Intro To IndyCar - A.J. Foyt Enterprises - Pt 3 - David Malukas

For our final part of A.J. Foyt Enterprises, we move to the driver of the #4 car, David Malukas.

Here is his driver profile on the IndyCar website.

David Malukas was born in September 2001 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a first generation American, as his parents immigrated to the US from Lithuania in eastern Europe.

He began karting in 2009, and kept karting competitively until 2017.

Before he started on the traditional Road to Indy, he ventured into racing outside of North America. David competed in the 2016-2017 UAE Formula 4 championship. Though he didn't compete in all races, he still finished in fifth, above current F1 driver Oscar Piastri, who competed in the exact same races.

He also competed in 2017's ADAC F4 Championship, placing 16th. The winner was Jüri Vips, and second place is Meyer Shank's Marcus Armstrong.

After this, he returned to US based racing, and started in F2000 in 2017. He placed tenth. The year after, he moved into Pro Mazda, where he placed fourth in 2018.

Then, the natural step up to Indy Lights occurred in 2019. His rookie year, he placed sixth. This was also a turning point because HMD Motorsports joined Indy Light to back David, which was founded and managed by his father.

As I've mentioned before, 2020 saw Indy Lights cancelled due to COVID. Like his contemporary Kyle Kirkwood, David chose to pursue another series to keep his skills sharp and compete.

This is something I want to mention outside of this article, and in general. I believe that if you want a seat in upper categories, and you don't have one, that you need to compete in whatever series you can get into because it can showcase your skill but also keep people's minds on you. The Road To Indy does an incredible job of showcasing their winners with the scholarships, but winners in non-Indy categories idling for an F1 seat may never see it because they are too focused on the minute possibility of being called up when people who are still actively competing get moved up.

Anyway, David came second in the Formula Regional Americas Championship, which is an F3 equivalent. The winner was Linus Lundqvist, who was 2024's IndyCar Rookie of the Year.

When Indy Lights returned in 2021, so did David. That year he placed second to Andretti's Kyle Kirkwood.

Then in 2022, he stepped into IndyCar. His rookie season was with Dale Coyne Racing with HMD as his secondary sponsor. He finished sixteenth in the championship, with one podium at Gateway.

In 2023 he stayed at Dale Coyne. Similar to the first year, he came in seventeenth, with one podium at Gateway.

While we haven't covered DCR yet, it's not the most well funded team, nor is it at the top of the series. David produced solid entries both years at DCR; in 2023 he finished higher than current teammate Santino Ferrucci.

Now we get into 2024. If you haven't read my Arrow McLaren article, you may not be aware of the musical chairs that happened there last year. At the end of 2023, they signed David to drive their #6 car.

All was good until February 2024, when David had a wrist injury. Unlike the somewhat outlandish choice by Formula 1's Lance Stroll the year before to compete directly after surgery with minimal recovery time, David's team chose to go slow. He had a solid seat and from what management was saying, they were willing to wait for David to recover.

Until they weren't.

David was dropped from Arrow McLaren before his first race due to a performance clause in his contract. Ruthless in their decision, and unrepentant, Malukas was out of a seat until Laguna Seca, where he replaced rookie Tom Blomqvist at Meyer Shank Racing. Though it wasn't a perfect season, David managed to get the #66 car up into the Winner's Circle and place only two spots below the seat he was not actually given.

Now we enter 2025, and David has moved to A.J. Foyt Enterprises (Racing). While it is early in the season, it is looking to be a questionable move for him. Both MSR cars are doing very, very well. Rosenqvist is up in fifth after two strong showings; Armstrong, who replaced Malukas, is in fifteenth. But who is really to know what the next fifteen races will be?

If you're trying to decide whether to follow Malukas, now we'll get into this element. A young, cheerful, very goofy guy you'll find in David Malukas. Affable in a way his teammate never will be, he's got the spirit of IndyCar. Entertaining, engaging, he loves what he does. While his drive is obvious by the sheer fact he went from having one of the best seats in IndyCar, losing it, and turning into lemonade, it's also clear just by watching him. Almost chronically online, he's willing to promote the series by almost any means necessary. Taking a page out of O'Ward's book as well, he heavily connects with the fans. He just launched his own merchandise line and one of his reasons why it took so long is he wanted to have shipping to anywhere.

The reach of IndyCar is wide, and the ability to have your fans be able to rep your merchandise anywhere is smart.

That is what I think Malukas has done with his approach - a smart one. Clearly the bike accident was not planned, but everything else is a relatively measured approach. His approachable and amusing nature makes it easy to root for him. As the broadcast has said over the past two races, David may be in line for Will Power's car in the next year or two, as Foyt has a technical alliance with them.

Either way, David is laying the foundation to be a somebody in IndyCar.