Venezuelan driver Milka Duno will face her first full season of IZOD IndyCar Series racing as part of Dale Coyne Racing. The former Dreyer and Reinbold Racing pilot will drive the No. 18 entry for DCR, who was the only team outside of Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing to win an event last year (Watkins Glen, with new DRR full-timer Justin Wilson).
Duno has driven IndyCars on a part-time basis since 2007, and had driven with DRR since 2008 after entering the series with SAMAX Motorsports. Two years ago, she was the highest-finishing female driver in the Indianapolis 500 with a result of 19th place. Last year, she ran nine events and had a top finish of 16th at Kansas Speedway while splitting time in the No. 23 car with other drivers.
“For the past three seasons, I’ve only run partial schedules and I’m anxious to be competing in all the races this year,” said Duno in a DCR press release. “Doing so builds momentum and maintains consistency that I feel is a key factor to good results. The full schedule includes seven races at tracks that I have yet to compete on, so I will be doing my absolute best to learn these new tracks as quickly as possible. This full season will be challenging – but I’m very thankful for the opportunity!”
An interesting sidebar on this was a tweet that was posted by Ana Beatriz, the Firestone Indy Lights standout that will be racing with DRR in next weekend’s season-opening Sao Paulo (Brazil) Indy 300. During the Open Test at Barber Motorsports Park, Beatriz tweeted about hearing what DCR’s driver lineup for Brazil may be in Portuguese. Thrown in Google Translate, it said that Duno and British driver Alex Lloyd were rumored to be Coyne’s pilots at Sao Paulo.
Coyne has told the press that we’ll see a driver announcement for his No. 19 car next week, so let’s see if “Bia” is right on Lloyd, a former Lights champion, getting that other DCR seat.
