After spending the first two 2022 IndyCar Team Previews at the front of the grid, we now go to the bottom of the grid and the team that has settled into the cellar, A.J. Foyt Racing. It is approaching nine years since the team's most recent victory. It has three podium finishes in the 147 races since that victory. The team has one championship finisher in the top 15 in the last five seasons. It hasn't had a top ten championship finisher since Airton Daré was ninth in the 2002 Indy Racing League season.
After trying a combination of veterans and youth, youth and veterans, veterans and veterans, rookies and past champions, you name it, Foyt has tried it. Foyt is giving youth and youth a shot this season and expanding to three cars. Dalton Kellett has experience, two-dozen IndyCar starts, all with the Foyt organization, to his name. Kellett will be back for his third season with the team. Joining the Canadian is the reigning Indy Lights champion, Kyle Kirkwood. Tatiana Calderón will drive Foyt's third entry on the road and street courses, with unannounced driver taking the oval races.
2021 A.J. Foyt Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 5th (Barber and Gateway)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 5th (St. Petersburg)
Championship Finishes: 16th (Sébastien Bourdais), 23rd (Dalton Kellett), 33rd (J.R. Hildebrand), 36th (Charlie Kimball)
Dalton Kellett - #4 K-LINE Insulators Chevrolet
Kellett opened the 2021 IndyCar season setting a career best finish, an 18th at Barber. He was 23rd at St. Petersburg, but then was 18th again in the first Texas race, his first visit to the track and it was his first lead lap finish. Things took a sudden stop in the second Texas race when Kellett was involved in the start accident.
The good results were tough to come by. He was 20th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and then 23rd in the Indianapolis 500. He was 18th again in the first Belle Isle race, but he would finish outside the top twenty in the next five races. He was particularly off in the August IMS road course race.
A significant number of accidents in Gateway allowed Kellett up the order and he took advantage of the opportunity, finishing 12th but was sniffing a top ten result. He came down to Earth in the final three races with his best result being 19th.
Numbers to Remember:
1: Top fifteen finish in 24 IndyCar starts.
2: Top twenty starting positions in 24 IndyCar starts.
3: Lead lap finishes last season.
18: Finishes in 24 IndyCar starts.
What does a championship season look like for him?
Every single road and street course race becoming a wet race and Kellett switching to wet tires at the right time each time to come out in the lead or in the top five and then finishing in those positions with no other drive having more than two victories, five podium finishes and seven top five finishes in a season.
On the ovals, Kellett replicates his 2021 Gateway race each time and on the edge of the top ten every time out. Some races he sneaks into the top ten and in others he is 12 or 13th but he is always in the top 15.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
It doesn't look good. Never expected to accomplish much in IndyCar, in about two seasons Kellett has been a regular cellar dweller and bringing up the bottom of the field. In 2021, he had competition in Jimmie Johnson and Cody Ware. While Kellett was coming out on top in some of those battles early on, he started losing to those two toward the end of the season.
Driving for Foyt doesn't help, but Kellett is going to be at the rear of the field again. He is going to be struggling to break into the top 20. Most race weekends he will toward the bottom of the timesheet and likely be a regular on the last row of the grid. Among the drivers who started every race in 2021, Kellett scored the fewest points. If Kellett starts every race again in 2022, I expect him to hold that dubious honor again.
Kellett had better days in 2021 than in his part-time season in 2020, but he wasn't fighting for top fifteen positions on a regular basis. Twelfth was flattering at Gateway considering he was gifted six positions in the first 65 laps due to drivers caught in accidents. There could be a few races he is in the top 20 on speed and ends up finishing 16th or 17th, but those days are as good as it gets.
Tatiana Calderón - #11 ROKiT Chevrolet
Calderon has spent the last two years combining Super Formula with LMP2 sports car outings.
In 2021, she moved into the FIA World Endurance Championship with the Richard Mille Racing Team and co-drivers Sophia Flörsch and Beitske Vasser. She participated in five of six races, as she missed the first Bahrain race due to her Super Formula commitments. Her best finish with the team was sixth in class at Portimão, the second race of the season.
For the second consecutive year, Calderón drove for Drago Corse with ThreeBond in Super Formula, a single-car, Honda-powered team. She was 13th in the Fuji season opener, and 17th in the first Suzuka race, but missed the next three races to focus on her sports car responsibilities. She was back for the penultimate round at Motegi, a retirement, and she ended the season with an 18th-place finish at Suzuka.
Numbers to Remember:
12: Road and street course races Calderón will participate in this IndyCar season.
5: Tracks on the 2022 IndyCar schedule Calderón has raced at before, all in the then-Star Mazda series (St. Petersburg, Barber, Road America, Iowa and Laguna Seca).
1: Victory in the Florida Winter Series, a one-time series organized by the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2014. Other drivers in that race included Max Verstappen, Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi, Ed Jones, Antonio Fuoco and Raffaele Marciello.
15.222: Average finish in nine Super Formula starts between 2020 and 2021 with her best finish being 12th twice.
What does a championship season look like for him?
Seeing as how Calderón is only running road and street courses, she is giving up five races to score points, including the possible double points race in the Indianapolis 500.
In 2021, Álex Palou scored 549 points to score the championships. If Calderón won all 12 of her starts with the maximum 54 points, she would have 648 points. To match Palou's output, she would need to average 45.75 points per start. Basically, she would need six victories and six runner-up finishes at worse to win the championship.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
Calderón was at the back of Super Formula. That will not change in IndyCar. Palou might have moved from Super Formula and won the IndyCar championship within two seasons, but Palou was also at the front of Super Formula. Palou's rookie season wasn't a historic season. He had a few good races, a few other promising races where the results did not match and a few other tough races.
It doesn't help that she is driving for the worst team on the grid. Her hope is to beat her teammate Kellett on a regular basis. It is a low bar to clear, and even if she beats it that doesn't mean the results will be that impressive. Calderón has done a good job of staying on track and completing laps in her career. It would not be surprising if she is running at the end of all of her starts and no worse than a lap down. If she does that, a few top 20 finishes might fall her way, but with 26 cars prepared to be entered for the entire season, it is hard to see her sneaking into the top 15.
The oval driver is still unknown for this car. Foyt's oval pace is not significantly better than its road/street course pace, but, depending on the driver, it could be the team's best chance at quality finishes.
Kyle Kirkwood - #14 ROKiT Chevrolet
After spending 2020 in sports car racing after the Indy Lights season was cancelled, Kirkwood returned to single-seater racing with Andretti Autosport in Indy Lights.
Kirkwood had a tough opening weekend at Barber Motorsports Park. Early contact knocked him down to ninth in race one and he was fifth in race two. He rebounded with a victory and second at St. Petersburg and took a slight step back with a pair of fourth-place results on the IMS road course.
From there, Kirkwood was near flawless. He swept the Belle Isle races. He won the first Road America race and was going to finish on the podium before a late mechanical issue knocked him back to 12th. He swept the Mid-Ohio races, was second in both Gateway race and then was second and first in Portland. Another sweep came at Laguna Seca and a victory in the opening race of the October Mid-Ohio weekend clinched him the title.
Numbers to Remember:
62: Winning percentage in 50 Road to Indy starts.
5: Kirkwood is one of five drivers with at least ten Indy Lights victories. The others are Greg Moore, Tommy Byrne, Alex Lloyd and Paul Tracy. Kirkwood tied Moore's record for most victories in a single Indy Lights season last year with ten victories.
18: The best championship finish for an A.J. Foyt Racing rookie is 18th (Billy Boat in 1996-97 and Matheus Leist 2018).
What does a championship season look like for him?
Kirkwood continues his Road to Indy form and is immediately in the top five from the drop of the green flag at St. Petersburg. Texas is his first big oval race, and he keeps his nose clean and pulls out a top ten result. Long Beach is a solid day with a top ten finish and the same goes at Barber. At the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the familiarity of the course is in his favor, and he is on the podium. His Indianapolis 500 debut sees him as the fastest rookie qualifier and then the top rookie finisher somewhere in the top ten.
He hits his stride at the start of June, and he starts to win races. He pulls off his first career victory at Road America and keeps up his unbeaten streak at Mid-Ohio. He makes it three consecutive victories at Toronto. A pair of top five finishes follow at Iowa and he is on the podium again on the IMS road course.
The season closes with a top ten a Nashville, another top five at Gateway and victories at Portland and Laguna Seca.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
All the Road to Indy success in the world is not going to turn A.J. Foyt Racing into a race winner. Kirkwood has been known for winning ever since he joined the Road to Indy system. This will be an awakening for a driver that is used to winning nearly a dozen times a year.
He will regularly be outside the top ten, and there will be frustrating days where nothing works for him despite endless changes being made on the car. A few days will work out and progress will be made. The best days are going to be tuning a car into a top ten contender and those top ten finishes will feel ten times better than any previous Road to Indy victory.
Sébastien Bourdais drove this car last year, a four-time champion ranked in the top ten in victories, and Bourdais could only finish 16th in the championship. Kirkwood is talented, but he isn't better than Bourdais at the moment. Anything close to matching Bourdais' output would be incredible. Bourdais had two top five finishes and four top ten finishes. Four top ten finishes would be great for Kirkwood, and they don't even need to be top five results.
Many champions have had tough first years in IndyCar. Dario Franchitti had one top ten finish, a ninth. Josef Newgarden had zero top ten finishes. Álex Palou might have been third in his third career start, but Palou had only three top ten finishes all season. This season will not define Kirkwood's career and he could have a few races that outshine his overall points total.
The 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday February 27 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBC's coverage will begin at noon ET.
