Team Penske's Malukas moves on 'pretty quick' from Indy 500 heartbreak
· Yahoo Sports
Detroit — IndyCar driver David Malukas had his sleepless night and has replayed in his head the finish of Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, the closest in the race’s 110-year history multiple times. The thing is, it never changes.
Malukas, 24, drives the No. 12 Chevrolet for Team Penske, and enters this weekend’s Detroit Grand Prix on the 1.7-mile, nine-turn downtown streets second in IndyCar series points behind Alex Palou and just ahead of Kyle Kirkwood, the defending race champion.
Visit saltysenoritaaz.com for more information.
The three-day race weekend begins Friday and also features the Indy NXT and IMSA series, culminating with Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
On Thursday, four days after the Indianapolis 500, Malukas, looking for his first series victory, sounded as though he has moved on. Malukas took the lead at Indianapolis after a late-race restart that set up a one-lap shootout. But coming out of the final corner, Felix Rosenqvist went outside and passed for the win with the slimmest of margins, 0.0233 seconds. Malukas was clearly emotional after the race.
“I moved past it pretty quick. Next day,” Malukas said Thursday at the Detroit Grand Prix luncheon. “It's just in that moment it was an overwhelming sense of emotion to be in the worst pain of being that close to a dream come true. It's hard. It's tough. I had a lot of people message me or saying, like, ‘Oh, why would he show the emotion?’
"There's no way I could control that. That race is my live or die. It was my dream come true ever since I grew up as a kid (in Chicago). Everything, all the hardships, the people that helped me to get to that point, it was all for that race.
“For me it hurt because we truly had a winning car. We were right there. But I had my night of no sleep. I ran about a bajillion simulations in my head of what I could have done differently, but it's like they say, losses help you learn a lot more, and I became a better driver from before that last lap to now. I've learned so much, and we're going to take all that learning into Detroit and into future races and to the Indy 500 for next season.
"But overall, big congrats to Felix. I have nothing but good words to say to him. I mean, he was the first person to introduce me to the IndyCar family when I joined. Any driver you ask about him, he's so nice, he deserves everything. That made it hurt a lot less, knowing, OK, we didn't get it, but Felix got it, and that man deserves it.”
Parents' story motivates Malukas
Malukas, who has four top-five and six top-10 finishes but no victories this season, leaned on his parents, Henry and Daiva, and what they’ve taught him. They were about his age when they emigrated to the United States from Lithuania in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
His parents knew no English when they arrived, but both found jobs. Henry drove a truck and that ultimately evolved into a living-the-American-dream story, as they built their Chicago-based trucking company, HMD Trucking, Inc.
His parents’ story has always motivated Malukas. In February 2024, just ahead of the start of the IndyCar season with McLaren Racing, he suffered torn ligaments in his left wrist during a mountain biking accident. He would need six weeks to recover, and his career options were unclear.
“When I get to these moments of hardships, when I look back to 2024 coming from my wrist injury, I almost lost my dream job of being an IndyCar driver,” Malukas said. “I thought I was never going to have a left wrist anymore, and in those hardship moments, I always looked back and thought about my parents coming to America, similar age, had no money, no English, no job, and just had to figure all of it out.
"It truly puts in perspective all the hard work and time that they put in through my childhood to get me to that point, and then there I am sitting, whining about my little wrist, when they went through it a lot harder and a lot worse.
“And talking to them, you just have to keep pushing, as long as you believe in it, and you give it your 150% effort. There's discipline, there's motivation, and then there's obsession. If you're obsessed with something, and you truly just live and breathe it, you will achieve whatever you want it to be, and I truly believe in that.
"Any problem I've had, I found a solution in the past, so why is this any different? And I think with that headspace I learned from my parents, it's what led me to this point, and made me the driver who I am.”
Recovering from 'massive' wrist injury
Malukas has had a good recovery, but he’s by no means back to where he was originally. He held up his hands side by side to show just how different the left hand is and how must less movement he has.
The nerves on top of the hand are dead, so when he cooks, he puts it behind his back because there was one occasion where some hot oil dripped on the hand, and he could not feel it.
“I have just enough movement to do what I want to do, but as you can see, I mean, the difference is pretty massive,” Malukas said. “I've worked with the team, and it's been two years now where I've been able to get my wrist wrapped and get it the support it needs and change the steering position to accommodate for it.
"But it's never going to be what it is. In 2024, the doctor told me, look, it's going to recover, but it's not going to be the same, and you're going to have to try to figure it out, and we did.”
Street course vs. high-speed oval
Malukas is now trying to figure out how to get his first race win after being so close on Sunday at Indianapolis. A street course is a different animal and a different discipline, but there is carry over from racing on a high-speed oval to the streets.
“It's tough because it's going from an oval to a street course, but keeping yourself mentally controlled is important,” he said. “The Indy 500 is a long race, and your mind tends to wander naturally, as a human does. You get to a fuel save, you get consistent, you get kind of stuck into a position, and next thing you know, you're thinking about what you're going to have for dinner.
"It's not really what you want to be thinking about. You want to keep pushing, so it prepares you to be in the right mental headspace. That similarity continues across all tracks, so we're taking that learning into this weekend.”
Malukas, after the initial emotional moments after the Indianapolis 500, has taken all that he can from that finish and is eager to apply it to this upcoming weekend of racing in Detroit and beyond.
“The perfect scenario is to keep this consistency that we've had this season,” he said. “We're second in the championship off the Indy 500. Things have been so good with this team, and we just keep building that momentum. Everything's so good, but the potential is still through the ceiling.
"I'm 24 years old, still learning every single day, and we've been learning ever since (season-opening) St. Pete. Every race was just getting a little bit better. We're gonna keep continuing to build that momentum, but I think it's gonna be a good weekend for us. It's a lot of speed, so we just keep that consistent, keep pushing forward, and we'll get a good result.”
@chengelis
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: David Malukas moves on from Indy 500 heartbreak at Detroit Grand Prix