INDIANAPOLIS — Juri Vips and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing are hopeful that a mistake and learning from it can lead to greener pastures. That’s why RLL is taking a chance on the 23-year-old Estonian for the final two races of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.

Vips made a costly error and a bad taste in judgement in June 2022 by using a racial slur on a Twitch livestream. It was a similar instance to what Kyle Larson did on Easter night in 2020 that cost him his ride with Chip Ganassi Racing.

His career was in peril. He made it right. It paid off massively for he and Hendrick Motorsports.

Larson has won 15 times in 98 starts with HMS. 10 of the 15 in a championship winning 2021 season.

Like in that situation, both sides (RLL, Vips) are hopeful of turning this into a championship winning venture. Vips has the talent. He’s now done everything needed to learn from this and taken sensitivity classes, the same program that Larson had actually joined too. RLL has taken the leap of faith that Vips learned and is ready to make a better image for himself.

They’re willing to take the risk in hopes of a big reward.

“Well, I think Yuri is just a very nice, young guy. We were introduced to him a couple of years ago,” said team owner, Bobby Rahal. “I mean, it’s no secret that he made a mistake and paid a huge price, but people in Europe who I knew were very, very complimentary about him as a driver and as a person.

“This mistake was a single mistake. Unfortunately, as we all know, Yuri paid a huge price for that and lost his position in the Red Bull system, which he was the preeminent junior driver at the time.

“In fact, it’s kind of interesting that his partner who was with him at the time, Liam Lawson, just drove the AlphaTauri, the Red Bull B team at the Dutch Grand Prix. That’s kind of interesting.

“We got to meet Yuri. A person I respect a great deal in Europe gave him a great — from a driving standpoint, gave me a great evaluation of him, and we thought it would be worth giving him a shot.

“He has really I think atoned for it through some of the programs, diversity training programs, that he’s been involved with both in England and here in the United States. In fact, the same organization that Kyle Larson went to, and we felt that they were very good in their field, and Yuri has been going through that program. I think he has completed it now.

“So, as I said, I think Yuri for many years he has known he made a big mistake, and he has paid for it, but now he’s trying to come back. So we’re pleased to give him that second chance I think.

“He has shown us enough for us to take that chance, you know, to give him a shot, and he has certainly worked hard to correct the mistake that he made. So we’re excited about him joining the team for these last two raced, and hopefully he’ll do well.”

Vips is a big talent. He’s capable of doing some big things if given the opportunity. I mean Vips was in the Red Bull development program and even did a practice session in 2022 in Spain. He was a part of their big plans.

Now, he’s here in INDYCAR hopeful of staying.

Rahal found him via a call from a European friend that said you need to take a look. Just as what happened with Christian Lundgaard a few years ago. That paid off in a big way. Can this one?

“Yuri came up on our radar screen by a friend of mine in Europe,” he told me. “Of course, this was after the mistake that he made, after it was public, after he was released from his Red Bull contract.

“So he was kind of — although the team that he drove for knew him well, and they certainly believed that, yes, it was a mistake, but that was not emblematic of him as a person, and they still ran him the remainder of that year. That was the Hitech team.

“Anyway, I spoke to some friends that had worked with Yuri, and they were just very unbelievably impressed and supportive of him, with his skills. Knowing that, I know that, as I said earlier, also Yuri had already gone through diversity training in London with Dr. Lateesha Osbourne.

“I think he knew there was a lot more to do beyond that even, but we felt that certainly all the response we were getting from people who had been with him was very positive.

“Obviously sad that he made a mistake of this nature, and he paid a huge price for it, I might add, but was impressed because he set about correcting that and learning from that and continues to this day.

“So as I said, the opinions I got about him as a driver were extremely high, and he did do that test for us, and we were quite pleased with it at Sebring.

“So I guess I personally feel and I think Mike Lanigan, our team, feels that everybody makes mistakes, and you have to do what you can to repair and learn from those mistakes, but everybody deserves a second chance. I certainly feel strongly about that, so that’s why he is here.”

Vips came over and tested for the team last October at Sebring. That impressed the team enough to keep him around and to test again at Barber back in March. Vips liked it enough he stayed around the team and also performed static simulator testing for the team during the season as well.

With Jack Harvey’s results lacking, the team let him go early and had three races left to fill. It made no sense for Vips to make his debut last weekend at the World Wide Technology Raceway. These two races up next are better served instead.

“Well, I think there’s a couple of things about these next two events,” Rahal told me. “One that I think is a real value to us is the series test at Laguna Seca on Thursday before the race. So it’s more than just getting time at the two events themselves, but it’s getting a full day at Laguna in advance of the race.

“I think the amount of knowledge and comfort and everything that a driver needs to do his best, I think that is going to help that process a lot.

“I think Portland, that’s going to be a challenge, there’s no question about it, because you don’t have that much practice time before you go into qualifying. As we all know, qualifying is so intense and so close.

“I mean, you don’t have to be far off the pace, and you could be in the last one-third of the grid, so I do think there’s going to be a lot of demands this coming weekend.

“But having the two races weekend-to-weekend, having the test day, to me all of that made a lot of sense. And, of course, Yuri is from the road racing background, so going to an oval, especially an oval like St. Louis, would have been really I think an unbelievable experience never having done one before.

“But I would also say that I thought Conor did a super job for us this last weekend and really was very appreciative of his efforts. A real pro. So when we had three races to go, we just felt that that was the best solution to those three races.”

Conor Daly put this car on the good side of the leaders circle cut line in Gateway and with how tightly contested things are for the top 22 in points, putting Vips in this ride for the final two races shows you just how much RLL thinks of Vips and his abilities.

I don’t think RLL makes this move on Vips if it’s not got an eye to the future. If Vips is as good as advertised, this could help propel RLL to even bigger pastures with having Vips and Lundgaard tied up for the near future.

“To be honest, I haven’t,” Vips told me if he has any nerves or trepidation on making his first start in a race in over a year. “Maybe once I get there I’ll start feeling them, but at the moment there is almost no — there’s excitement, obviously, because I just haven’t been in a car for so long, and I haven’t raced for so long.

“But nerves are almost zero at this stage because I have so much to prepare and so much to do with media and with the engineers, simulators, and stuff. It’s organizing all of that that’s on my mind now, so it’s almost like I feel like I don’t have time to be nervous at the moment.

“I think that might change once I get to the track obviously because it has been a while, and it’s such a competitive series, so yeah we’ll need to do well.”

Vips likes what he sees in IndyCar and is hopeful this is just the beginning.

“I really like it so much,” he told me. “When you come to a race weekend, it’s just such a different atmosphere. Like, the paddock is very open. The fans get to see the cars, see the drivers, be really close to them. Be like — I don’t know how to say — maybe immersed, I think, in the experience much more.

“Yeah, the racing is awesome. That’s one side that I really like about it. You get such close racing. It’s very hard here, but when you watch the races, they’re super exciting.

“So, yeah, that’s the appeal I have for INDYCAR, and yeah, I think it’s just an awesome series.”

This weekend begins a redemption tour for Vips and it can pay off in a big way for he and this team.