We move a day closer to the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season, and now 31 days, a month from the first race, we move to a team that ended 2025 with a surprise victory. Ed Carpenter Racing was hoping to find a spark with a new driver lineup, as the team focused on a pair of drivers while Ed Carpenter stepped back to only run the Indianapolis 500.
Results did not come easy, but things did take a turn. The team made strides late in the season, and it ended with unexpected success in Milwaukee. It might have been more than the team could have hoped for, but it showed how high the team's potential is. Now it must continue on that run.
At A Glance... It must prove the end of last season wasn't a fluke
I don't think anyone believed Ed Carpenter Racing would win a race during the 2025 season. Not only did it, but its victory came at the hands of its sophomore driver. Over half the teams didn't win in IndyCar last season. Many notable names went winless as well. Ed Carpenter Racing was not one of them, and it ended up exceeding expectations.
That only means the bar is higher for 2026. It is only going to get harder.
Ed Carpenter Racing ended on a strong note. Christian Rasmussen won. Alexander Rossi ended with three consecutive top ten finishes, two of which were top five finishes. Overall, the season left room for improvement, but ECR was moving in the right direction. It achieved more but it didn't really perform higher than where the team has been for the last few seasons. We need to see more.
Rasmussen won, but he did start the season with five consecutive finishes outside the top ten. Rossi had a good start to the season and a good finish, but he had a middle where he was struggled and he was not a factor in races. In turn, ECR remained solidly in the middle of the field. Not the worst team on the grid, but it was also not a threat for the championship top ten, and it wasn't a regular contender. The team was one fluke caution due to a sun shower away from not even being close to victory. While it was a great day, Milwaukee is misleading.
There are plenty of areas where this team can improve. For most of the season, it did not feel like Rossi could do better than seventh or eighth on his best days. Rasmussen had good oval races, but his road and street course form remains lacking.
Results are going to need to come early, and they need to be more consistent. Neither driver can afford going five or six races without top ten finishes, something both drivers did last season. Rossi had a seven-race run without a top ten finish. ECR cannot afford that again.
The 2025 season was encouraging. Both ECR drivers cracked the top fifteen in the championship. It has felt ECR has been stuck in 13th and could not get a second car into the discussion as well. It is there, and the next goal is the championship top ten. It is not unobtainable, but to get there ECR must make an actual step forward and not rely on a lucky combination of a caution, fresh tires and a few drivers not making a pit stop to make everyone believe ECR is a contender.
The numbers will tells us if ECR is better or not.
2025 Ed Carpenter Racing Review
Wins: 1 (Milwaukee)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 6th (Thermal Club, Portland)
Championship Finishes: 13th (Christian Rasmussen), 15th (Alexander Rossi), 30th (Ed Carpenter)
Alexander Rossi - #20 Java House/Splenda Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
25: Race podium drought, the longest of his IndyCar career
13.764: Average finish in 2025, Rossi's worst in season
0: Top five starts in 2025, Rossi's fewest in a season since his rookie season in 2016
What is the best possible outcome?
Even if he is just regularly cracking top ten and not really in the conversation much for top five finishes, Rossi can be ninth or tenth in the championship, where was living for the previous five seasons before joining ECR. ECR has what it takes for Rossi to get seven or eight finishes between seventh and tenth and then get a few sneaky top five finishes, most likely on ovals. Those are plausible results, and if the pace is good enough Rossi could take another surprise victory for the team.
What is realistic?
It does feel like the ceiling for Rossi is 12th, where ECR has been stuck for the last decade. We have not seen the killer flawlessness from Rossi to think he can snag a bunch of top five finishes, and we know Rossi is not a special driver who can master the alternate tire compound to his advantage. He is a particular driver and if things do not line up for him, he struggles to be competitive.
ECR isn't the team that can give Rossi that particular car. Andretti was the only team who could give Rossi what he wanted, and that only worked for two seasons. There are going to be days where Rossi hits his limit early and he will be fortunate to finish seventh or eighth. That is not going to be the norm, and in half the races he will be outside the top ten and in the other half they will go in his favor with a few brighter spots. If he can maximize those bright spots or ECR finds something special, he can crack the championship top ten.
Christian Rasmussen - #21 Splenda/Java House Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
21.2: Average finish in road and street course races in 2024
17.454: Average finish in road and street course races in 2025
2: Top ten starts in 31 career starts
What is the best possible outcome?
Matching his 2025 results. While Rasmussen didn't run all the races in 2024, he did run all the road and street courses. Now, he got to run them all a second time, and things were not much better. That doesn't mean they cannot improve in year three, but let's not kid ourselves to think if it wasn't working in the first two seasons with ECR, it isn't going to be that much different in year three. If it isn't going to be that much different, the results will be the same.
The hope is he is even better on ovals, and maybe he doesn't snag a victory, but if he has three or four top five finishes it will lift his championship finish and possibly be enough to sneak him into the championship top ten, but likely it will keep him around 13th or 14th.
What is realistic?
Not everyone can get better, and Rasmussen's best two results in 2025 were a third at Gateway when a late pit cycle jumbled up the order, and Rasmussen overcame a botched pit stop and botched strategy to steal that result, and the aforementioned Milwaukee victory where a freak rain shower on a sunny day set up the dominoes for Rasmussen to take fresh tires and somehow pull off crazy passes on a restart before being able to take advantage of Álex Palou on worn tires to win the race.
Those things are not going to happen again. He probably should have been in the top ten at Gateway, but not third. He definitely should have been in the top ten at Milwaukee, but maybe even the top five. Take 40 points away from Rasmussen and he drops to 17th in the championship. It will likely be a greater fight just to remain in the top fifteen for Rasmussen than for him to push the championship top ten.
The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday March 1 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage will begin at noon Eastern.
