All but one of the lead lap cars made a pit stop. Patricio O'Ward stayed out. When the race restarted, we expected some fuel conservation. Instead, Colton Herta went all-out, and though he restarted fourth, third among the cars that stopped, Herta asserted himself as a man who was not going to pace himself to victory. In the final race of the season, Herta was leaving it all out on the track, cautions and extra pit stop be damned.
O'Ward made his final stop with 45 laps remaining, well within the window to the finish. It was a matter of would a caution catch him out and play into Herta and the other leaders' favor, or would the race stay green and put O'Ward in prime position to take an unexpected victory? The race stayed green, and Herta made his final stop with 26 laps remaining. O'Ward had the advantage on track, but Herta was on a mission.
Traffic played a role, and O'Ward was slowed as other lapped cars had fresher tires and were good on fuel. Herta erased a four-second deficit in no-time, but once lapped cars were cleared, O'Ward was still ahead.
It looked like O'Ward was in control, but catching the lapped car of Sting Ray Robb forced O'Ward up the track exiting turn two. Herta was able to keep the speed and get to the inside of Robb. The momentum allowed Herta to the inside of O'Ward into turn three and Herta powered away, winning the race, his first victory on an oval.
This was an oval victory due to come. Herta thinks he should have won the Indianapolis 500. That might be wishful thinking, but he probably should have won one of the Iowa races. If he didn't have to start 25th at Gateway, he might have had a say in that race. He likely should have won one of the Milwaukee races. This wasn't a race where it was clear who had the best car, but Herta had one of the best three cars, and he had a better car than O'Ward.
The ambitious move using Robb as a pick caps off what has been the best season of Herta's career. The victory got him second in the championship. He won twice after going over two years between victories. He had six podium finishes after having two podium finishes in the 25 races preceding the 2024 season. His ten top five finishes are a career-best for him.
It is easily forgotten Herta is only 24 years old. This was his sixth full-season in IndyCar. It hasn't been an easy road for someone who won his third career start days before turning 19 years old. You do that with a name like Herta, expectations get blown through the roof, rightfully or not. He had growing pains. He found speed, but Andretti Global went through a rough patch over the previous two seasons. The team re-brand and re-grouped ahead of 2024, and it had its best season in a few years. They are heading into 2025 on the right note. This year and victory could be the launching pad to the heights everyone has expected him to reach.
2. We will cover the championship here because it was decided when Will Power made a pit stop within the first 20 laps of the race due to a loose lap belt. The pit stop took five laps to secure Power in the car and that was a deficit Power would never be able to overcome to finish at least first or second. All Álex Palou had to do was ride around. Palou probably could have parked it and still won the championship.
It is quite unfathomable how ahead of the season finale with a chance at the championship, a team and driver could forget to make sure the seat belts are 100% fasten. Power likely was not going to win the championship today, but this is another mental lapse in a critical situation from the Australian. Lost championships in the finale defined the first part of Power's career. This didn't cost him a championship today, but it took him out of the fight before it even got started.
Palou wasn't as clean as he was last year when he finished eighth or better in every race, but he had 13 top five finishes. It is going to be difficult to beat a driver when he is in the top five in over 75% of the races. Palou doesn't need to win five or six races a year if he is going to have three runner-up finishes, one third-place finish, four fourth-place finishes and three fifth-place finishes. Two or three victories a season is good enough when the other races look like that.
Every other driver stubbed their toes or dropped the ball multiple times over the season. You cannot afford to do that when Álex Palou is in this series. Palou isn't going to over-drive the car. He isn't going to show up to a race weekend slow. He isn't making unnecessary moves. Calm decisions will prevail with Palou and it will be the winning decision nine times out of ten.
Three championships in five seasons. Not many drivers have three championships, period. Palou is only 27 years old. This is a driver that has 15 years, maybe even 20 years ahead of him in this series. He is already one of the all-time greats. The record book says so. He will only go higher from here.
3. Back to the race... Patricio O'Ward probably selected the right strategy, but Herta had enough of a head of steam to beat O'Ward to the checkered flag. If O'Ward runs the same strategy as everyone else maybe he finishes sixth or seventh. If it was a driver that wasn't Herta or if Herta had stayed out three or five laps longer before making his final stop, O'Ward is the winner.
It didn't end up in a victory, but O'Ward made the wise choice today.
This is kind of a theme of the 2024 IndyCar season. There were plenty of races this year where the first two finishers were battling in the closing laps and each driver had a different strategy get him to that moment. This was another case. You can say it didn't work for O'Ward in that he didn't win, but Herta had to go on the drive of his life combined with some help from traffic to win this race.
On the flip side, had a caution come out on lap 175, Herta would have been safe to make his final stop under caution with the rest of the leaders and O'Ward would have been trapped a lap down, but O'Ward had a strategy where he didn't have to consider fuel save. It was clear from the moment he selected it. There was no "should we save or should we go" doubt in the #5 Arrow McLaren team's mind. It went for it and it got them more than running as everyone else did.
4. Josef Newgarden rounded out the podium and he led a fair number of laps today, but this didn't feel like a Josef Newgarden race. It didn't feel like Newgarden was the man to beat. He probably had one of the best three cars along with Herta and the gentleman we will mention next, but Newgarden wasn't controlling this race. With the way the strategy worked, it was a race to pace yourself.
This was easily a three-stop race, three 53-lap stints to open the race would get you to the finish. The alternate tire compound didn't force cars to stop early. Both tires could get you through a full fuel run. With that the case, there was no need to push and once Newgarden was in front, he could maintain the pace. When it became an all-out race, Newgarden lost out to Herta. It seemed like Newgarden was pacing himself after the stop under the Ericsson caution, and that cost him.
It is a good end to an odd year. An Indianapolis 500 victory is phenomenal. Two victories on the season is low. The number of retirements he had and mental lapses and uncharacteristic driving defined his season and it was his worst year with Team Penske. He entered this season saying he was removing distractions and focusing on his driving, and then he had his worst year with the best organization in the series.
Newgarden must re-consider the changes he made last offseason during this offseason because he kept himself out of the championship battle and fell behind a number of drivers he was clearly ahead of the better part of the last decade.
5. It was a good recovery drive for Kyle Kirkwood, who started on pole position and led the first 53 laps before making his first pit stop. Unfortunately, Kirkwood was exiting pit lane when Felix Rosenqivst lost a right front tire and hit the barrier. It was not the end of the world as Kirkwood was only a lap down and he would be immediately waved back onto the lead lap. The problem is he went from first to 11th.
Kirkwood might have had the best car considering in that next stint he drove nearly into the top five. He was making passes when it wasn't the easiest conditions for passing. It is common to see cars start up front, look quick and then get shuffled back and be stuck in the middle of the field. Kirkwood went back and drove forward. That is the sign of a good car.
Kirkwood didn't get on a podium let alone win a race in 2024, but a year where he was constantly in the top five and top ten is a good sign. Two years ago, he couldn't convert speed into results to save himself. Last year, he won two races but still had off days. We didn't see many mistakes from Kirkwood this year. Growth is important to see. Combined with Andretti Global finding better form, Kirkwood should be feeling great for next year along with Herta.
6. It is a little brutal that Scott McLaughlin ended up third in the championship because he fell 39 points off Palou in the championship, and when you consider he lost 35 points for his disqualification from third at St. Petersburg, this should have been a race where McLaughlin was breathing down Palou's neck for the championship.
McLaughlin was not quite as boom-or-bust as Newgarden, but his results were either big win or off-day. Consider that after the disqualification, he was 26th at Long Beach due to a mechanical issue. Then he won at Barber Motorsports Park. He had a pair of sixth-place results in the Indianapolis races, but then he went 20th, third and 21st. It got better over the summer, but that kind of inconsistency will keep a driver from winning a championship when against Álex Palou.
That can be cleaned up, and McLaughlin can be a championship contender. He basically was this year. If Team Penske is not found in violation of the push-to-pass regulations in the season opener, McLaughlin has a shot at the title entering today. With how McLaughlin ran on ovals this season, being 11 points behind Palou entering this race would have favored McLaughlin.
McLaughlin outscored Palou by 11 points today. McLaughlin held the tiebreaker with three victories to Palou's two. The #3 Penske team is going to use this as motivation for next season. They were championship caliber, but they didn't lose the title because of their on-track form.
7. Most improved driver will go to Santino Ferrucci because he had 11 top ten finishes and finished ninth in the championship, the best championship finish for an A.J. Foyt Racing driver since Airton Daré in 2002. Ferrucci finished ahead of Alexander Rossi in the championship driving for Arrow McLaren. Enough said.
Nobody saw this season coming for Ferrucci and Foyt, not even with the technical alliance with Team Penske. It could not be much worse than last season, but top fifteen in the championship was realistic. Ninth with double-figure top ten finishes is remarkable. There is still work to do and it is hard to break into the next level. Christian Lundgaard was eighth in the championship last year and everyone was singing his and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's praises. Lundgaard and RLLR slipped this season and that group had much less fun.
Everyone believes the Foyt organization will continue to move forward, but every team will be making adjustments. This was a good year but we have two decades of Foyt futility telling us what this team's true form will be. One is happenstance. They need 2025 to at least be respectable to allow us to think this change is at least coincidental before embracing that it is a pattern.
8. I am going to cover the two Chip Ganassi Racing drivers in the top ten here to get us back on sequential order and because Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist tell a similar story. Armstrong was seventh and Lundqvist was eighth. Armstrong will finish 14th in the championship and Lundqvist in 16th. Both drivers do not have a deal for 2025 and there is one remaining opening at Ganassi as the team downsizes to three cars.
Two podium finishes are all that are boosting Lundqvist's season. Armstrong beat him in the same equipment over the entire season. Armstrong had one podium finish but he had better pace more times than not.
There were too many days where it felt like Lundqvist was under-performing in a Ganassi car. Two podium finishes but only four top ten finishes. Armstrong had four top five finishes and eight top ten finishes. This feels like a no-brainer. This isn't the case of a full-time driver against a part-time driver. We really aren't splitting hairs. If Ganassi wants the three best drivers in his car in 2025, the line-up should be Álex Palou, Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong.
9. David Malukas went the longest trying to stretch the fuel in those closing laps but he stopped with six laps remaining and he ended up finishing ninth. That is not representative of Malukas' race. He should have been at least in the top five, if not on the podium. He looked good with Meyer Shank Racing and Malukas is likely the main reason the #66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda made the Leader Circle positions. This car missed the Leader Circle last year. MSR could not afford two years outside the Leader Circle for one of its cars.
He still looked like David Malukas. He is good on ovals, but he also had eight finishes outside the top ten in ten starts. One of those isn't on him (Gateway), but he must improve putting full races together. Everyone is high on A.J. Foyt Racing and thinks Malukas is going to shine there but it wasn't long ago we were all excited about Conor Daly and Carlos Muñoz joining A.J. Foyt Racing, and how did that turn out?
10. Speaking of Conor Daly! A tenth-place finish seals off the run into the Leader Circle spots for the #78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet. What is Daly's reward for such a drive? Nothing. He gets nothing for getting a team $1 million.
In soccer, there is this thing call the "new manager bounce" and when a team is in danger of relegation, a new manager will be brought in and that experience improves results immediately. Games that would have been losses turn into draws and draws turn into victory. That team gets more points than anticipated and it saves a season. Some managers are known as relegation specialists because they are able to guide teams out of that danger.
Daly filled that role, but will it get him more? Probably not. Sponsors are not attracted to a guy who can get a car that is running 18th and have it finish tenth. He doesn't have money backing him, no team is dying to support him, this is what Daly's career is, and it isn't changing. It is harsh but true.
Seeing what he did at JHR, I would love to see Daly get a shot elsewhere and with a strong veteran leading a team. He has never had that. I wish he had stayed at Dale Coyne Racing in 2017 and ran with Sébastien Bourdais. I wish Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing would have called for the #30 entry and put him with Graham Rahal and Christian Lundgaard. Daly has been leading teams in the back half of the field his entry career. You can only do so much when you are also behind, but he does more than most in those situations. He should get something greater at least once in his career.
11. We spoke about Álex Palou so we are going to run through the rest of the grid in team pairings starting with Ed Carpenter Racing because Rinus VeeKay was 12th. This was a staggering second half of the season from VeeKay. He finished in the top fifteen in the final eight races. He had four finishes in the top fifteen in the first nine races. I don't know what else he can prove at ECR.
Christian Rasmussen was 14th and he kept the #20 Chevrolet in a Leader Circle spot. I think Rasmussen had a good rookie year but clearly has areas he must work on. I don't know if ECR has the budget to keep both drivers or if there will be at least one change. We aren't sure what Ed Carpenter himself is doing. If it wasn't for Dale Coyne Racing, ECR would be the biggest question mark heading into the 2025 season.
12. Speaking of Dale Coyne Racing! Jack Harvey matched his best result of the season with a 13th-place finish. Harvey got lucky in this race because he had not made a pit stop when the Rosenqvist caution came out, but Harvey was already a lap down. However, he waited, got waved back onto the lead lap and then he made his first pit stop and restarted I think 13th and on the lead lap despite being lapped on the track during the first stint.
Harvey got a break today. I don't know how much more of a leash he has in IndyCar. It feels like he is being phased out. We know what we can get from Jack Harvey. He likely still has something in the tank. I don't know if he can repeat the races we saw early at Meyer Shank Racing. It wasn't long ago, he felt like an eventual race winner. Now, he would be luck to be full-time in 2025.
Katherine Legge washed up the racetrack and hit the wall before reaching halfway. If you had been told on January 1st that Legge would start seven IndyCar races this year, you likely would not have believed it. She brought money and kept the lights on, but Coyne needs something greater than six drivers rotating through one entry.
13. Two Arrow McLaren drivers finished outside the top ten. Alexander Rossi went off strategy after the Legge caution. Rossi stayed out while the rest of the field stopped. It got him track position but it did not cycle into his favor due to the Ericsson caution. Rossi was still in position for a top ten result, but it didn't work out. Strategy was not a strong suit for the #7 Chevrolet team this year.
Nolan Siegel was behind from his practice accident. Siegel was 18th to close out his unexpected rookie season. Focus will be on his first full campaign in 2025. It wasn't the worst set of results in the world, but I think we must ask if we have seen enough from Siegel in a little over a season of Indy Lights and a half-season of IndyCar to think he is ready for this or is this another young driver McLaren is rushing to the top level?
14. Romain Grosjean was 16th in the race. Grosjean ended up 17th in the championship. Yeah. I don't know how high the bar could have been for a Grosjean-Juncos Hollinger Racing combination. This is probably where they should have finished. Do they want to do it again next year? We all think so but this could implode next season. It isn't going to be easy. Results will remain hard to find.
15. Scott Dixon was 17th today and he never really ran better than the middle of the top ten. I don't know if he was protecting Palou or his car didn't have it. This was a strange weekend for Dixon. He will finish sixth in the championship, which many will be shocked how bad that is and think it is the end of the world and Dixon is done for.
Sixth is still sixth in the championship and far better than most. The man has finished inside the top six of the championship in 19 consecutive seasons. Dixon can have one off-season and that off-season be sixth.
Kyffin Simpson's rookie season ended with a 22nd-place finish. It wasn't the worst rookie season in the world and Simpson was not a hazard out there, but I don't know how much higher his ceiling is. He is good in LMP2 cars, but his single-seater results are were not impressive in the junior series. He will turn 20 years old next month, but I don't think we have a diamond in the rough.
16. If you are wondering when are we going to talk about Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, it is now because their drivers finished 19th, 21st and 23rd respectively with Christian Lundgaard ahead of Pietro Fittipaldi and Graham Rahal.
I was optimistic at the end of last season that RLLR could make a step forward in 2024 because Lundgaard was eighth in the championship despite the team's woes, especially on ovals. Rahal had good days as well and probably should have won the summer race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. RLLR arguably did better than Arrow McLaren last season. In the 2024 season finale, Dale Coyne Racing was better in this race than all three RLLR cars. That is a real blow.
Lundgaard is leaving and the sense is he is happy to be moving on. For all the pace he has shown, he was carrying this team and RLLR was holding him back. Arrow McLaren has its faults, but he will not be struggling to run 17th on an oval.
Rahal has bounced back before, but this is different than ten years ago. I don't see 2025 looking like what 2015 was for Rahal. He just has to get back to being a consistent top ten finisher.
I don't know if it is worth bringing Fittipaldi back. It feels like two drivers are changing, but more must change than that. The driver behind the wheel can only do so much.
17. That leaves us with two Swedes and we will cover them together. Marcus Ericsson hit the wall when competing for a top five spot. Felix Rosenqvist's race ended before he could even make a pit stop due to a tire failure while running in the top five.
I think it is a disappointing season for both, but not horrendously bad and positives can be found for both.
Ericsson took a step back from Ganassi to Andretti Global. He could not expect to be sixth in the championship again especially against two established drivers at that team. He was snake-bitten. The oval results were not indicative of his ability. Ericsson was caught in an opening lap accident in the Indianapolis 500, he and Newgarden got together at Milwaukee when running in the top five, and then today's accident happened. Ericsson must clean up the results, but he had competitive days, and Ericsson is a reason Andretti Global is in a better position at the end of 2024 compared to the end of 2023.
Rosenqvist showed great pace but he must do better turning qualifying pace into race results. Too often was he starting in the top five or the top ten and then ended up finishing eight spots worse than he started. That has been a problem for Rosenqvist his entire career. It doesn't help that one of Meyer Shank Racing's weak points since joining IndyCar has been strategy and putting together complete races.
Meyer Shank Racing should be happy about this season. It went significantly better than last year, but this team likely should have had a podium finish or two. Rosenqvist has the ability to win races. They will be getting technical support from Ganassi next year. The pressure only increases with such a partnership. The results must get better.
18. A quick word on Nashville, it had a respectable turn out for a race that was not receiving much excitement. If you watched the previous eight Nashville races in the lead up to IndyCar's return, you cannot be surprised with how this race played out. A single-groove, filthy high side is what Nashville is known for. That wasn't going to change after a decade-plus away. The outside was a little more usable, but not a significant jump to where cars could run side-by-side through the corners after a 75-lap green flag run.
The alternate tire should only last 30 laps. You cannot bring an alternate tire to an oval and have it last as long as a fuel stint. No tire compound should last as long as a fuel stint. Have we learned nothing from Iowa prior to its hack-job re-pave and Milwaukee two weeks ago? In this case, the alternate tire should have been junk after 30 laps and put teams in a bind to either run 20 laps holding their breath or making a pit stop and get some comfort of fresh tires but being out of sequence on fuel.
It really is not that hard to have a good oval race for IndyCar if you think about it, even on a difficult circuit like Nashville. Make it so no one can run a stint on fuel, and tires dictate the race. That's all it takes!
Firestone should take whatever tire life cycle it has and cut it in half, or at least a third. If a tire can do a 55-60 lap fuel stint, cut it so it is junk by lap 35-40 and put the teams in a bind. I know it looks bad to have tires that do not last but motorsports in 2024 isn't about longevity. Longevity mattered when there was tire competition. Everyone is on the same tire. If they are all doing the same thing with the same tire it is not compelling. Make it so teams must conserve and strategize how they run a race on rubber.
No one is tuning in because Firestone tires can do 75 laps with less than a second of fall off over a stint and they could do 40 laps more without losing another half-second. Make the tire wear compelling and add stress to the teams and drivers.
19. We still had a grandstand finish to end the season. For most of this race, it was not thrilling. There was a 110-lap portion where it fell into a lull. There was a good 50-lap portion to start and then a quizzical final 45 laps or so where we weren't sure which strategy would play out to win the race, tand you had two drivers who took two different roads to get there battling in the closing laps and it required a pass on track to get the win.
What else can you ask for? After 16 years away, the first race back at Nashville Superspeedway blew the doors off any of the first eight held at the facility. It can get better next year but it should be recognized this was a good race.
20. Another season is behind us, but this is IndyCar and there will be plenty to speak about. This season shattered a lot of people. Many were upset at some point this year for a plethora of reasons, and though IndyCar is not much different than it was five or six years ago when there was general positivity over the direction of the series and the product on track, I think people are looking for a spark that has not been there for quite some time. It hasn't change, but not changing is part of the problem.
You would think looking forward to a record-breaking new television deal for IndyCar next season would have people excited for what is to come, but many need more than that this offseason. It feels like big moves should be made for the sake of everyone involved. This should be a turning of the page.
The series, though only under Penske Entertainment ownership since 2020, has been run the same way for over a decade now. A lot has changed since 2020, and IndyCar has been late to the game when it comes to ambition. People see that and want more than status quo. Many other entities are taking risks and it feels like IndyCar is only falling behind.
We can put to bed many questions about the 2024 season on-track, but there are many off-track concerns that should be addressed this autumn and winter, and in typical IndyCar fashion, there is no certainty anything will change.
