We are back for another set of IndyCar team previews, as we get ready for the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season. IndyCar made it through the pandemic-affected 2020 season and despite a few alterations, IndyCar heads into 2021 with some reasons for encouragement. The grid is growing a little bit and there are some excited names joining the series this season.
One of those exciting names will be driving for the first team we are previewing, the defending champions in Chip Ganassi Racing. Scott Dixon took his second championship in three seasons in 2020 and it was his sixth championship overall. Felix Rosenqvist did pick up his first career victory, while Marcus Ericsson was a regular top ten finisher. Rosenqvist has since left the team, but Ganassi has expanded to four cars and it will have five drivers compete in 2021, two of which are past champions, though one might be the greatest in a different discipline and is now an IndyCar rookie.
2020 Chip Ganassi Racing Review
Wins: 5 (Texas, Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Road America I & II, Gateway I)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 2nd (Texas, Indianapolis 500)
Championship Finishes: 1st (Scott Dixon), 11th (Felix Rosenqvist), 12th (Marcus Ericsson)
2021 Drivers:
Marcus Ericsson - #8 Huski Chocolate Honda
Ericsson's sophomore IndyCar season saw him embrace a change of scenery at Chip Ganassi Racing, and the Swede put up respectable results.
While a re-fueling issue took him out of Texas, and likely cost him a top ten finish, Ericsson followed it up with five consecutive top ten finishes, with a handful of impressive drives from the middle of the field. He went from 14th to sixth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and from 16th to fourth in the second Road America race. He followed it with a pair of ninth-place finishes at Iowa.
His Indianapolis 500 ended after 24 laps when he had an accident in turn two. He had qualified 11th. He bounced back with a top five finish in the first Gateway race, but a loose rear wing forced a lengthy stop in the second Gateway race and took him out of a top ten position.
After a slow start at Mid-Ohio in the first race, he rebounded with a fifth-place finish in the second race. The end of his season mirrored its start with top ten finishes coming from starting in the middle of the pack. He didn't start better than 15th in any of the final five races and yet he had three top ten finishes. He ended the year with nine top ten finishes, only Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta and Patricio O'Ward had more. Those four just happened to be the top four in the championship.
Numbers to Remember:
9: Top ten finishes in 2020, triple the number of top ten finishes he had in his rookie season in 2019.
2: Ericsson has never led more than two laps in a race.
1: Top five start in 30 IndyCar starts.
6: Top ten starts in 30 IndyCar starts.
Predictions/Goals:
After making gains in 2020, Ericsson must raise his performances in 2021.
He was unfortunate not to be in the top ten of the championship last year. Thirty-second in the Indianapolis is a crushing blow, especially when it is a double points affair. Outside of Indianapolis, Ericsson did not have many bad days that were his fault. Mechanical problems gave him his worst two finishes, one of which definitely cost him a top ten finishes and at least 13 points.
However, we need to see Ericsson be the best Ganassi driver in one of these races and stamp himself as a man to beat. He was the top Ganassi finisher once in 2020 when he was fifth in the second Mid-Ohio race, but Ericsson never really beat Dixon last season. That second Mid-Ohio race was where Dixon spun on his own exiting turn one and Dixon had to rally to finish tenth. The only other race Ericsson was ahead of Dixon was the second Road America race and that was after Dixon had stalled in the pit lane.
We need to see a race where Ericsson is the top qualifying Ganassi car and the top finishing Ganassi car. If he can lead a handful of laps while doing it that will only help his cause. He is a smart driver. He hasn't really made any questionable decisions in his first two seasons. Ganassi can probably trust Ericsson will bring the car home and get a good result, but Ericsson needs great results. Ganassi can find a dozen drivers who can finish between seventh and ninth. Ericsson needs to be in the podium conversation at least once, but more likely in multiple races.
Ericsson has enough to be a top ten championship driver in IndyCar, but year three is where we need to see him breaking through to that highest level, especially when it is year two with Ganassi.
What does Ericsson need to do in 2021?
Top ten championship finish, which will be difficult, but possible.
Take at least two positions off his average starting position.
Make the second round of road course qualifying at least five times and the Fast Six at least three times.
At least one podium finish, but at least five or six top five finishes.
One race where he leads at least 20 laps.
Scott Dixon - #9 PNC Bank Honda
Last year was your typically Scott Dixon season.
Open the season with three consecutive victories.
Finish in the top five for eight of the first nine races.
Finish in the top ten for 13 of 14 races.
Led IndyCar with seven podium finishes.
Had the best average finish at 5.0.
Completed all 1,900 laps.
Won his sixth championship.
Some of that was impressive, because he had never opened the season with consecutive victories before, let alone three on the spin. He had never completed every lap in a season before. We aren't surprised that Scott Dixon did those things and yet it still impresses us.
He started the year with a smackdown in Texas, leading 157 of 200 laps. He followed it with an aggressive three-stop strategy in the heat of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The first Road America race fell his way when Josef Newgarden coughed up the lead during a pit cycle and Dixon then leaped ahead of Will Power during the final round of pit stops.
It wasn't all easy. Dixon had to go from the rear to the front in both Iowa race, taking 17th and turning it in a runner-up finish and then flipping 18th into a fifth-place result.
His best race was the Indianapolis 500, but it might have been his most crushing defeat of the season. He led 111 laps from second position. He is now third all-time in laps led in Indianapolis 500 history and Al Unser and Ralph DePalma should start sweating, but Takuma Sato got ahead at the right time. Dixon fought back, but Spencer Pigot's accident occurred late enough that the race would have to end under yellow. It was a solid day for the championship, but those points earned cannot make up for the history lost.
That defeat did not bring Dixon down. He won six days later at Gateway and became the third driver to reach 50 IndyCar victories. His championship lead was 117 points with six races to go.
Dixon ended the season with ten consecutive top ten finishes, but the title still went to the wire. Part was because of Josef Newgarden kept up the pressure and was almost as flawless as Dixon, but the other part was Dixon showed he was human. He spun on his own at Mid-Ohio while in the top five. He had two pedestrian Harvest Grand Prix races where he salvaged top ten finishes.
The championship lead Dixon built over the first 13 races assured him a ninth-place finish would be enough in the season finale and he came home third.
Numbers to Remember:
3: Victories from surpassing Mario Andretti for second all-time in victories.
18: Seasons with a victory, tied with A.J. Foyt for the most all-time.
58: Laps led away from becoming the fifth driver to reach the 6,000 laps led milestone.
5.0: Average finish in 2020, it was the fifth time Dixon averaged a finish of 5.0 or lower in a season in his IndyCar career.
340: Laps led in 2020, the seventh time he has led at least 300 laps in a season.
Predictions/Goals:
Dixon has done enough where he isn't looking to fill out a checklist in hopes of being retained for another season. Dixon is set and the goal never changes. This year it will be a little different.
A seventh championship would tie him with A.J. Foyt for the most all-time. Three victories would move Dixon into second all-time, putting him ahead of Mario Andretti. You would think with six championships and 50 victories things would get easier for Dixon, but when you have ascended to this level of altitude you find it is tougher than ever.
Dixon is no longer competing against his contemporaries. He is competing against history. He is competing with how many generations his name will be passed down for. He is competing with ghosts whose successes completely wash out their failures, no matter how grand those defeats might have been.
Not many other drivers will get to this level. So far, none of it has fazed Dixon. He has not been rattled. He has not had a down year, but he reaches this highest of levels fresh off turning 40 years old and the end of a championship season that saw him lift the Astor Cup with a sour taste in his mouth.
Dixon won his sixth title last year, but after all his dominance the championship still went to the final lap. He was third at St. Petersburg, but if he had lost his engine or cut a tire and dropped to tenth, Josef Newgarden would have pulled off one of the most remarkable championship comebacks in motorsports history, let alone IndyCar. The points swung 101 points in the final six races. Newgarden only fell 17 markers shy of a successful title defense.
That is where Dixon will look to improve this year. That is where the entire Ganassi crew will look to improve. It is not enough to win four races, finish on the podium for half of them and complete every lap with only one result out of the top ten. This team will want to increase the gap after every race. It will want to lock up the title a race early, hell even two races early if it can.
There is nothing Dixon needs to do in 2021. His goal is to be better than the year before, no matter how great that year might have been.
Álex Palou - #10 NTT Data Honda
No time like a pandemic for a rookie season, but Palou found early success with Dale Coyne Racing.
Despite never racing on an oval, he equipped himself well for the Texas season opener, outpacing his teammate and sophomore Santino Ferrucci, only for Palou to be caught in an accident that was not of his doing. The Spaniard was in the wrong place at the wrong time when Rinus VeeKay spun.
The bounce back was not immediate. He never found the setup in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but he picked up a podium finish in his third career start at Road America after a fierce battle with Ryan Hunter-Reay. In the next race, he spent the entire race in the top ten. He had two good races at Iowa but fell short of a top ten finish in both.
He made the Fast Nine for the Indianapolis 500, qualifying seventh and was running in the top ten when he spun out just after 300 miles. Palou was the best rookie up to that point. A penalty in the first Gateway race was a setback, but he drove two respectable races. He went from 20th to 12th in the first Mid-Ohio race and found himself fourth on the grid for the second one, only for his teammate to go off track and rejoin the course in the middle of the corner. This put Palou on the wrong end of contact that ended his day.
After a long run of poor results, he ran in the top ten in the second Harvest Grand Prix race and finished ninth. The team tried an alternative strategy at St. Petersburg, and it placed Palou at the front, but he was forced to stop late and fell out of a promising finishing position. He ended up 16th in the championship but earned a promotion to Chip Ganassi Racing.
Numbers to Remember:
9: Times as the top Dale Coyne qualifier last season.
7: Times as the top DCR finisher last season.
8: Lead lap finishes in 2020.
3: Top ten finishes in 2020.
Predictions/Goals:
Palou is following a similar path to Marcus Ericsson, joining Ganassi in his sophomore season and their rookie seasons were close to identical. They both had a podium finish and three top ten finishes. Palou's average finish was 14.7 while Ericsson averaged 14.8 as a rookie.
I don't expect Palou to match Ericsson's sophomore season, but he should be close as he is stepping into a race car that won a race last season. He showed a lot of speed last year, qualifying in the top ten for five races, three of which were top five starts and the other two were on ovals. He had three retirements, all because of accidents, two of which were not of his making.
He will have to make a step forward. Ericsson missed a race as a rookie, but he went from 19th in the championship to 12th in his first year with Ganassi. Palou was 16th in a full season. The car he is stepping into was 11th. I think he has to at least finish 11th or 12th, where Rosenqvist and Ericsson were in 2020.
Ed Jones took the exact path Palou is on now. Rookie with Dale Coyne to sophomore at Chip Ganassi Racing and it didn't pan for Jones. He was 14th with Coyne and only moved up to 13th with Ganassi. He was on the podium twice with Ganassi, but he made a few too many errors, including an accident while in a podium position at Phoenix.
I think Palou will be better than Jones was, but I believe Palou will not really push Dixon for best in the team and he and Ericsson could be close to equal.
What does Palou need to do in 2021?
Finish no worse than 12th in the championship.
Pick up at least one podium and aim for top ten finishes in at least half the race.
Finish better than his starting position in at least ten races.
Jimmie Johnson - #48 Carvana Honda
Johnson wrapped up a 20-year NASCAR career in 2020 and for the second consecutive season missed the playoffs. For the third consecutive season, he did not win a race. For the fourth consecutive season his average finish was worse than 16th after having only one of his first 15 seasons average a finish worse than 15th.
Before his final full Cup season, Johnson expressed a desire to run IndyCar on road and street courses. He was a guest of McLaren's at the 2020 preseason test at Austin and announced he would be testing at Barber Motorsports Park in April.
Then the pandemic took hold and it cancelled Johnson's trial with Arrow McLaren SP. Johnson lined up an IndyCar outing with Ganassi after the Grand Prix of Indianapolis/Brickyard 400 weekend in July, but Johnson had to miss the Brickyard weekend after coming in contact with COVID-19. He finally got into an Ganassi IndyCar on July 28.
On September 9, Johnson announced he had signed a two-year deal with Chip Ganassi Racing and would drive the road and street courses in 2021.
Numbers to Remember:
16,620: Days old when Johnson makes his debut at the Barber season opener on April 18. Another way to read that is 45 years, six months and one day old.
40: Road course starts in a 20-year NASCAR Cup Series career.
1: Victory on a road course in the NASCAR Cup Series, Sonoma 2010.
0: Starts at any of the 12 road/street courses on the 2021 IndyCar schedule.
Predictions/Goals:
Johnson will be running 13 of 17 races. Last year, Oliver Askew was 19th in the championship having run 12 of 14 races. Zach Veach was 21st having run only 11 races. A top twenty championship finish is not unrealistic, but I do not have high expectations.
Johnson has been putting in the time and he has been doing extra testing in Formula Three cars to get more experience with a higher downforce open-wheel car. He is an immense talent, but a couple tests in an IndyCar and Formula Three car are not going to turn Johnson into a top ten contender. We cannot forget he is also over 45 years old and making his first foray into open-wheel racing. This isn't Juan Pablo Montoya or A.J. Allmendinger returning. This is all new to him and he is coming off a painful slide in NASCAR, a series where he was a seven-time champion and won 83 races.
His testing pace at Sebring was encouraging, better than I expected, but there was still a notable gap even to the next slowest drivers.
Johnson's goal will be to complete laps. The more laps he completes, the more he learns and the better he will do. There will be a few races where he will likely finish inside the top twenty because he is only a lap down and a few notable drivers retired, whether it is because of accidents or mechanical failures. There could even be a qualifying session where he gets into the second round. If Ben Hanley can have luck fall his way, then so can Jimmie Johnson.
I don't expect Johnson to be close to the top 12 on speed. I think he will struggle to break into the top 20. There will be a few good days to draw confidence from.
This is a two-year program. The best thing he can do is gain experience. He will want to be competitive and respectable, but 2021 should be about maximizing results in 2022.
What does Johnson need to do in 2021?
Complete as many laps as possible.
Qualify in the top 20 on at least one or two occasions.
Have a top 16 finish.
Have a lead lap finish.
Tony Kanaan - #48 Carvana Honda
Kanaan had set up 2020 to be a retirement tour with the Brazilian only contesting the oval races in A.J. Foyt Racing's #14 Chevrolet.
The pandemic did increase Kanaan's schedule by one race, as Gateway became a doubleheader. He drove a respectable race at Texas, starting and finishing tenth. Iowa saw him brush the wall in race one, but he rebounded in race two, spending much of the race in the top ten only to drop to 11th in the closing laps.
His Indianapolis 500 was far from what he would have wished. It was a rather uncompetitive August at 16th and Georgetown, qualifying 23rd and spending almost all the race in the middle of the field before finishing 19th, one lap down.
He went from 21st to ninth in the first Gateway race. His season ended with a 19th-place finish in the second Gateway race.
Numbers to Remember:
10.061: Kanaan's average finish in 49 starts between Texas, Indianapolis and Gateway.
2: Victories at Texas, Indianapolis and Gateway combined.
3,968: Days between Kanaan's last victory in a Honda-powered car and his first start of 2021 at Texas. That is ten years, ten months and 11 days. His last victory with Honda was at Iowa on June 20, 2010.
Predictions/Goals:
Kanaan is only getting four races in the Texas doubleheader, Indianapolis and Gateway. The goal is to win a second Indianapolis 500 and get to ride off into the sunset. I don't expect that.
IndyCar is tough and we saw Kanaan put together admirable days with Foyt. Ganassi will definitely give Kanaan a car capable of winning, but with Dixon in the team, just being best of the quartet is a significant hurdle to clear let alone topping the entire IndyCar grid.
I think Kanaan can put together four solid races. Four races where he is pushing for top ten results and at least in the conversation for good reasons. My other hope is Kanaan gets to share these final races with spectators in the stands. I hate to think his final Indianapolis 500 could have been behind closed doors. Even if Indianapolis only has 30,000 people, he would at least get some type of ovation.
Though he is only signed for this year, I think 2021 will not be his final year at Indianapolis. I think Kanaan still has one or two years as an Indianapolis one-off in him.
Tony Kanaan does not need to do anything in 2021. But...
It would be nice to see Kanaan win a second Indianapolis 500, or any race for that matter.
A victory is unlikely, but it would be nice to see Kanaan run four competitive races where people are celebrating what he did on the track.
The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season will begin on April 18 at Barber Motorsports Park. NBC will have coverage of the season opener.
