Collet Finally Official at Foyt

One of the worst-kept secrets in the IndyCar paddock finally got brought into the open this past Thursday, when A.J. Foyt Racing officially announced it had brought on Caio Collet to drive the #4 car in 2026.

This confirmation came a couple weeks after a press conference in Collet’s native Brazil, where the head of his car’s primary sponsor, logistics company Combitrans Amazonia, jumped the gun and announced him as a Foyt driver. The deal was clearly close at that point, but the last details must have taken a while to finalize. Whatever the case, it’s a well-deserved promotion for a driver who impressed in both of his Indy NXT seasons, and he joins the likes of Igor Fraga, Felipe Drugovich, and Gabriel Bortoleto in a global wave of Brazilian hotshots looking to assert themselves in the world’s four championship open-wheel racing leagues.

The obvious measuring stick for Collet will be fellow rookie Dennis Hauger, who’s also come up from Indy NXT to a midfield team that has ties to some bigger fish. However, it’ll be just as important to take the fight to Santino Ferrucci, who’s never had the same teammate at Foyt two years in a row. The faster Collet can adapt to his new car and start putting up solid results, the more likely it is that this tandem will actually stick.

As far as the broader silly season picture, this means all eyes will be on Dale Coyne Racing. Despite Coyne’s pledge to get both cars filled by Halloween, the #18 currently stands as the only full-time ride with no name attached. Once it’s filled, anyone who still wants in is either going to have to find a one-off for the 500 or try to schmooze their way into replacing someone. The most likely target for the latter route is the #30 car, which Devlin DeFrancesco drove so badly that rumors now abound of an escape clause allowing Rahal Letterman Lanigan to boot the Canadian pay driver for 2026 without losing a cent of funding.

We’ve almost tripled in subscribers between my previous piece and this one, so before I go, I’d like to send a big thank you to the newsletters that recommended this one and a warm welcome to all the new readers. I deliberately held this one off until Monday, since that’s typically when I put these out, but I just might break that pattern at some point if a big enough midweek bombshell drops. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the archives if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you again when the next story’s ready.