For the second consecutive offseason, Roger Penske has stolen the show. Last year it was Juan Pablo Montoya. This year it was Simon Pagenaud as the Frenchman has signed to drive the #22 Team Penske Chevrolet for the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season.
In three seasons driving for Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports, Pagenaud finished in the top five in the championship each year, winning four races including the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis and final Grand Prix of Baltimore and Grand Prix of Houston. The Frenchman now becomes a record-setting fourth full-time driver for Team Penske and the team's first full-time European driver.
Roger Penske is putting all the eggs in his basket as The Captain now employees the drivers who finished first, second, fourth and fifth from the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series championship standings. With so much talent it's only a matter of time before someone doesn't get enough attention and becomes upset. Penske has had power teams before. Al Unser, Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy finished 1-2-3 in the 1994 championship but Tracy was gone the following season, only to return and score less success in 1996 and 1997.
How long will this team be able to hold together? We know Will Power and Pagenaud's history, Juan Pablo Montoya doesn't play second fiddle to anyone and Hélio Castroneves isn't getting any younger as he still hunts his first title and fourth Indianapolis 500 victory. Power is the defending champion. Penske won't fire him but if tension boils over at any point, I would not be surprised if Power's temper forces him to walk away. Castroneves will never be fired. After Al Unser and Rick Mears won their fourth Indianapolis 500s, Penske knows that if he let Castroneves go and he won his fourth elsewhere, it would haunt him the rest of his life. Montoya could retire but I don't think he's going to stop racing anytime soon and I don't see Pagenaud as a here today, gone tomorrow Penske driver. He is 30 and is at the right team for job security. How long can Penske and Tim Cindric keep all these personalities happy? That will be the teams biggest tasks as winning races shouldn't be a problem.
Beyond the scope of Team Penske there is the Real Madrid-esque, Chevrolet driver line-up (yes I realize Chevrolet sponsors Manchester United but they aren't doing too hot right now). If the 2014 driver line-ups from this point going forward are retained for 2015, Chevrolet's thirteen drivers combine for 168 IndyCar victories. The ten Honda drivers would combine for 29 IndyCar victories, 14 at the hands of Ryan Hunter-Reay. Chevrolet's top two drivers all have more victories than the ten Honda drivers combine for (Dixon 35, Bourdais 32) and Castroneves is on equal terms at 29. Chevrolet could add three more wins to their total if KV Racing is able to sign James Hinchcliffe, who could also stay with Honda and fill Pagenaud's shoes at Schmidt Peterson.
With Pagenaud gone, the only Honda drivers with victories from 2014 are Ryan Hunter-Reay and Carlos Huertas. No offense but Honda can have all their hopes and expectations on the 2012 IndyCar champion and defending Indianapolis 500 winner Hunter-Reay and while Huertas proved competency in 2014, I wouldn't put all my chips on the Colombian winning again in 2015. Hinchcliffe won three times in 2013 before going winless this past year despite having the third best average starting position. Carlos Muñoz and Marco Andretti both finished in the top ten in the 2014 championship but were winless. Justin Wilson had one top five in 2014, Mikhail Aleshin and Jack Hawksworth each got on the podium in Houston 2 but nether scored another top five finish in the other 17 races while Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal have rarely found success the last two seasons.
Honda is in trouble. They have become Leeds United (minus the relegation to Pro Mazda and deep, deep financial issues). Hunter-Reay is pulling the boat all by himself, by his teeth. No other Honda driver has proven to be a consistent winner as Hunter-Reay. Honda ended 2014 on a six race winless streak, their longest losing streak since 2003 when they failed to win once in the final eight IRL races that season.
Honda needs a splash. While there are no factory teams in IndyCar, Honda has to step on their support of their floundering IndyCar teams. But who could hire? They aren't signing Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Sébastien Bourdais or Power away from their Chevrolet teams. They lost Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing and their rising star Josef Newgarden. Bryan Herta Autosport is hanging on by a thread as Jack Hawksworth appears to be heading to AJ Foyt Racing to become the Texan's second driver.
There are plenty of drivers on the market. Gabby Chaves just won the Indy Lights title, Conor Daly is all-in on IndyCar for 2015 and Stefan Wilson is trying to make the jump to IndyCar with Fan Force United. Would enticing Sam Hornish, Jr. to return to IndyCar be a saving grace for Honda? Oriol Servià, Luca Filippi, Martin Plowman, JR Hildebrand and Katherine Legge are all other free agents but do any of them have the capability to take the fight to the Chevrolet juggernaut? To me, no.
Take a shot on someone. Daniel Ricciardo is being paid about $1 million to be Red Bull's second driver. He's earned himself a raise but if you're Honda, put $5 million on the table and create a bidding war with Red Bull. We know they have the funding to pay Ricciardo but with Vettel linked to McLaren and Ferrari, all the money might be put on the German instead of the Australian. Kevin Magnussen is being paid just a little more than Ricciardo and he could be one-and-done with the team from Woking like Sergio Pérez last year. Jean-Éric Vergne is losing his Scuderia Toro Rosso seat but I doubt he can be one to help turn the Honda train around. Maybe Honda looks to the ladder series GP2 or Formula Renault 3.5. Jolyon Palmer, Mitch Evans and Richie Stanaway are promising while Daniel Abt is going to test with Andretti Autosport and Dale Coyne Racing next month. What's the worst thing that could happen with any of these drivers above? They say no? Contacting them, making an offer and being rejected at least looks better than appearing to be sitting in the corner, twiddling your thumbs as your rival bulks up their arsenal.
Looking at the current advantage Chevrolet has you really have to wonder how committed Honda is to IndyCar. Something has to change to show the Japanese manufacture is remotely interested in trying to compete with the defending triple manufactures' champions. Other than Andretti Autosport, Honda is in desperate need of building their teams into powerhouses, with their second and third teams matching the might of Chevrolet's second and third teams, Ganassi and CFH Racing.
Honda needs to spend now on talent or face the possibility of being run out of IndyCar in the next three years. Entering 2015 after losing half a dozen races to end 2014 was bad enough but with Hunter-Reay as their only hope, 2015 could be an even more difficult year for Honda, the manufacture that ran every competitor out of the series less than a decade ago.
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