Sting Ray Robb Is Trading Open-Wheel Solitude for 47-Car Traffic. That’s the Real Test.

Sting Ray Robb’s move to United Autosports for the 2026/27 Asian Le Mans Series will be packaged as an IndyCar driver trying sports cars. That undersells it. The more useful read is that Robb has signed up for an exam in a skill IndyCar almost never tests: going fast through a crowd of slower cars, then handing a hot seat to two other drivers.

The confirmed part is simple. United announced on October 28 that Robb, 25, will drive its No. 22 ORECA 07 LMP2 car alongside Ian Aguilera and Giorgio Roda. The season is six four-hour races across three European double-headers: Paul Ricard on November 13–15, Jerez on January 15–17 and Portimão on February 19–21. The series says it moved the whole calendar to Europe temporarily, away from the Middle East.

The traffic is the exam

Here is the number that matters. The series capped its full-season grid at 47 entries: two Ferrari 499P Hypercars, 16 LMP2 cars and 29 GT3 cars. Robb’s ORECA will spend most of every stint catching cars from a slower class, since GT3 machines are roughly six in ten of the field.

That is my read of why this is harder than it looks. In a single-class series, every car ahead is a rival, and passing is a fight. In LMP2, most of the cars you catch are not rivals at all. The job is to get by cleanly without losing a second to the move or costing someone else their race. It is judgment more than outright speed, and it is the one thing a single-seater résumé can’t show.

A résumé that explains the appeal

IndyCar’s own driver page lists Robb with 69 career starts and no wins or top-five finishes. He finished 2026 25th in points in the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet, in a season that ended with the finale at Laguna Seca. There are bright spots: United points to the 23 laps he led at the 2024 Indianapolis 500.

So the attraction is easy to see. United is the 2026 European Le Mans Series champion, which makes this a car that is expected to win. Robb himself framed it that way, saying the goal is “to fight at the front and win races.” For a driver whose IndyCar results have rarely matched his seat time, a front-running ride is the rarest thing on offer. United’s announcement says nothing about his 2027 IndyCar plans, and this is not a comment on them.

The teammates set the bar

Robb is not walking into an empty car. Roda took five poles from six qualifying sessions with United last winter, according to the team, and Aguilera, 19, finished fifth in LMP2 on his Le Mans debut in 2026. In a three-driver crew the slowest stint is everyone’s problem, so Robb will be measured against a proven one-lap qualifier and a teenager with a Le Mans class result.

United’s other entry, the No. 2, runs Phil Fayer, Hunter McElrea and Mikkel Jensen. McElrea is an IndyCar reserve driver and Jensen is part of McLaren’s Le Mans Hypercar programme. Between the two cars, this winter is quietly a test lab for how open-wheel and prototype talent mix.

What to watch

The calendar is friendly. The finale at Portimão ends on February 21, and the 2027 IndyCar season opens in St. Petersburg on March 5–7, so on dates alone the programmes do not collide.

At Paul Ricard, watch two things: how Robb’s first stint handles the GT3 traffic, and how his qualifying laps compare with Roda’s. If he is quick and tidy in the crowd, this becomes a real second career track. If not, it was still a winter of seat time in a championship-winning team’s car, which is hardly a bad deal.

Lead Image credit: City of Detroit / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

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Lauren Miller

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Lauren Miller is a staff writer at Backfire Racing, covering Formula 1 and IndyCar racing with additional reporting on endurance and NASCAR.

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