Oriol Servia, ASPM Announce Indianapolis 500 Partnership

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer

Confirming the final of 36 planned entries for the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500, Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports confirmed that Oriol Servia will pilot the team’s No. 77 Honda entry in a partnership with Chicago-based Team Stange Racing.

The Spaniard will attempt to qualify the No. 77 MotoGator Honda entry in a partnership that could see John Stange Jr.’s team start on the road to being full time competitors in the NTT IndyCar Series in a few years time. The team currently competes in stock car racing in the K&N series and in ARCA.

“I am so pleased to announce this great partnership with Arrow SPM today as Team Stange Racing makes its entry into IndyCar racing,” stated Stange, Jr. in a team release. “We are so blessed to partner with a company like MotoGator who is committed to building a winning IndyCar program with TSR. Once we developed our plan, we knew that we wanted to launch at the world’s greatest race with so much history and it being so special to me personally. The second thing to do was to partner with a quality team that we could align and grow with as we build our team to compete in the NTT IndyCar Series eventually full time in 2021/22”.

If he qualifies, Servia will race in his 11th Indianapolis 500 on May 26th. His highest finish in the 500 was fourth in 2012 but he nearly won the race last year, leading with under ten laps to go in a one-off effort.

“I work and prepare all year for this race, so it’s kind of ironic that we are actually announcing a program this late,” Servia commented in a team release. “I am proud to represent Lucas Oil again, and couldn’t be more excited to introduce the world to MotoGator and Team Stange, which you will hear a lot more very soon. At last year’s 500, I did perhaps the best driving I’ve ever done and came really close. I’m here to finish that job, and I know for a fact that everyone on this program has worked really hard preparing this event with the same aim. It may look like we are arriving almost late to the game, but we are arriving READY!”

Servia completes a four car assault that Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports will have for this year’s Indianapolis 500 field. James Hinchcliffe will look for redemption after missing the 500 last year while Marcus Ericsson hopes to qualify for his first Indianapolis 500. Jack Harvey will try to race for the third time at Indianapolis in a Meyer-Shank Racing Honda prepared in conjunction with ASPM.