Friendship takes awkward turn after ‘brutal’ axing

“I wanted to call Conor about it, but there’s an area, too, where you just need to cool off,” Hunter-Reay explained.

“I remember right after my situation happened, it’s not necessarily the scenario I would have liked to happen right after.

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“I’ll approach that in the right way. Like I said earlier, Conor is a friend. Honestly, I think he’s a great driver and I honestly think he’ll be back at some point, and I just hope that that is soon.

“This sport is brutal. My career has been a journey. I have been on every different end of it, whether it’s at Indy being bumped in, bumped out, on the front row winning the race.

“Then you look at my career and the whole thing has just been a journey from team to team to team, like I said, having been on either side of it.

“These were huge considerations in the process of deciding on all this, and really when it came down to it, the team was at a position where in order for it to be in a place where it potentially would like to be in the off-season of ’23-’24, that these things had to happen now.

“But yeah, I was surprised. It wasn’t something that I was pursuing.”

Hunter-Reay knows all too well what it’s like to be in Daly’s position.

In his formative years, he was cut by Rocketsports Racing towards the end of the 2005 Champ Car season.

In 2022, Hunter-Reay was replaced by ex-Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean, albeit on mutually agreed terms with Andretti Autosport.

The 42-year-old hailed Daly “a scrapper” and said he expects to see the Hoosier back on the grid.

“As I said, it doesn’t make the situation any easier for him,” said Hunter-Reay.

“I’ve been through all of it. I’ve been replaced at one point, and then I didn’t drive for almost a year and a half back in 2005.

“From the time I got back in at the end of 2005 to the middle of 2007 – actually it was longer than that when I jumped in at Rahal (Letteman Racing) replacing Jeff Simmons.

“I think the big thing is you just have to keep after it. This is for every driver, even the young drivers out there. 

“You’re one weekend away from the next opportunity, and just I think keeping the confidence in yourself and being just tenacious and persistent has been what I’ve always done, and I have no doubt he will, as well.

“We’re definitely going to miss him at the moment, but I hope he’s back, and I have every reason to believe he will be.”

Daly has already secured himself another drive, albeit not in the IndyCar Series.

The 31-year-old will contest the rallycross series, Nitrocross, with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

Ironically, that’s the same team Hunter-Reay competed with at this year’s Indianapolis 500 after he replaced the injured Stefan Wilson.

While Hunter-Reay’s appointment at the team brings with it optimism of better results, the veteran said there’s no quick-fix approach being taken.

“Right now we’re not talking about results,” said Hunter-Reay.

“This is not a silver bullet. This is not a situation where they have brought me in to go ‘okay, let’s put another driver in the car and you, the new driver, you go out and go faster than the old driver’. That’s not what’s happening here.

“This is a scenario where we are going to approach this from a technically disciplined approach, and it’s going to be methodical, it’s going to be a process. It’s not going to be short. We’re going to have to work through it every day.”

Practice at Road America gets underway at 12.55am (AEST) on Saturday before qualifying at 3.55am (AEST).

Final practice starts at 12.15am (AEST) on Monday before the 55-lap race at 3am (AEST).

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