The second round of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season will be at Texas Motor Speedway. After moving from June to the start of May and becoming a doubleheader, Texas is back to a single-race weekend and will now be on the vernal equinox. It is the earliest a Texas race has ever been held on the IndyCar calendar. This is the earliest oval race in a calendar year for IndyCar since the 2005 Indy Racing League season when Homestead opened the season on March 6 and Phoenix was the second race on March 19. Twenty-seven cars are entered for this Texas race, the most at the track since 30 cars were entered for the 2011 Twin-275s doubleheader. This is the most entries for an IndyCar oval race outside the Indianapolis 500 since the cancelled 2011 Las Vegas season finale.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday March 20 with green flag scheduled for 12:40 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Kelli Stavast will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Kelli Stavast will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Saturday:
First Practice: 10:40 a.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:00 p.m. ET
Second Practice: 5:00 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 12:40 p.m. ET (248 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 12:40 p.m. ET (248 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
Scott McLaughlin on Fire
Leading the IndyCar championship, fresh off his first career victory, is Scott McLaughlin. After taking a stunning victory in the St. Petersburg season opener, McLaughlin returns to the location of his first IndyCar podium finish.
On his oval debut, McLaughlin started 15th after qualifying was rained out, but he entered the top ten before making his first pit stop. He was able to keep his car in the top ten before making his second pit stop earlier than the rest of the field. Emerging with clear racetrack, he moved up to third after the pit cycle. He moved up to second when his final stop came under caution, and he spent much of the closing laps hounding his fellow New Zealander Scott Dixon. Dixon held on, but McLaughlin was 0.2646 seconds back in second position.
McLaughlin started seventh for the second Texas race and spent the entire race in the back portion of the top ten, coming home in eighth.
Ovals have suited McLaughlin. After Texas, he was the top Penske qualifier at the Indianapolis 500, albeit in 17th as the entire Team Penske organization struggled, but in the race, McLaughlin moved forward and was looking set for a top ten finish before speeding entering pit lane. This error knocked him back to 20th after 500 miles. When he made it to Gateway in August, he started 11th and made up a few spots again. A caution or two might have gone in his favor, but McLaughlin had a good race and ended up finishing fourth.
With three top ten finishes in four oval races, McLaughlin ended up sixth on oval points with 116. He scored more oval points than teammate Will Power, all four Andretti Autosport entries, both Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers and Tony Kanaan last year.
With his first career victory behind, McLaughlin is looking to become the first driver to have his first two victories happen in consecutive races since A.J. Allmendinger had his first three victories occur in consecutive races between Portland, Cleveland and Toronto. Team Penske leads all teams with eight Texas victories between five different drivers.
Jimmie Johnson's Anticipated Oval Debut
For the first time since November 8, 2020, Jimmie Johnson is racing on an oval.
After making 13 IndyCar starts, five IMSA starts and even an appearance in the Race of Champions on ice in Sweden, Johnson will run his first oval race since leaving the NASCAR Cup Series at the end of the 2020 season.
Ovals were Johnson's stomping grounds for over 20 years. He made 646 ovals starts in NASCAR's top division. Throw in another 89 oval starts in NASCAR's second division, one Truck start, 40 in the American Speed Association, eight IROC starts as well as 19 NASCAR All-Star race appearances, 19 Daytona 500 qualifying races, and 18 Shootout/Unlimited/Clash exhibition race starts, and Johnson has made 840 oval starts in serious stock car racing.
This weekend will be his first spin around an oval in an IndyCar.
Eighty-two of Johnson's 83 Cup victories came on ovals, as did his lone victory in NASCAR's second division, as did his two ASA victories, his lone IROC victory was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he won eight NASCAR exhibition races on ovals. That is 94 oval victories.
Johnson's oval debut could not have come at a more comfortable place for the seven-time Cup champion. He has seven Texas victories in the Cup Series, the most all-time at the track. He had 16 top five finishes and 22 top ten finishes in 36 starts on the 1.5-mile oval. Unfortunately for Johnson, his results fell off in his final years at Texas. He had only one top ten finish in his final seven Texas starts with an average finish of 25.428.
Only five of 20 first-time winners since IndyCar reunification have had their first career victory come on an oval, but one of those happened last year at Texas Motor Speedway with Patricio O'Ward. The last two drivers to win on their IndyCar oval debut are Sébastien Bourdais at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in 2003 and Scott Dixon at Nazareth in 2001.
Scott Dixon Stuck on 51
When IndyCar left Texas Motor Speedway after its 2021 doubleheader, Scott Dixon has fresh off his 51st victory. Returning to Texas in 2022, Dixon is still on 51 career victories ten months later.
A 14-race winless drought is Dixon's longest since he went 16 races between victories from the first race of the 2013 Houston doubleheader through Mid-Ohio in 2014, the 15th round of that season. Even more concerning is how far Dixon was from getting that 52nd victory over the final three quarters of the 2021 season.
Dixon had three podium finishes after his Texas victory last year, but he led 32 laps in the final 12 races of the season. Only once did he lead more than ten laps in a race, 16 in the first Belle Isle race. The good news is if there was ever a place for Dixon to bounce back it is Texas.
He was first and fourth last year in the doubleheader, but he led a combined 369 laps over the two races. Dixon has won three of the last five Texas races and four of the last eight Texas races. In those eight races, he has led a combined 787 laps. His 1,043 laps led at Texas are more than double second all-time, Hélio Castroneves on 506.
Dixon has the most Texas victories with five, most top five finishes with 13, and he is tied with Tony Kanaan for most top ten finishes with 16. Dixon has started no worse than seventh in the last nine Texas races and he started in the top ten in 19 of 23 Texas starts. Another victory at Texas would make it the second track where Dixon has at least a half-dozen victories at, joining Mid-Ohio.
First Oval of the Season
This will be the third consecutive season Texas Motor Speedway has hosted the first oval race of the season. Two years ago was due to a pandemic delay. Last year, Texas was scheduled as the opening oval round.
Patricio O'Ward scored his first career IndyCar victory last year in the second Texas and combined with a third in the first Texas race, it launched O'Ward to be the top oval driver of 2021. The Mexican scored 192 points, 34 points more than Josef Newgarden, who was second. O'Ward was the first non-Penske/Ganassi driver to top the oval standings since Josef Newgarden did it in 2016 with Ed Carpenter Racing.
O'Ward was in the top five of all four races last year with three podium finishes. He has six consecutive top five finishes on ovals dating back to the 2020 season, including five podium finishes during that span. O'Ward has seven top five finishes and eight top ten finishes in ten career oval starts in IndyCar. His worst oval result is 12th, which came in his oval debut at Texas in 2020 and in the second Iowa race later that season.
There were no repeat oval winners last year as Dixon and O'Ward split the Texas races, Hélio Castroneves won his fourth Indianapolis 500 and Newgarden took his third Gateway victory. Newgarden has won an oval race in the last six consecutive seasons, the longest active streak of seasons with an oval victory.
The top three in the overall championship last year were in reverse order in points, as Álex Palou had the third most oval points, 155, only three behind Newgarden. Palou opened the year with a fourth and seventh at Texas, and a runner-up finish to Castroneves at Indianapolis. He was caught in an early accident at Gateway and was classified in 20th.
Quietly, Simon Pagenaud was fourth in oval points. He was in the top ten in all four races, but his only top five result was third at Indianapolis. He has seven consecutive top ten finishes at Texas. Pagenaud ended 2021 with 144 points, nine more than Dixon, who started with a first and a fourth at Texas, but pit lane problems held him to a 17th-place result at Indianapolis and being caught in the same accident as Palou at Gateway knocked him back to 18th.
Scott McLaughlin was sixth in the oval standings on 116 points, nine points ahead of Ed Carpenter, whose only top ten finish was fifth in the Indianapolis 500. Carpenter has announced he will run all the oval races this season in the #33 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet.
Hélio Castroneves only ran one oval race in 2021, but his Indianapolis 500 victory gave him 103 points and put him eighth in the oval championship, three points ahead of Takuma Sato and five points ahead of Rinus VeeKay, who rounded out the top ten.
Ganassi drivers Tony Kanaan and Marcus Ericsson just missed out on the top ten with 96 points and 90 points respectively. Kanaan is not entered for Texas, the first time he is not on a Texas entry list since the 2002 Indy Racing League season finale, just prior to Kanaan joining the IRL with Andretti Green Racing.
Colton Herta was the top Andretti Autosport driver on ovals last year with only 88 points. Andretti Autosport had a combined one top five finishes and four top ten finishes on ovals last year, and that team did not have a top fifteen finisher in the Indianapolis 500. Andretti Autosport has not won an oval race since Pocono 2018. Alexander Rossi finished outside the top fifteen in three of four oval races in 2021 with his best finish being eighth in the first Texas race.
Graham Rahal was fifth and third at Texas last year, but 32nd at Indianapolis and 23rd at Gateway had him on 84 oval points, one ahead of Jack Harvey and three ahead of Will Power. Power was 14th, 13th, 30th and third in the four oval races last year. It was the second consecutive season Power did not have an oval victory after having won on an oval in four consecutive seasons from 2016 through 2019.
Romain Grosjean is back for his second career oval start. Grosjean was 14th at Gateway last year after starting 15th.
Along with Jimmie Johnson, five other drivers will be making their IndyCar oval debuts at Texas. Neither Christian Lundgaard nor Callum Ilott have run on an oval. Kyle Kirkwood, Devlin DeFrancesco and David Malukas made oval starts in the Road to Indy.
Kirkwood won at Indianapolis Raceway Park in U.S. F2000 but was fourth at IRP in Indy Pro 2000 before winning at Gateway. He was second in both Gateway races last year behind Malukas. Malukas was also third at Gateway in 2019 in Indy Lights. Prior to that, he had only made three oval starts on the Road to Indy with finishes of 11th at IRP and eighth at Gateway in the 2018 Pro Mazda season, and he was 11t in the 2019 Freedom 100. DeFrancesco was fourth and first at IRP and Gateway respectively in Indy Pro 2000 in 2020. He was fourth and fifth in the Gateway Indy Lights races last year.
And the Surface
The last two years IndyCar has visited Texas Motor Speedway the asphalt has grabbed the headlines.
The PJ1 stained surface, laid down for the NASCAR races at the facility, has turned the track into a single-lane racetrack, with cars forced to run the bottom as the top lane does not have enough grip for the cars to run safely.
In 2020, had only 364 passes, 180 of those for position after the prior two seasons had 688 and 579 total passes respectively, and 242 and 200 passes for position as well. The 2020 race was only 200 laps compared to the 248-lap races in 2018 and 2019. For comparison, the 2020 race averaged 1.82 passes per lap while the 2018 race averaged 2.77 and 2019 averaged 2.33 passes per lap.
Last year's races were 212 laps in race one and 248 laps in race two, the same distance we will see this season.
The first race in 2021 had 282 passes and 140 passes for position over 212 laps or 1.33 passes per lap. The second race dropped even further to 171 total passes and 100 passes for position, an average of 0.689 passes per lap. The second race last year was also marred with the opening accident that took out six drivers. Six drivers out before even reaching turn one on the opening lap does significantly decrease the number of total passes and passes for the position, as there are fewer competitors on track.
The first race last year had only three lead changes, the fewest ever in an IndyCar Texas race and the 2020 race had only five lead changes, one of four races to feature five lead changes or ever at Texas. Despite the lack of passing, the second race in 2021 did have 12 lead changes
Fast Facts
This will be the fourth IndyCar race held on March 20 and first since 1994 when Michael Andretti scored Chip Ganassi Racing's its first IndyCar victory at Surfers Paradise.
This will be the 18th time an IndyCar race and the 12 Hours of Sebring have fallen on the same weekend. It is the first time IndyCar and Sebring have shared a weekend since 2005 when Sebring and the Indy Racing League Phoenix round were on the same day.
Texas will be the fifth different track to host an IndyCar race on the same weekend as the 12 Hours of Sebring. Phoenix was on the same weekend 12 times. Surfers Paradise was on the same weekend four times, Homestead was on the same weekend once, as was the Rio de Janiero oval.
The 1994 Surfers Paradise round that Michael Andretti won was the same weekend as Sebring.
The average starting position for a Texas winner is 5.088 with a median of third.
The last six Texas races have been won from a top ten starting position and the last three races have been won from a top five starting position.
The pole-sitter has not won at Texas since 2010 when Ryan Briscoe won after leading 102 of 228 laps.
Twenty-one of 34 Texas races have been won from a top five starting position.
Only five Texas races have been won from outside the top ten, most recently in 2016 when Graham Rahal won from 13th.
The worst starting position for a Texas winner is 17th in 2012 with Justin Wilson.
Last year, Patricio O'Ward became the fourth driver to score a first career victory at Texas Motor Speedway. The other three were Billy Boat, Mark Dismore and Jeff Ward, but for these three drivers Texas was their only IndyCar victory.
Team Penske has not won the last three Texas races. Team Penske has never failed to win four consecutive Texas races since it joined the Indy Racing League in the 2002 season.
The average number of lead changes in a Texas race is 13.441 with a median of 13.
Eleven of 34 Texas races have had under ten lead changes, including eight of the 16 Texas races since reunification.
Only two of 16 Texas races since reunification have had 15 lead changes or more.
The average number of cautions in a Texas race is 4.264 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 34.264 with a median of 31.5.
The most cautions in a Texas race was nine in 2017 after IndyCar implemented competition cautions after any 30-lap green flag run over the final 90 laps of the race due to tire wear concerns.
Beside the 2017 Texas race, the only other Texas race to have more than five cautions since reunification was in 2008 when there were eight cautions.
Nine of 34 Texas races have had greater than five cautions.
Predictions
Josef Newgarden gets another Texas victory, and he does it with at least 125 laps led. Jimmie Johnson will get a career-best starting position and get at least his first career top ten finish. Johnson will not be the best Ganassi finisher, however. Andretti Autosport will continue to be underwhelming but get at least one car in the top five. Scott McLaughlin will not leave Texas as the championship leader, and he will not be the top New Zealander. Every driver will complete at least one lap. Ed Carpenter will not top the Ed Carpenter Racing intra-team battle. There will be fewer than 325 total passes. A.J. Foyt Racing will have multiple cars in the top fifteen. There will not be a pit stop with a car exiting with a loose wheel. Sleeper: Marcus Ericsson.
