A karting champion turned IndyCar title winner, who took the 2012 championship, the 2014 Indianapolis 500 and later a sporting director role.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is an American driver who won the 2012 IndyCar Series championship and the 2014 Indianapolis 500. He won Champ Car races early in his career, and he later took on a sporting director role at Arrow McLaren, which he began in 2026.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is an American racing driver who won the IndyCar Series championship in 2012 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2014. He also won two Champ Car races before the IndyCar Series took over, and later added a win at the Long Beach Toyota Grand Prix. In June 2026 he was named sporting director of Arrow McLaren, and he still races part-time for the team.
Who is Ryan Hunter-Reay and where did he start?
Ryan Christopher Hunter-Reay was born on 17 December 1980 and is known by the nickname RHR. He won six national karting championships with the World Karting Association before taking up single-seater racing. His early career was built on scholarships and shootouts rather than large budgets.
After winning a Skip Barber Karting Scholarship he won the Skip Barber Formula Dodge championship in 1999. He then beat Formula Dodge drivers in a shootout for the Skip Barber Big Scholarship, which carried a prize of 250,000 dollars. He used that money to take part in the Barber Dodge Pro Series during 2000.
His results improved steadily. In 2000 he finished fifth in the Barber Dodge Pro Series standings with 104 points. In 2001 he was named Rookie of the Year, won two races at Lime Rock Park and Exhibition Place, and finished fifth again with 114 points.
A karting champion who became IndyCar's title winner, Indianapolis 500 victor and now a sporting director at Arrow McLaren.
How did Hunter-Reay perform in Atlantic and Champ Car racing?
Hunter-Reay moved into the Toyota Atlantic Championship in 2002 with Hylton Motorsports. He won three races that season, including at Laguna Seca, and was sixth in the standings with 102 points. The Atlantic series was then the main development category for the CART series.
He joined Champ Car in 2003 with American Spirit Team Johansson, a squad run by former Formula One driver Stefan Johansson. The car struggled against the Lola chassis, and the team ran for most of the season without sponsorship. His breakthrough came at the season finale in Surfers Paradise, where he started twelfth, made several pit stops and led for fifteen laps before winning his first Champ Car race.
In 2004 he drove for Herdez Competition and won the Milwaukee Mile race from pole, leading all 250 laps. That was his second and final Champ Car victory. He finished ninth in the points, the only season he finished in the top ten in the series. In 2005 a lack of consistent sponsorship led to his replacement by Michael McDowell for the last two races.
How did his IndyCar career develop before 2012?
Hunter-Reay joined the IndyCar Series in 2007, replacing Jeff Simmons at Rahal Letterman Racing for the final six races. He was named Rookie of the Year despite the short schedule, setting a record for the fewest starts by a driver to win that award. The following year he finished sixth at the Indianapolis 500 after a crash in qualifying.
He won his first IndyCar race in 2008 at Watkins Glen, a victory that gave Rahal Letterman its first win in four years. He finished eighth in the championship that season. Early in 2009 he finished second at St Petersburg for Vision Racing, the team's best result, but the team had no sponsor and he later moved on to A. J. Foyt Enterprises.
With Andretti Autosport from 2010 he finished the season seventh in points with 445 points. At Long Beach he led 64 of 85 laps to win, and at the Indianapolis 500 he ran out of fuel on lap 199 while running in the top ten. He stayed with the team through 2011 and 2012, finishing seventh in points with 347 points in 2011.
How did Hunter-Reay win the 2012 IndyCar championship?
Hunter-Reay won the 2012 IndyCar Series championship with 468 points, the first American to take the title since Sam Hornish Jr. in 2006. He also won the oval championship with 168 points. The title was decided at the season finale at Fontana, where he needed a top-five finish to clinch the overall championship.
He won three consecutive races that year at Milwaukee, Iowa and Toronto, then added Baltimore for a fourth win. At Fontana he moved up into the top five when a Tony Kanaan crash brought out a stoppage, and he finished fourth to win both the overall and oval championships. The finish is still remembered as one of the most dramatic in the series' history.
How did the 2014 Indianapolis 500 finish?
Hunter-Reay won the 2014 Indianapolis 500 by 0.0600 seconds over Helio Castroneves after starting nineteenth. The result was one of the closest finishes in the race's history. He had three wins that season and finished sixth in the championship with 563 points.
His later seasons were less productive, and the Indianapolis victory remains the defining result of his IndyCar career. Hunter-Reay also had a difficult period between 2015 and 2021, when he recorded five wins and none after Sonoma in 2018.
Career summary at a glance
| Season | Series and team | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Barber Dodge Pro Series | Named top rookie; fifth with 114 points |
| 2002 | Toyota Atlantic (Hylton Motorsports) | Three wins; sixth with 102 points |
| 2003 | Champ Car (American Spirit Team Johansson) | First Champ Car win at Surfers Paradise |
| 2004 | Champ Car (Herdez Competition) | Milwaukee win from pole; ninth with 199 points |
| 2007 | IndyCar (Rahal Letterman Racing) | Rookie of the Year; 19th with 119 points |
| 2008 | IndyCar (Rahal Letterman Racing) | First IndyCar win at Watkins Glen; eighth with 360 points |
| 2010 | IndyCar (Andretti Autosport) | Long Beach win; seventh with 445 points |
| 2012 | IndyCar (Andretti Autosport) | Series champion with 468 points |
| 2013 | IndyCar (Andretti Autosport) | Wins at Barber and Milwaukee; seventh with 469 points |
| 2014 | IndyCar (Andretti Autosport) | Indianapolis 500 win; sixth with 563 points |
| 2023 | IndyCar (Ed Carpenter Racing) | Full-time drive in the No. 20 car from June |
| 2026 | Arrow McLaren | Named sporting director in June |
What is Hunter-Reay doing now?
After leaving Andretti Autosport in 2021 he took a sabbatical from full-time IndyCar racing, but he returned for the Indianapolis 500 with Dreyer and Reinbold Racing. In 2023 he finished eleventh at Indianapolis with Dreyer and Reinbold, then drove full-time for Ed Carpenter Racing for the rest of that season.
Tony Kanaan cited his racing career and overall attitude when Hunter-Reay was appointed to the sporting role. He continues to race part-time in the IndyCar Series with the team.
How did funding and the bump at Indianapolis shape his Andretti years?
In 2010 the funding for Hunter-Reay ran short during his first full season, and the campaign was at risk of ending early. Tony Kanaan later revealed that he had put part of his own salary toward securing the sponsorship that let Hunter-Reay finish the year.
At the 2011 Indianapolis 500 he was bumped on Bump Day by his teammate Marco Andretti, with 55 seconds of qualifying left. Andretti then arranged for him to take over the already-qualified car of A. J. Foyt Enterprises, which had been Bruno Junqueira's, and he started 33rd and was classified 23rd, three laps down.
At New Hampshire later in 2011 he started fifth and led 71 laps. On lap 220 of 225 a restart was followed almost at once by a spin from Danica Patrick, and the race went back under caution. Officials then reverted the official result to lap 215, when the race had been under caution for rain.
The 2012 finale, the Race of Champions and sports car seasons
At the 2012 MAVTV 500, both Hunter-Reay and Will Power took ten-place grid penalties for going over the five-engine limit. That day Hunter-Reay was also in a title fight with Tony Kanaan over the A. J. Foyt Oval Championship.
In 2012 he was invited to the Race of Champions as the only IndyCar Series representative. Playing for the Americas team with Benito Guerra Jr., he won one race in each of his two groups and failed to reach the quarterfinals.
He first raced in the American Le Mans Series from 2002, finishing 52nd overall after a mechanical failure at Sebring in a Ferrari 360 Modena for JMB Racing. In 2011 he returned with Level 5 Motorsports, and that car won its class at Sebring with 300 laps completed.
In 2007 he co-drove a Riley-Matthews Motorsports car in the Sunchaser 1000 at Miller Motorsports Park, leading for twenty laps and winning the race overall and in class. In 2010 he co-drove a Level 5 Riley to third overall and in class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and at Homestead in 2009 he finished tenth overall.
Sitting out, mentoring and the Carpenter seat
Hunter-Reay missed the 2022 IndyCar Series season, but he still gave car development and insights to Juncos Hollinger Racing and to its rookie Callum Ilott, preparing Ilott for the 106th Indianapolis 500.
Ed Carpenter Racing signed him in 2023 as the replacement for the released Conor Daly. He drove the No. 20 Bitnile Chevrolet on a full-time basis for the rest of that season, and at the end of 2023 the team let him go to make way for Christian Rasmussen, the 2023 Indy NXT champion.
In 2024 he drove for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing again at the 108th Indianapolis 500, working alongside Cusick Motorsports on that programme.
A1 Grand Prix and early Grand-Am appearances
Hunter-Reay joined A1 Grand Prix in the 2006-07 season, representing the United States alongside Phil Giebler and Jonathan Summerton in a squad entered by West Surrey Racing. He was originally due to make his debut in Beijing, but a track problem there meant he never drove in that round. He made his debut at Taupo in New Zealand instead, finishing 11th in the sprint race and tenth in the feature race, and the team ended the season ninth with 42 points.
He began in the Rolex Grand-Am sports car championship in 2006, racing a SAMAX/Doncaster Racing Porsche GT3 Cup car in the GT class across three races. At Laguna Seca he finished 23rd overall after 86 laps, third in class.
