After one season competing in IndyCar, Jacob Abel will make a transition to sports car driving duties this year.
As reported by RACER on Tuesday, Abel will switch away from America’s top open wheel series and focus on driving in IMSA’s endurance rounds for 2026.
He will climb behind the wheel of Era Motorsports’ LMP2 entry for the season’s five longer events beginning with the Daytona 24 in a couple weeks’ time.
“This is something I’m really excited about,” Abel told RACER. “We worked hard to continue in IndyCar, but that didn’t work out for this season.
“We already have the Asian Le Mans program going and that made making my first real move into IMSA in LMP2 an easy decision with Era.”
Abel had a largely disappointing debut season in IndyCar in 2025.
Following a three-year run in the IndyNXT feeder series that saw him finish in the runner up position in 2024, Abel was hired at Dale Coyne Racing for his rookie year.
His best finish was 11th at Iowa Speedway, with a majority of his results falling in the lower half of the field.
The low point of Abel’s rookie season was being the sole driver to fail to qualify for the 109th Indianapolis 500, missing out on the 33-car grid with his special retro Miller livery.
Abel appeared downtrodden in the second half of the season and admitted his rookie campaign had not gone to plan.
He is now set for a change of scenery as most of the IndyCar field is already filled and he has announced an endurance campaign in IMSA.
Abel will first join Logan Sargeant, WEC champion Ferdinand Habsburg, and Naveen Rao behind the wheel of the #18 Era Motorsports entry for the Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 24-25.
Discussion about this post