Hinchcliffe, who has been on the shopping lists of a number of teams and has extremely close ties with Honda, would be a natural fit for the known openings at Honda-powered teams like Rahal Letterman Lanigan and A.J. Foyt Racing.

Servia, who has been silent thus far in the off-season, has commanded interest from a variety of teams, including Andretti Autosport, RLL, Foyt and others.

As the two do not carry significant personal backing, securing an open seat elsewhere would likely require millions in sponsorship dollars.

Although the news of NHR's closure comes as a surprise, it wasn't entirely unexpected.

Cracks in the team's foundation--specifically with its financial footing in the wake of Paul Newman's death late in 2008--led to rumors regarding a possible closure before it eventually answered the bell for 2009.

With existing sponsorship from McDondald's carrying over from 2008 for Rahal's entry, the team signed Robert Doornbos as his teammate, but once the Dutchman's funding ran short, Servia and Alex Lloyd were brought in to fill the void in a car that at times raced without major sponsorship.

Lacking sponsorship for 2010, NHR was thrown a lifeline in the form of Honda driver Hideki Mutoh. Rahal, after finding his own funding to continue, returned to NHR for six races towards the end of the year.

Heading into 2011, it's understood that Bernie Haas made a sizable investment to keep the team on the grid, hoping the strength of a solid two-car effort with Hinchcliffe and Servia would help to attract the sponsors to move NHR's finances from red to black.

Facing the added costs of new cars and equipment for 2012, the team was recently confident a new sponsor it had on the line would secure its immediate future, but once those negotiations fell through, Haas chose to hold out a bit longer in the hopes that another sponsor could be found.

After spending the month of November hunting for money, and with no new leads or potential funding on the horizon, Haas made the hard choice to close the doors.

In addition to NHR's 33 employees and its two drivers being on the lookout for new homes, if and where Honda will place the two engines it had earmarked for NHR is also in question.

Of the teams without confirmed engine contracts, Conquest Racing, Dale Coyne Racing, Dragon Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and Sarah Fisher Racing could be in play, with some fitting Honda's needs better than others.

Fisher was believed to be close to a Honda deal prior to what took place with NHR, which could now make supplying the popular team little more than a formality.

Conquest is expected to sign with Lotus, Carpenter's deep ties to Chevrolet will most likely result in an engine lease, and Dragon Racing wouldn't seem to be a good fit in the Honda camp.

If NHR's closing could benefit one team the most, shifting a Honda lease to Coyne might help the veteran owner to secure Bourdais' services on a full-time basis for 2012.

But Coyne, who has been out of commission in recent weeks after suffering a badly broken leg, has not made any progress on driver signings.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.