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| Ed Carpenter had a season to smile about in 2014 |
In six races, Ed Carpenter scored ten more points than Mike Conway did in twelve. His season didn't start until the month of May but it started in style. His second consecutive Indianapolis 500 pole-position as he was at the top of the time charts most days during the month. Not to forget mentioning Indianapolis 500 one-off J.R. Hildebrand qualifying ninth and finishing tenth. His race was going great until he and James Hinchcliffe came together on the second restart of the race.
After a week off, Carpenter was back behind the wheel for Texas. He started fifth and led 90 laps but had to hold off a late charge from Will Power after the Australian took fresh tires on the final caution. It was his third career victory and first since winning the 2012 season finale at Fontana. He ended up a lap down at Pocono finishing thirteenth and despite contact with Juan Pablo Montoya, Carpenter finished fifth at Iowa, a race where he spent most of the night as the first car between a Ganassi-Penske parade leading the way.
Despite being known for his oval-prowless, Carpenter historically struggles at Milwaukee but he was able to come home in ninth, one lap down this year at the famed mile. At Fontana, Carpenter found himself at the front, going toe-to-toe with the big boys of Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Carpenter ended up third behind the Ganassi duo of Kanaan and Dixon.
Ed Carpenter's 2014 Statistics (Note: Made 6 Starts)
Championship Positions: 22nd (262 points)
Wins: 1
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 3
Top Tens: 4
Laps Led: 122
Poles: 1
Average Start: 8.333 (4th)
Average Finish: 9.666 (6th)
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| Mike Conway won twice but could have done better in 2014 |
All people will see from Mike Conway's 2014 IndyCar season is two victories but it very well could have been worse. Much worse. Failures in communication at St. Petersburg cost him a shot at victory and a penalty for passing the pace car was icing on the cake. Long Beach started on a poor note when he ended up qualifying 17th. Through lots of attrition and a much better strategy than in St. Petersburg, Conway ended up taking the victory and matching the furthest back on the grid a winner has come from in the IndyCar-era of the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Results continued to not fall Conway's way. An average weekend at Barber was followed by a rough weekend at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis as he started outside the top twenty in each race and retired with 24 laps to go at Indianapolis. After three weeks out of the car, Conway returned and started fourth in each race from Belle Isle but race one was over in just over a dozen laps after an accident at turn twelve and poor tire manage in race two dropped him from contention for victory to 11th. At Houston, he started 17th in both races but an accident in race one left him with only a 17th place finish and he only managed a 13th place finish in race two.
In race one from Toronto, he was stuck in the middle of the pack and ended up 15th. In race two, he and the team pulled one out nothing. He started eleventh but with the changing conditions and track going from dry to wet and back to dry, Conway might the switch to slicks at the right time and went on to pick up his second victory of the season.
He started 12th and finished 13th at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma was more of the same from Conway as he started 17th and finished the 2014 season with a 13th place finish in Wine Country.
Mike Conway's 2014 Statistics (Note: Made 12 Starts)
Championship Positions: 23rd (252 points)
Wins: 2
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 2
Laps Led: 36
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 1
Fast Twelves: 3
Average Start: 14.6363 (19th)
Average Finish: 12.91 (16th)
As ECR merges with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, the team appears to be a growing threat in 2015. Does Mike Conway return to split the #20 with Carpenter? Conway has been lined-up to potentially become a full-time driver for Toyota's FIA World Endurance Championship effort and their 2015 schedule has three conflicts with the 2015 IndyCar schedule. If Conway gets the promotion, it would make it unlikely he would return to run all the road and street courses. However, with Stéphane Sarrazin announcing he will return with Toyota next year and Sébastien Buemi winning the title, it looks like Conway might be able to return to IndyCar after all. He is coming off victory at Bahrain and will be running with Alexander Wurz and Sarrazin at Brazil this weekend.
The leading candidate to replace Conway as Carpenter's co-driver is J.R. Hildebrand. He finished tenth in the Indianapolis 500, his only start in 2014. Hildebrand's résumé on road/street circuits is not nearly as good as Conway's as the 2009 Indy Lights champion has two top fives and nine top tens in 27 road/street course starts. His only two top fives were fifth place finishes at Long Beach with his best finish on a natural terrain road course being seventh at Motegi in 2011 when the race was switched to the road course after damage to the oval from the Tōhoku earthquake. His average career road/street course finish is 13.81.
If Conway or Hildebrand aren't the ones to pair with Carpenter, then who? We could let speculation run wild but whoever it is will be heading to a proven race-winning team and that is a standard they will have to race to in 2015. Carpenter's offseason will be longer than any other driver as we are 102 days away from the opening round of the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season but 180 days away from the Indianapolis 500. If anything, Carpenter should be pleading for an oval or two between February and April.
With that said, I will now put motorsports aside for a day and will spend time with my wonderful family and friends. I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.
