Sting Ray Robb predicts "a huge advantage" for second season with JHR
- Morgan Holiday
- 9m
- 5 min read
Written by Morgan Holiday
Sting Ray Robb is headed into his fourth IndyCar season in 2026 - but only his second with Juncos Hollinger Racing. The 24 year-old American driver talks consistency, momentum, and future race wins ahead of the coming year.
Momentum
For the first time in his IndyCar career, Robb is returning to the team he was with last year. Robb debuted in IndyCar with Dale Coyne Racing in 2023, before moving to A.J. Foyt Racing the following year.
After that, he made the switch to Juncos, where he re-signed for 2026 after finishing 25th in the standings last year. Staying with the same team from one year to the other can make a bigger difference than anyone realises.
“It's great,” Robb said during IndyCar’s media day about his return to Juncos. “I think that it's nice to come back with a second year with the team because of what I said earlier, of just having that continuity, understanding that the pedals are in the right spot, the seat is in the right spot, the steering wheel is in the right spot, everything is comfortable before we even arrive at a racetrack.
“Those seem like little things. They do make a difference. They're time consuming, they're little bugs here and there that you don't want to have to worry about.
“But from a bigger picture I think it's nice not to have false expectations, having false hope. We can have real hope and real expectations, which is kind of fun because we know where we're at and we know what we're capable of doing and we can prove that.
“So working on those things during the off-season is vastly important, and being able to have that direction from day one of the off-season versus day 60 or whatever it is, it just allows us more time to get to work.”
Staying with Juncos for a second year allows Robb a chance to work towards making specific improvements on specific things that didn’t go quite his way last year. With the same team working towards the same goals, it’s easier to take stock of where you went wrong and learn how to improve.
For Robb, a big thing to work on from last year is his qualifying results. His best result of the year was a ninth place finish at Long Beach, but he had qualified much further down the field. Robb’s average finishing position in 2025 was 20th, but his average qualifying position was 22nd. While it’s ultimately your finishing position that matters and knowing that he has the ability to perform better than he’s currently qualifying is a good sign, that means that qualifying is an area to work on for this coming year.
“Yeah, qualifying is hugely important,” Robb commented. “You see issues with cars all the time where they can come from the back of the field. My race at Long Beach, I think we started 17th or 18th at that event and finished where we did. It's not impossible by any means.
“But I did have my best qualifying results of the year last year. It's just the consistency wasn't there. I think just building that consistency is probably our biggest focus this year. Still have those key performances that move us forward, but if we can build in that consistency and shrink that window of performance down, so to speak, I think that's the key part of what we need to be able to do.”
Looking for consistency (and more)
The consistency of staying with the same team can help a driver gain consistency in other areas. Whether it’s the car itself, the environment or the people around you, staying with the same team definitely has its advantages.
Speaking about staff turnover, Robb said: “There hasn't been a lot of turnover, thankfully. Mechanics-wise we have a solid group. I think we were one of the most reliable teams in the series last year, so that was really good to see.
“But our engineering staff has been what it was as last year, pretty much. I will, I think, be working with someone new, same person on the team but someone new to me on my car, which is fun.
“But yeah, the staff, they're working well together, I think. The continuity from last year -- I think to be fair, there was a few guys that were lost at the beginning of last season, went to other teams, and there was a bit of recovery to be done because of that.
“I think having the same group held together year to year is going to be a huge advantage.”
Without a new team to adjust to and a new place to figure out, Robb can sit back and focus on his larger goals and his trajectory in IndyCar. For the young, thoughtful American driver, there’s a lot to consider.
“As far as goals go, I think the easiest thing to do is to look at the results and define expectations on that,” said Robb. “But that's probably the worst thing that we could do because expectations are a result of the procedures that we make happen. I talked about those weaknesses ahead of the season and the way that we've been working on those.
“So I think that our goal is to work on those weaknesses and just continue to reveal those, find any other issues that we can find in myself, in the team, in the car, whatever it is.
“All those revealings are what's going to lead to good results. If we do that, the results are going to come. It's not a matter of if we need to work harder or push more, like I was saying earlier. It's a matter of doing things the right way and it will just fall into place.”
Looking ahead to the coming season, Robb also discussed what he hopes to achieve. Winning a race is an obvious goal, and not even an impossible one. While Robb’s current best finish in an IndyCar race is only 9th place, the series is both competitive enough and unpredictable enough that a win is never off the cards for any driver in the field.
But Robb has other hopes as well, saying: “I mean, if I said anything other than winning, would I be accepted as a race car driver? That's the answer we have to give, no matter what.
“I think the reality is we just need to be more consistent, again, keep working on those weaknesses, and if we do that, then the results will come.
“I'm going to be honest; I said this a second ago. I'm not content with what I've done yet. But I can look at the results from different places and say, okay, we're capable of doing it. Gateway 24, Indy 500 24, Long Beach last year, things like that where it just came together. It didn't seem any more difficult. It wasn't that I worked any harder.
“I didn't drive any harder, so to speak. But it worked. We'll just keep doing that, and I think that will lead to the things that we want to achieve.”
