimately that trust and support to put me in their car. I've been dreaming of this my whole life.”

This echoes much of what he said a couple of days after announcing his departure from MSR, and therefore months before his destination was confirmed. Such was his enthusiasm that Autosport felt obliged to check with Harvey that he was staying in IndyCar and that his ‘mystery opportunity’ wasn’t a five-year deal to race Penske Porsches in IMSA and WEC.

“Ha, no!”, he said, “although that would be awesome wouldn’t it?! Nah, my focus is open-wheel because I think I’ve got a lot more to show in terms of good hard results. I’m this enthusiastic because I really, truly believe in where we’re headed.”

And after examining the situation a little more closely, it’s not hard to understand Harvey’s logic. If you feel you’re a top qualifier whose race results have been stymied by circumstances outside of your control, and you see that RLL cars always seem to move up the order on race days, wherever they qualify and regardless of track-type, you’re going to be tempted to make that move.

“I look at our [2021] season, and it was filled with a lot of potential, but too many coulda-woulda-shouldas,” he told the media. “I would watch the races back, and I always felt like Graham's race pace was exceptionally strong, and as a team [RLL] always found a way to get their drivers to the front. There’s definitely been a few races where I was envious of that.

“Their cars always run really well at Indy, which is evident because they've won it extremely recently [2020 with the departing Sato] and Graham has been very strong this year. The #45 at the end of the year was running pretty strong as well, and ultimately I think the team expanding to three cars is a great move for everybody. But their consistency, and when you see all three cars be quick and have the opportunity to be quick, that's what you want to be a part of.

“There's still things I need to work on, and I feel like the team has a lot of infrastructure and support to help me grow both as a driver and as a person. I'm excited to work with Graham and the third car when that gets announced.

“I feel like what I can bring to the team is [to] keep our qualifying performances going, but also be able to improve on our race pace, which I feel like between me and the team, we should be ticking a lot of those boxes.”

It's not been unusual to see Harvey running near the front of the pack at the start of a race. His luck rarely lasted all the way through to the checkered flag.

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

It must be said, however, that it’s a long time since Rahal Letterman Lanigan was a title contender. The squad has proven capable of dominating a weekend – Detroit 2017, Barber 2019 – but even they seem distant now. You have to go back six years to find the last time Graham Rahal harbored title hopes into the last couple rounds of the season. At that time, we applauded his underdog performances because he was running solo for all races but Indy, yet finished fourth in the championship among a field of multi-car teams. Realistically, such giant-killing is probably not feasible in the current era, so now RLL is becoming one of those multi-car teams believing that will help propel the team to the top echelon.

“Having three competitive cars is going to help for sure," said Bobby Rahal. "I think Jack and Graham will push each other. That does great things for a team because it just raises the competitiveness of the team. All you have to do is look at Roger [Penske], what his team has been like over the years, or Chip [Ganassi].

“You've got to be counted every day. That's why you really need to build that strong team, have strong drivers that will push each other forward to being in that lead group every race weekend. You do that, you're going to win your fair share of races.”

If the team achieves its aim of making it to the very top level on a consistent basis, does Harvey have the chops to take advantage? The up and down form of Meyer Shank and Andretti Autosport rendered the matter fascinatingly and frustratingly opaque. Autosport asked the opinion of Colton Herta who worked closely with Harvey for the last two seasons and saw what he has to offer.

“Jack’s a good driver,” said Herta - who is not one to utter insincere compliments. “His earlier struggles were mainly down to learning IndyCar with a team that’s as new to the series as he is, and were only part-time, so that was completely understandable. I think we’ve seen his potential over the past couple of seasons, since they went full-time, and when he puts it all together in qualifying, Jack’s very strong – he had, six or seven fast six appearances this year, which is very tough to do.

“On the permanent road courses and street courses, yeah, he’s on it. His feedback was tremendous, and some of us wish he’d stayed with Shank because his data was very useful! In terms of our driving styles, there were some places where it was pretty similar, other places where it was completely different. Indy GP course was the best example – we’d go out and be very close on time, but we’d find speed in completely different ways. But it was helpful whenever that happened because it meant I got to learn a little bit more about different techniques, things that he was doing that I didn’t know yet. And vice-versa hopefully.

“So yeah, it was a pleasure to work with Jack, and I really do wish him well at his new team.”

Certainly it will be interesting to judge him against different yardsticks, while we simultaneously assess the effect of RLL expanding to three full-time entries. But Harvey himself will probably only gauge his season in terms of wins. Driver and team are showing a lot of mutual faith – but their proven assets do indeed suggest they can complement one another. Thus, one of the more surprising changes in the 2021 silly season could prove to be one of the most logical moves during the 2022 race season.

The part-time #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda was driven by Santino Ferrucci, Christian Lundgaard and Oliver Askew in 2021. Next year, its occupant will be Jack Hy-Vee.

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images