Eleven days are all that remain between now and the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season opener. This is the tenth, and final, IndyCar team preview. Over the last 47 days, we have gone over every full-time entrant lined up for this season. Every team has been picked apart, strengths and weaknesses, each driver given his best and at least the most realistic outcome for the 17-race, 189-day journey that awaits. Today, we end with the top team in IndyCar history. Team Penske picked up its 17th championship in 2022. The organization in its entirety reached the 600-victory plateau as well. More is to come in 2023.
At First Glance... How does it go wrong?
No team is a better model of consistent success than Team Penske.
Last year it won nine races and took the championship after having only won three races in 2021, the first time the team did not at least have a share of most victories for a team in an IndyCar season since 2013. Will Power took the championship eight years after his first, rising from ninth in the championship the year prior. Penske put three cars in the top four, the tenth time in 11 seasons it has had multiple top five championship finishers, and the sixth time in that span it has put at least three in the championship top five. It was more of the same, Penske at the top.
But Penske is not immune from tribulations. After what was still a respectable 2021 season, but a disappointment given the organizations standards, most were ready for some sort of change if 2022 did not see an improvement. Penske has made changes when things had been going far better than that.
Juan Pablo Montoya lost his full-time ride after finishing eighth in the championship while the other three Penske cars went 1-2-3. Hélio Castroneves was booted to sports cars after finishing fourth in the championship, the third best of four Penske drivers that season and Castroneves had six consecutive top five championship finishes at that time. Simon Pagenaud's exit almost mirrors Montoya's. In 2019, Pagenaud won the Indianapolis 500 and was second in the championship. In his following season, he won once and was eighth. But Pagenaud got an extra year in 2021, he was eighth again in the championship, but this time did not win a race.
For all of its success, Penske is a rotating door, prepared to make a proactive move than hold on even one season too long. This will be year three of the Power/Josef Newgarden/Scott McLaughlin lineup. Montoya/Castroneves/Power only lasted three seasons. Pagenaud/Castroneves/Power lasted three seasons. Pagenaud/Newgarden/Power was the lucky one. It got five seasons together. Pagenaud's 2019 season bought him sometime.
History tells us change is imminent at Team Penske, even if the driving results tell us the team has nothing to worry about from its current trio of drivers. Maybe Penske needs the drama. The organization must put someone on the hot seat and toss them to keep everyone sharp and able to compete at the highest level.
Penske has two of the best drivers in this generation. One is in the final years of his career but still has time left. The other has an entire second half of his career to go. Tossing either aside now would look foolish, and yet Penske always appears to time these thing right. The pressure is on all three. It does not take much to fall out of favor and be left behind.
2022 Team Penske Review
Wins: 9 (St. Petersburg, Texas, Long Beach, Belle Isle, Road America, Iowa I, Mid-Ohio, Gateway, Portland)
Poles: 9 (St. Petersburg, Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Belle Isle, Iowa I, Iowa II, Nashville, Gateway, Portland, Laguna Seca)
Championship Finishes: 1st (Will Power), 2nd (Josef Newgarden), 4th (Scott McLaughlin)
Josef Newgarden - #2 Hitachi/PPG Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
5: Victories in 2022
5: Finishes outside the top ten in 2022, his most since the 2016 season
5: Times leading the most laps in a season in his IndyCar career, including four of the last five seasons
What does a championship season look like for him?
These games do not work for Team Penske drivers. We know what a championship season looks like for Josef Newgarden. He has done it twice. Worst of all for him is he has been on the doorstep the last three years. What does a near-championship season look like for him?
It is falling 16 points short of Scott Dixon with 34 points dropped due to stalling on one pit stop costing him a victory at Road America. It is having the gearbox cease up while leading on a restart with two laps to go at Road America, falling to 21st while Álex Palou takes the victory, causing a 52-point swing and Newgarden ultimately falling 38 points behind the Spaniard Palou at the end of that season. It is starting a season with four finishes outside the top ten in the first six races, erasing the benefit of two victories but then going on a tear over the summer only to have a suspension failure while dominating at Iowa rip the championship lead from his hands and forcing him to claw his way back into the championship picture but find himself 16 points short again.
We know Newgarden can win races and find himself regularly on the podium, but in recent seasons it is one devastating result, usually while he is in a leading position, that costs him.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
All three Penske drivers can be champion. Newgarden has finished in the top two of the championship in four consecutive seasons, five of the last six and he has seven consecutive championship top five finishes. IndyCar is a tough series. There is a world where he ends up sixth or maybe even seventh if things do not go right for him and it goes phenomenally well for others. I do not see that happening, but what are the odds he finishes in the top two for a fifth consecutive season?
His teammate just won the championship with one race victory. Newgarden has had multiple victories in seven of the last eight seasons. He has won at least one oval race in seven consecutive seasons. In three of the last four seasons he has won multiple oval races. Last year, he won three.
For any other driver, Newgarden is going to have a great season in 2023, but, for Newgarden, there is a chance it will still not be enough.
Scott McLaughlin - #3 DEX Imaging/XPEL/Snap-On/Pennzoil/Sonsio Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
8.9746: Improvement in average starting position from 2021 to 2022
4.2983: Improvement in average finishing position from 2021 to 2022
10: Improvement in championship finish position from 2021 to 2022
What does a championship season look like for him?
McLaughlin is the only of the three Penske drivers without an IndyCar championship, but he has been champion before across the Pacific. It is the same song, different verse for the New Zealander, and he was on the right track with the tune in 2022.
What he must avoid is that early slog that set him behind in the championship. He started lovely in 2022, but lost his way after opening with a victory and a runner-up finish. Four of the next five events were finishes outside the top ten, three of those outside the top fifteen. If he can sprinkle a few more top tens and at least one more top five in that stretch, combined with how he ended the season, one victory, four podium finishes, five top fives and his worst finish being sixth over the final six races, McLaughlin will primed to be the 11th different driver to win an IndyCar championship for Team Penske.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
We all expected McLaughlin to improve in 2022 from a respectable rookie season in 2021. I am not sure any of us saw him winning three times and all three victories being emphatic displays of dominance. If that was year two for him, there is no limit on what he can do in year three.
McLaughlin is still new to IndyCar, and he has two of the toughest teammates in the business to race against. Not improving is not a failure, even slight regression would not be shameful. Top ten in the championship feels guaranteed, but where he is placed really comes down to the competition. Does McLaren fire up the championship? Does Andretti rediscover its form? Is there a surprise front-runner?
McLaughlin could be on his game, win three races again, clean up his poor results and win the championship, or the competition could rise, knock McLaughlin down in a few areas, limit him to only one victory or possibly none but with a smattering of podium finishes and leave McLaughlin eighth in the championship and wondering how this season was not better. It is a wide range of possibility for this driver.
Will Power - #12 Verizon Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
4: Pole positions in the final seven races of the 2022 season
2: Pole positions in Power's prior 26 appearances
5.9412: Average finish in 2022, Power's best in a full season
What does a championship season look like for him?
Like Newgarden, Power has done this twice, but both years have been drastically different. In 2014, Power won the season opener, won three races total and was never lower than second in the championship. In 2022, Power had five top five finishes to open his season, a personal best streak for him to start a season, but yo-yoed with his championship position, took the championship lead with his one victory, fell back to second but then used consistent podium finishes to regain the lead with four races remaining and see out the title.
Power has a record of losing championship as well. That has been long established, but it has been over a decade since Power coughed up a championship. In recent years, it has been little things that has put him down early and kept him down during the season. The minor mechanical meltdown has been attracted to the Australian over the last few seasons. Driveshaft failures, jumbled up gearboxes, a loose motor, things out of the driver's hands. He escaped those woes in 2022, proving when the machinery is reliable Power is as dangerous as they come.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
The truth is Power's 2022 results likely will not be enough in 2023. Power's brilliant form will at least get him a top five position in the championship. That 2022 season is the bread and butter of Hélio Castroneves' final seasons with Penske. In Castroneves' final six full season with Penske, he won five times in 101 races but his championship finishes in that span were fourth, second, second, fifth, third and fourth. He did have 26 podium finishes in that run.
In the same way we must question the odds of Newgarden ending up in the top two of the championship for a fifth consecutive year, what are the odds Power will finish on the podium in over half the races for a second consecutive year? What are the odds one victory will be enough for the championship for a second consecutive year when Power became the first champion with only a single victory since Tony Stewart 25 years prior?
Power's 2023 will ebb and flow. He can improve his victory total, maybe even jumping to three or four victories, but his podium total could decrease. In turn, his championship position could drop as well, or it could be enough for a second consecutive championship and third overall. Overlooked from Power's second championship is it came a year after 2021 saw his worst average finish in a full IndyCar season. It is still Will Power. He will at worst be good, but that will not be enough for satisfaction.
The 2023 NTT IndyCar Series begins on Sunday March 5 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBC and Peacock will have coverage of the race starting at noon.
