It was an inminent announcement, and it has become official today. For the fourth time on the last five years, the Spanish driver Oriol Servià will race in the Indianapolis 500 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The Catalan driver will do his tenth Indy race after an agreement between Bobby Rahal’s team and Scuderia Corsa was closed.
Servià, who did his first Indianapolis 500 in 2008, has raced it consecutively since 2011 and has taken part on it with RLL in 2014, 2015 and 2017; will do only this race, as usual. 2012 was his last full-time year and, since then, he has raced with one-off or part-time programmes every year.
In 2014, the Pals driver worked with RLL for the first time and did four races for the team. Next year, he only raced the 500, but was later called by Andretti Autosport to race in Sonoma to replace and honor the recently passed Justin Wilson. His collaboration with the team was discontinued in 2016, when he raced in Indianapolis with SPM and returned to Rahal’s team in 2017.
Servià‘s best result in Indianapolis happened before that, on his last full-time season. He ended the race in fourth place with Dreyer & Reinbold. His best result with RLL is a 11th place in 2014.
This year, he has the possibility to be part of the great race thanks to Scuderia Corsa, an American team which participates on the series for the first time. Its usual series are IMSA and other endurance series where, always with Ferrari, have been successful, including Sebring 12H and Le Mans 24H wins. Servià will race with a Honda with the nº. 64 and will be partnered with the full-time drivers on the team, reigning Indy 500 champion Takuma Sato, and Graham Rahal.
“As you can imagine, I’m very excited first to be at the 500,” Said Servià about the announcement. “If you remember last year’s race, we were running really strong until it came to an abrupt end with 10 laps to go. We needed another party to ensure we’re going to win,” Added about the arrival of Scuderia Corsa. “Obviously both teams are very successful, winning teams. I couldn’t be happier that they agreed. When you put two teams together, you never know how it’s going to come out. They both saw the advantage of taking this shot together, with our friends at Honda supporting, too. I couldn’t be happier.
The 102nd edition of the Indianapolis 500, which has already 34 confirmed drivers, will be held on Sunday the 27th of May.