Malukas wrist “at maximum” as he rides IndyCar May momentum

Credit: Joe Skibinski

David Malukas knows his wrist may never again be as it was before his pre-season dislocation in a mountain biking accident last year. But the 23-year-old Chicago native is not letting any restriction in his left hand limit his career. 

Having overcome being dropped by Arrow McLaren without competing in a race due to the injury last year, initially rebounding with a half-season with Meyer Shank Racing, Malukas is starting to settle nicely into his new home at AJ Foyt Racing.

But initially, finishing only once in the top 15 and the team recording no top 10s inside the first five races in 2025, it was a difficult start to Malukas’ stint with his new team.

“[The wrist] was another thing beginning of the season, first few races, having a little bit of a struggle bus there,” Malukas said. “I had another surgery at the end of last season to clean up some scar tissue and get more movement out of it.

“Obviously going back into the car, no matter what [with with a personal trainer] or training I can do, nothing is like the real deal. The hand got a little bit beat up in those first few races. But it’s at a good state now where there’s no more pain and it’s pretty much at the maximum it will be. 

“I obviously have a little bit of movement that’s never really going to come back. It is what it is. But we’ve done a good job with moving things around in the car and getting things to what I like. I had to change my driving a little bit and things are good now.”

Malukas’ story is one of distinct resilience. And in the last two weeks, he has been rewarded with a runner-up finish in the Indianapolis 500 and now a front-row start on the streets of Detroit.

After a challenging start to the campaign, things are starting to turn a corner and momentum is being built.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

“I’ve said throughout the start of the entire season that we really are looking forward to the Month of May because we’re with the team for the entire month,” Malukas said. “We can really build on the car and work on the chemistry of each other and really understand what we want and start building some momentum for the second half of the season. 

“I feel like that’s what’s happened. And it’s something I experienced in my first year in IndyCar [with Dale Coyne Racing] where really things didn’t turn around for me until the Month of May. That’s being with a new team, how it is. 

“We’ve made really good improvements with the setup and different things that we wanted throughout the Month of May. We were able to hone down, have a lot of time to look through it and really put things forward and start getting a connection with everybody.

“Now coming into Detroit, I was very happy post-May that I knew our results would come. We just kept our heads down and all that hard work that we’ve put in is really showing.”

A second-place start in Detroit is Malukas’ joint-best in his near-three-year IndyCar career and the best he has achieved to date on a road or street course.

“Everything just clicked,” Malukas said. “After practice, we were very comfortable with the car, very happy. It’s chaos with the practice sessions, figuring out who’s fast, who isn’t, where we are. It’s all a guessing game. 

“We kept our heads down and just committed. I thought we had a good car and clearly it went out and showed that.”

It is a quick turnaround from an intense two weeks of heightened emotions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - on a 2.5-mile superspeedway - to the polar opposite style of track in the form of the bumpy, unforgiving streets of Detroit.

Malukas ensured he spent time on the simulator before arriving in the Motor City to smoothen that transition from oval to street course.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

“It’s very difficult,” Malukas said. “I went on the simulator and did over 100 laps to prepare for it because I know that transition is very tough, going for a whole month on an oval and coming to one of the most technical courses for us.

“It’s so tough because the way this track is, all the bumps tend to be mid-to-out when you’re trying to accelerate. And those bumps throw you what is a wall. It gets very tough. But that’s just the general layout of this entire track is all the exits are a little bit more those bumps. I enjoy it. The margin for error is very small.”

Malukas insists there is no secret behind his success this weekend, heaping credit on the work from his Foyt team.

“The AJ Foyt car is a very good car going over those bumps,” he said. “I’m seeing other cars flying off of them and our car takes them like a champ. Just a very good car underneath me and I drove to the absolute limit of the car.”

Looking ahead to the race, Malukas expects the openness of some of the corners compared to their narrower exits invite yet more chaos in line with the 15 cautions in the two visits to the new Detroit circuit so far. 

But before the Indy 500, there was a three-race caution drought before a mechanical issue for Malukas himself caused only the second yellow period in the first five races.

“All of this year, our data says 100 percent there’s going to be a yellow… I swear one of the data points they said 107 [percent],” Malukas joked. “Then there wasn’t a single yellow - not for that race but for like four races after that. So I was like: ‘Alright, I’m not looking at the data.’”

Three-time podium-sitter Malukas continues to chase a maiden IndyCar victory. But if he can weather the chaos of Detroit, this may be the young American’s best shot yet.