David Malukas talks as a driver who’s future is secured. Earlier this month, he was a bit more stressed knowing that he was going off into the deep end of silly season and closing any door of a potential of staying put in his current No. 18 Dallara-Honda for Dale Coyne Racing with HMD.

Now, something’s changed. In a good way. While he can’t stay what it is just yet, he did mention that he’s no longer stressed about it.

“From my side, I mean, it’s all just — I’m 100 percent confident,” he says. “I don’t have any anxiety or any of that stuff. I think our next year is looking very strong, and yeah, it looks very good. I don’t know much about what I can say here or there, but all I can say is it looks very good.

“I’d say from Nashville kind of being the last race and earlier, yeah, I definitely had that extra pressure of trying to make sure we can perform and show results and show that I need to be there, but at this standpoint and the rest of the season from my side there’s no more stress, and I just get to enjoy the last few races and look forward to what comes next year.

“From my side, it’s all very good. There’s no more waiting, no more nothing to be done. From my side, it’s just focusing on trying to finish this season strong and looking forward to next season.”

Before we get to next year, we still have three races left of this one. This weekend’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network) is a place that the 21-year-old driver has a chance to shine.

The last time Malukas was at the World Wide Technology Raceway, he was celebrating like he had won his maiden NTT INDYCAR SERIES race. The rookie driver was on the right strategy and on the aggression strategy once the rain subsided in last year’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500.

He was reminded by his spotter that the high line was cleaned off and would have grip. He just had to have the stones to make the move. Malukas, after all, was holding the steering wheel, not Pancho Carter. But, Carter knows what’s best and even with being skeptical of going up there, Malukas did.

“Well, actually the start of the race ended up being kind of a little bit slow with everybody kind of just following the front of the pack, so there was a lot of fuel saving,” Malukas said via a media call on Wednesday afternoon.

“I remember just talking to Pancho, and they were just saying, how does the car feel, and I was like, it feels amazing, and Pancho was like, well, if it feels so good, can we just pass somebody. I’m like, well, I’m supposed to save fuel, Pancho, so no.

“But it ended up being a bit of a slow start, but once the rain delay kind of came in, it timed perfectly for when we put the new tires on and our strategy, and when it went green again, being on at night, going under the lights, first of all, we ended up being fast on the new tires, but the new tires — it felt so fast that night, so I was just having a blast. It felt like the Kanye West “Flashing Lights” song going through the lights of Gateway. It was an experience.”

He passed high to get into the top five. He passed Scott McLaughlin up high in Turn 1 on the final lap to finish runner-up. He was the meat of the Penske sandwich between winner Josef Newgarden and third place finisher McLaughlin.

“My boy,” his dad yelled when giving Malukas a bear hug. “I knew it!” he exclaimed.

Now, we’re back.

“Things are looking up for Gateway but it’s also a little bit of pressure being put down because it was a really good performance last year, so you have to come in and try to replicate it,” he says.

“Either way, though, I’m very excited. I think we have a good opportunity to do something.”

There’s no doubt that he had expected this season to be better than last. He has just 2 top 10 finishes all season with 2 of which coming in the first 2 races. Can he make a run on Sunday?

“For this season, I think so,” Malukas told me.” I think we’re going into it pretty confident. I think every other race it’s been like if we get a top-10 finish here, I think this is going to be like a win for us, like 100 percent, like that is amazing.

“Now I think a top-10 finish for Gateway is very much in the window, and I think that’s what we should 100 percent be aiming for, and if we get anything less than that, then we probably messed something up.

“I think it’s just we have a lot more confidence with the car and knowing our success from last year, so our heads are definitely going forward.”

A Top five in Texas, a runner-up last year and sweeping Indy NXT races in 2021 puts him solidly on this list. He was 8th in Iowa 2. He has the 10th most oval points accumulated in 2023.

Why is he so good on these tracks?

“Yeah, I feel like I have a connection with the ovals,” he says. “I feel very comfortable on them, especially having a teammate like Takuma Sato for my first year. He is extremely comfortable with ovals, so I’m not at that level yet, but I was able to have a good teacher to get going, and our car is very good on short ovals. Coming from this season, we’ve had ups and downs, but thankfully our short oval car has stayed there.

The thing is, we know the Penske’s should be good on Sunday. So should some Ganassi cars. If he finds himself in a similar situation this year as last, how does he races those drivers going for the championship?

“I mean, in some ways you could say so, yeah, but recently the Bus Bros actually kind of did a dis on me on their racing video, so if anything, I’m more motivated to block them and hold them off and be very much of an annoyance on track,” he told me.

He of course was joking saying that the joke was all in good fun, but did say if he’s in that position late, you can’t go overboard.

“No, it’s all fun and games,” he continued. “I think they just picked like certain drivers that would obviously take the joke. I wanted to have a little bit of beef with him on Twitter, but he didn’t respond. I wanted to kind of have a little back-and-forth, create some kind of attention. But he never did it. He never went for it.

“It’s all fun and games. If they do come, yeah, there’s always kind of a sense of respect if you’re not really fighting into it, you know you’re not going to do anything crazy.

“But at the same time, if it’s 20 laps to go and I’m actually fighting with them for a top-3 position, then I think it’s all going to be fair game at that point because I would very much like a proper result at Gateway.”

Maybe a return to the high lane is in store to make that move then. Day or night, he’ll leave that call up to Pancho to guide him to make that decision.

“Well, thankfully I have Pancho in my ear, and he’s normally really good at knowing when to take the high lines, and anytime I’m kind of 50/50 on it and don’t really go up there, Pancho will quickly tell me, he’s like, you need to use that high line. Why are you not using it? Come on, you’re wasting time,” he says.

“Pancho is thankfully going to be in my ear, and he’ll kind of guide me through on when to take it and when to not. He’s normally very good at it. Anytime he says it, there’s definitely grip there.”

That trust has formed a tight bond between the two that Malukas admits, got off to a rocky start.

“At the start, our relationship ended up being quite sour because he was so aggressive,” says Malukas of his spotter. “I didn’t actually like him. If I did something stupid, he would be like, that was so stupid; why did you do that. I was like, that was kind of mean.

“But then I ended up realizing that that’s just who Pancho is, and he’s just very adamant on this is what you do.

“You have to trust him. He has a lot of knowledge, and he knows what he’s talking about. When I got out on track, I trusted him with it, and since I’ve built that trust, anytime he does something, I do it, and so far it’s been 10 out of 10. It hasn’t failed once.”