Dwindling financial support cuts rising star Sundarmurthy out of opportunity to fight for the 2025 Indy NXT title

The stage was set for Yuven Sundaramurthy to score a run on fighting for Indy NXT Championship in 2025, but just weeks before that their expected financial support had faded.

“Right now, we’re just focused on finding the money for ’26 and trying to do the same thing,” Sundaramurthy told Motorsport.com. “I don’t see any reason why, if we get the money for ’26, it wouldn’t be the same situation.”

The 21-year-old Wisconsin-born product has the distinction of being the only driver of Indian origin to not only compete but also win in the ladder system. indycar seriesWas ready to take on a more leadership role entering his second season Abel MotorsportsEverything was in place to help develop a program that was expanding to four cars with new teammates Callum Hayes, Jordan Missig and Miles Rowe – the only Black driver in the series who is part of Penske Entertainment’s Race for Equality and Change program. Is part of.

Now, however, Sundaramurthy wonders what could have been. Although their exit from the championship was surprising, the timing was even more surprising.

Partners come and go in racing for a variety of reasons – performance, visibility, etc. However, some believe that companies may be more cautious about committing and moving into motorsports, or even entertainment for that matter, with another potential factor being the growing uncertainty over global tariffs. Can ban all types of investments.

Whatever the reasoning, it creates an unfortunate situation. Especially for the upcoming Indy NXT season where exposure is expected to reach historic heights as it joins the IndyCar Series in moving to the Fox family of networks. Indy NXT, specifically, will air its races on Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 — a huge jump for a series that was regularly behind the paywall of NBC’s Peacock brand of streaming service.

“This is a huge deal for IndyCar and it’s a big program for Fox and Fox Sports in general,” Sundaramurthy said. “This is it, I sit on my couch and I’m going to turn on a game. I’m a big fan of all types of sports and usually that means turning on FS1 or FS2 and watching; Be it college volleyball or college football. And the thing is, you sit down and watch Fox Sports. It’s also a great thing for him to be involved in this game. With more people comes more eyes on partners and even the drivers themselves. So, it will bring in a lot more people and a lot more eyes and also make it more attainable.

“There are a lot of people who didn’t want to buy Peacock, so they won’t watch it, but everyone can watch Fox Sports. This is one of the big things for me. And then there’s the IndyCar side involved, it’s along the same lines as everybody knows the (Indianapolis) 500, but not everybody knows the rest of the IndyCar Series. We’ve already seen IndyCar ads at NFL games that we’ve never seen before. NBC was never advertising any other general IndyCar race other than the 500. This will be a big thing. To get those extra eyes, that extra viewership is great for us as a driver to get our name out there and also great for any partners to get their branding out.

Sundaramurthy, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, took a leap of progress as a rookie during the 2024 season. Early struggles gave way to increasing promise as he flipped the script and captured two podiums – including runner-up in the season finale at Nashville – and two fourth-place finishes in the last eight rounds. Although he finished his first year in eighth place in the overall standings, he was among the shortlist of drivers who were ultimately able to fight to the end of the field and take on series champion Lewis Foster.

“In the second half of the season, I think it was third in points,” Sundaramurthy said. “So, I definitely picked it up towards the end of the season. And I think the main reason is just learning the car, getting used to everything. Detroit was really helpful for this because it’s a nice slow track where you’re really just dealing with mechanical grip; There’s not that much aero, so you get a good idea of ​​how the mechanical grip of the car is. From then on, I became more comfortable with it.”

This is all part of why Sundaramurthy was confident of doing something special for 2025.

He said, “I was feeling really confident coming into next year, because I was like, ‘Okay, now I’ve already got that experience at these tracks, so I feel like I can pull out all the stops.’ Must be able to do it together.” Quite quickly.'”

And Sundaramurthy also feels the importance and privilege of representing his Indian roots, which he will undoubtedly miss if he cannot return to the grid next season.

“For me, it’s about inspiring the younger group because there’s not as much representation now,” he said. “But, I’m hoping that other people can see it and say, ‘Oh look, I want to do that’ and it can break down this perception that Indian families typically have for their kids to do things like this.” don’t allow, and more families will be like, ‘Yeah, you should try something like this,’ even if it’s not racing.

“That’s the main part for me, is just to inspire other people to come in, to be able to do something like this and think they can do it, they don’t have to go down the classic stereotypical career path.”