Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Maverick Viñales ended a three-year winless drought with his victory in Austin, and Viñales also won the sprint race as a bonus. Marc Márquez was quick but lost the bike almost immediately after he took the lead. Everyone wants to race with MotoGP. Formula One announced it 2025 calendar, because why wait to get through April? Formula E had some technical infractions that have left the paddock miffed. There is a tie at the top of the Supercross championship with four races remaining. A new team will be entering IndyCar, and that has me thinking about ten years in the past.
What Would 2014 Think of Today
Though there was technically testing for the Indianapolis 500 held this past week, the biggest IndyCar news did not come from a team on track. It came from one that will not be competing until 2025.
Wednesday afternoon, Prema Racing, a long-time competitor in many European junior series, and current participant in Formula Two and Formula Three, announced it would be entering IndyCar next year with a two-car program with Chevrolet engines. The Italian team will have a shop based out of Indiana, and former Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team president Piers Phillips will lead the operation.
With Prema's expansion to IndyCar, the IndyCar grid will likely increase to potentially 29 cars, joining the 27 cars already competing full-time in 2024.
With nearly 30 full-time cars tentatively set for 2025, I must ask, how did we get here?
A decade ago, two-dozen cars would have been nice. Now, 30 is a conceivable number.
In 2014, the only race outside the Indianapolis 500 that had two-dozen starters or more was the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis with 25 cars. Ten of 18 races that season only had 22 starters. There might have been 11 full-time teams, but three of those teams only fielded one full-time car.
A year before Prema enters, there are ten multi-car teams on the grid. Every team has at least two cars. Half the teams have at least three entries. The only teams that fielded at least three cars a decade ago where Andretti Autosport, Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske.
But isn't just the teams and their size, it is who is in the series.
McLaren is in the series. Ten years ago, that wasn't even thinkable. Juncos Hollinger Racing has expanded from its Road to Indy roots and has funding from Argentina. Again, unlikely in 2014. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is now running three cars and has a sponsor that has committed to sponsoring two races. In 2014, the only companies sponsoring multiple race weekends were Firestone and Honda, two long-time series sponsors. HyVee entered the fold within the last three years.
But it isn't just the teams, their size, and who is supporting these teams, it is who is driving as well.
A decade ago, we were excited about Kurt Busch running The Double, and Jacques Villeneuve's unexpected return to the Indianapolis 500, but consider since then we have had Fernando Alonso choose the Indianapolis 500 over the Monaco Grand Prix and Jimmie Johnson ran the Indianapolis 500 not in a Double attempt but as a full-time IndyCar driver.
Now, we have Kyle Larson, less than three years removed from his first NASCAR Cup Series championship, attempting The Double, and Larson will be doing it against a multi-time Supercars champion in Scott McLaughlin, who has since made the full-time switch to IndyCar, and a host Formula One veterans like Marcus Ericsson and Romain Grosjean while also running against some promising international talent that could not quite find a place in the world championship.
We don't even need to go back to 2014 to see how stark the change has been. Go back to 2017.
There were only 21 cars for the season opener seven years ago. Nine of 17 races had only 21 cars. There were only eight teams on the grid. In less than a decade, the grid has grown by 28.57%. By next year, that growth will be up to 38.09% compared to 2017.
Less than two weeks prior to Fernando Alonso's shocking announcement of his entry into the 2017 Indianapolis 500, I lamented the lack of big names at Indianapolis, and the series not being the draw it thought it was. Alonso flipped that notion upside down quite quickly, and it hasn't changed much since that day. IndyCar might not be the first choice series to every driver in the world, but it is attracting better talent.
Looking at the IndyCar entry list now, and especially this year's Indianapolis 500, the grid turns some heads. Someone good might miss the race, and someone will miss the race. Bumping has been regular of late. This year will likely be no different. We know at least one car will miss, but there is a good chance it will be two. Seven years ago, a decade ago, we were hopefully there might be a 34th entry just so qualifying could have meaning at the back of the grid. Now, we know there will be bumping, it is a matter of is it two cars or maybe three cars going home.
And we haven't gotten into the drivers' salaries yet. Colton Herta is making north of $7 million per season. Patricio O'Ward could earn about $4.2 million per season based on incentives. Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson are each reportedly making over $3 million a year. It wasn't that long ago where the best drivers weren't making more than $2 million or so a year. I am not sure how long teams can afford those salaries, but they are here now and they were complete lunacy not long ago.
If you were told ten years ago today, IndyCar would be pushing 30 full-time cars with McLaren on the grid and another European based team on the verge of joining while drivers were making over $5 million a year, and during that decade Fernando Alonso and Kyle Larson would each attempt the Indianapolis 500 while full-time drivers in Formula One and NASCAR respectively, and Jimmie Johnson would make a full-time switch to IndyCar, you would have thought IndyCar had reach the mountaintop and returned to the promised land of the pre-split, early 1990s.
It isn't the case that IndyCar has seen a popularity boom. Coincidentally, that is Formula One, but IndyCar has come a long way in a decade. There are still concerns, some we wish did not exist. People are still unhappy about something (long gap in the schedule, exhibition race at Thermal Club, Honda wishy-washy about continued participation in the series and the only answer likely being a spec engine package) but steps have been made. The level feels considerably higher in IndyCar than it was ten years ago.
On the surface, our past selves could not have fathomed some of the highlights of IndyCar's last decade, and we must acknowledge how far things have come.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Maverick Viñales, but did you know...
Sergio García won the Moto2 race from Austin ahead of American Joe Roberts. David Alonso won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.
Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup race from Texas. Sam Mayer won the Grand National Series race. Kyle Busch won the Truck race.
Oliver Rowland and Pascal Wehrlein split the Misano ePrix. Rowland was awarded victory in race one after António Félix da Costa was disqualified for using an ineligible throttle damper setting.
The #37 COOL Racing Oreca-Gibson of Ritomo Miyata, Malthe Jakobsen and Lorenzo Fluxá won the 4 Hours of Barcelona. The #8 Team Virage Ligier-Nissan of Julien Gerbi, Gillian Henrion and Bernardo Pinheiro won the LMP3 class. The #50 Formula Racing Ferrari of Conrad Laursen, Johnny Laursen and Nicklas Nielson won the GT3 class.
The #36 TGR Team au TOM’S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita won the Super GT race from Okayama. The #2 muta Racing INGING Toyota of Yuui Tsutsumi and Hibiki Tariq won in GT300.
Cooper Webb won the Supercross race from Foxborough, his fourth victory of the season. Haiden Deegan won the 250cc race, his second victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar finally returns with Long Beach. IMSA will tag along as well.
Formula One returns to China for the first time in five years.
NASCAR is at Talladega.
The FIA World Endurance Championship has its first race ever at Imola.
Supercars has its first race ever at Taupō.
World Superbike visits Assen.
The World Rally Championship makes a stop in Croatia.
Supercross has a round in Nashville.
