2020 IndyCar Team Preview: Carlin

Our penultimate 2020 IndyCar team preview takes us to the team that used the most drivers in 2019. It is Carlin!

The team's sophomore season did not go quite as planned but the team showed potential. Now Carlin hopes to put together better results in 2020 but it will have to do it with uncertainty over its 2020 driver lineup. Three of the six drivers used in 2019 have found rides elsewhere for this season and it appears it will be another season where both cars will see multiple drivers cycle through the seats over the course of the 17-race schedule.

2019 Carlin Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 6th (Gateway)
Poles: 0
Championship Finishes: 22nd (Max Chilton), 24th (Conor Daly), 25th (Charlie Kimball), 26th (Patricio O'Ward), 27th (Sage Karam), 35th (RC Enerson)

2020 Drivers:

Felipe Nasr - #31 Carlin Chevrolet
Nasr has spent the last two years in IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the #31 Cadillac for Action Express Racing with 2020 marking his third season with the team.

Since coming to America, Nasr won the 2018 Prototype championship with Eric Curran with a victory at Belle Isle, a runner-up at Daytona and podium finishes at Sebring, Mosport and Road America. In 2019, Nasr had Pipo Derani join him as co-driver and the all-Brazilian pairing won at Sebring and Petit Le Mans, had a runner-up finish at Daytona and Belle Isle but the duo was second in the championship.

Prior to Nasr's time in IMSA, he spent two years driving for Sauber in Formula One and he scored a fifth place finish on debut in the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. That 2015 season ended with 27 points, 15th in the championship and 18 points clear of teammate Marcus Ericsson. In 2016, Sauber struggled and it was the last team to score points but it came with Nasr at Brazil with a ninth place finish securing him two points and those two points lifted Sauber to tenth in the constructors' championship over Manor.

Nasr was also the 2008 Formula BMW Europe champion and 2011 British Formula Three champion.

Numbers to Remember:
6: Nasr has raced at six tracks on the 2020 IndyCar schedule between IMSA and Formula One (Austin, Long Beach, Belle Isle, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca).

10: Podium finishes in 21 IMSA starts

78: Starts for Nasr with Carlin between Formula Three and GP2.

Predictions/Goals:
Have respectable races.

Nasr has been on the periphery for IndyCar for the last few years and he tested with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. The problem is in the recent past Nasr's testing experience has been used to lift the cache of Álex Palou, who reportedly was almost 6/10ths of a second faster than Nasr at a Mid-Ohio test last year.

Nasr has Formula One experience and did reasonably well driving for Sauber. He has come to IMSA, won a championship as a rookie, was vice-champion as a sophomore, won the 12 Hours of Sebring, won Petit Le Mans and he has been one of the best drivers in American sports car racing.

We do not know how many races Nasr will do with Carlin, if any, but whatever races he does will be used by some as a vindication for writing Nasr off as a hack if the finishes are not at least in the middle of the field and not beating whoever his Carlin teammate is that day.

Carlin showed bright spots last year. The team had good qualifying pace and got some encouraging results with Charlie Kimball, Patricio O'Ward, Conor Daly, and even Max Chilton had some good runs.

This team can get a few top ten finishes but I am not sure it is on the verge of challenging for top five results and I am not sure Nasr will necessarily step right in and in a handful of races be running for eighth or ninth.

I think the goal for Nasr is to at least be close to making it out of the first round of qualifying in every road and street course event he gets, make it to the second round of qualifying at least once and in the races be the top finishing Carlin driver. If he is at least responsible for the team's best finish it is not going to reflect that poorly on him.

Sérgio Sette Câmara - #31 Carlin Chevrolet
Câmara completed his third season in Formula Two in 2019 with last season being his first with the DAMS program.

The year started with a pair of podium finishes at the opening round in Bahrain but he would not get his first victory until the 12th race of the season, the sprint race at Red Bull Ring. He won the Abu Dhabi feature race from pole position and ended his season with two victories, eight podium finishes and 17 points finishes from 22 races to give him fourth in the championship.

Câmara spent his first two years in Formula Two driving for MP Motorsport and Carlin. In 2017, he did not score a point in the first 14 races of the season but closed the year with points in seven of the final eight races, including a victory in the Spa-Francorchamps sprint race and a runner-up finish in the Monza sprint race, elevating him to 12th in the championship. With Carlin, he did not win a race but he had eight podium finishes and was sixth in the championship despite missing the Monaco round due to an injury.

From 2014 to 2016, Câmara made 66 starts in Formula Three with no victories four podium finishes and 22 points finishes.

Numbers to Remember:
9: Of 18 podium finishes in Câmara's podium finishes came in sprint races.

14: Top five finishes in Formula Two last year.

15: Points behind MP Motorsport teammate Jordan King in 2017.

Predictions/Goals:
Be competitive with Marcus Ericsson and Santino Ferrucci and run better than Jordan King did in IndyCar.

Câmara is coming off a good period in Formula Two and he was a championship contender for most of 2019. He won races against the likes of Nyck de Vries, Nicholas Latifi, Luca Ghiotto and Jack Aitken. That is a good group of drivers in Formula Two. Câmara was a McLaren development driver. This is a late bloomer when you look at his Formula Three results and then compare it to the last two seasons in Formula Two.

Ericsson and Ferrucci are two drivers that are fresh off careers in Europe. Ferrucci and Câmara were contemporaries for a few seasons with Ferrucci getting better results in Formula Three with Câmara taking the upper hand in Formula Two. King beat Câmara in the championship as teammate in 2017, the year before King came to IndyCar but King's GP2/Formula Two results did not reach the heights of Câmara.

Câmara's history suggests he falls in line with these three and all have shown promise but have only had one real season in IndyCar apiece. Ericsson and Ferrucci were both in the top five at times, each had weekends where they matched the pace with other IndyCar front-runners and King was known for his strong qualifying pace but the race results did not follow. If Câmara can get a handful of top ten finishes and make it out of the first round of qualifying a few times he will be on the right track for hopefully more in IndyCar in 2021.

Similar to Nasr, we are not sure how many races Câmara will get, if any. He could get three or four races and that is not a big enough sample size to draw anything from. If it is a 50-50 split of the races and Câmara gets eight or nine races we will get a better idea where he lines up. If he gets 11-14 races then we will get a good feel if he has a handle on the car.

Max Chilton - #59 Gallagher Chevrolet
Chilton's second season with Carlin started with him starting shotgun on the field at St. Petersburg in 24th. He would climb to a 16th place finish.

Austin appeared to be going better with Chilton starting 13th but he finished a lap down in 21st. He started and finished 22nd at Barber and finished a lap down at Long Beach in 14th. His first lead lap finish of the season was at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis but it was an 18th place finish.

Chilton failed to qualify for the Indianapolis and he followed it up with finishes of 17th and 15th at Belle Isle. Before Texas, Chilton decided to step away from the car for the remaining oval races but he continued for the remainder of the road and street course races.

At Road America, he qualified 22nd and finished 16th. A 14th place finish followed at Toronto. The season closed with a 16th at Mid-Ohio, an 11th at Portland and a 13th at Laguna Seca.

Numbers to Remember:
30: Consecutive starts without a top ten finish.

17: Consecutive finishes.

99.2: Percentage of laps completed in 2019 (960 of 968 laps).

Predictions/Goals:
Get a top ten finish.

Just one top ten finish.

Chilton has had solid days in IndyCar. The last two years have been far from those. He hasn't been completely lost. He did make the Fast Six at Mid-Ohio in 2018. He was 13th in qualifying at Austin and Toronto last year and he qualified tenth at Laguna Seca. The pace is there in the Carlin entries but it just hasn't translated to race pace yet.

I think Chilton can turn it around, not necessarily into a race winner or a guy that is competing for top five finishes every race, but a guy who could get a handful of top ten finishes each season. It would just be nice to see him mix it up with some of the bigger names more often.

Along with getting just one top ten finish, I think Chilton needs to pick up his average qualifying position. It was 18.1 in 2019. If he could get that down to 16.1 or 15.5 that would be a good move.

The other important thing for Chilton is to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Last year, he missed the race and wasn't really ever showing the speed necessary to make the field of 33. He was fourth in 2017 and led the most laps in that race. He hasn't lost all his ability. Carlin had three entries miss last year when you take into consideration the McLaren effort was in partnership with Carlin. It wasn't all Chilton but after stepping away from the remaining ovals in 2019 he will make another attempt at Indianapolis in May and it would be a big confidence booster if he were to make the field one year later.

I am curious to see what Carlin decides to do with the #59 Chevrolet for the remaining four oval races. Chilton has said the other four oval races do not interest him but the history of Indianapolis is why he will give it another crack. I don't think he will go back on the plans but if the results are going the right way and he felt really good at Indianapolis perhaps there is a chance he takes on the other ovals and instead of splitting this car it is all his own. I don't think that will happen but crazier things have happened.

The 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 15th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBCSN's coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET