Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing Hires Two New Drivers

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is the winningest team in American open wheel racing of the past 20 years.

A team known to hire some of the best drivers in the business, they no doubt have had their fair share of success, hiring drivers such as Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Paul Tracy, Bruno Junqueira, Sebastien Bourdais, Christian Fittipaldi, Cristiano Da Matta, Justin Wilson, Oriol Servia, and Graham Rahal.

Two new drivers can be added to the list; one of them fits in perfect, the other one, not so much.

As was expected, Robert Doornbos is now officially a part of the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing operation.

He is expected to be bringing ING as a sponsor, but nothing confirmed yet.

Doornbos raced for Keith Wiggins in the former Champcar World Series, winning two races in 2007, his rookie season. Doornbos was unable to find a ride last year due to the Champcar/Indycar unification, and only made a few appearances in A1GP.

Here's the surprising new hire: Milka Duno!

The female driver from Caracas, Venezuela, has moved away from her former team, Dreyer and Reinbold Racing, to be teammates with Doornbos and Graham Rahal.

Duno began racing Indycars with SAMAX Racing in 2007, after several years of sports car racing. She only ran seven races before joining Dreyer and Reinbold Racing in 2008.

Duno has been sponsored by CITGO for a rumoured $5 million but is thought to have another big sponsor on board for '09.

Sources say that Brian Lisles, team manager at N/H/L Racing, called the Indy Racing League office on Tuesday afternoon to reveal that young Rahal will have two new team mates for the upcoming season.

"I can't tell you anything right now because we have no signatures or contracts signed but we're working on doing the best we can," said Lisles. "We do hope to have some good news for ourselves and the series by the end of the week."

The news came as a surprise to Dennis Reinbold, Milka Duno's former boss. "I don't know anything about that and, if it's true, I didn't see it coming," said Reinbold, who along with partner Robbie Buhl has fielded an Indycar team since 2000.

"We've been talking with her a lot about this season and I'm kind of surprised she didn't let us know. But I guess that's her prerogative."

Reinbold, who signed Mike Conway earlier this year, added that he is still in talks with Townsend Bell and some other drivers about '09. "I don't know what we'll end up as, one or two cars, and we're also working on some single-race deals like Indy and a couple other tracks."

No doubt some great news that through these tough economic times, N/H/L Racing will still be able to field three cars with strong sponsorship.