2025 IndyCar Team Preview: A.J. Foyt Racing

As we inch closer to the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg, we move onto the second team preview and a team that far exceeded expectations in 2024. 

A.J. Foyt Racing had not placed a driver in the top fifteen in the championship in over a decade and it had not had a driver finish in the championship top ten since 2002. With Santino Ferrucci, A.J. Foyt Racing ended up ninth in the championship and pulled out for more top ten finishes than expected. In 2023, the team had one top ten finish. Last year, Ferrucci had 11 top ten finishes. Now, Ferrucci looks to improve and the team will have a new second driver that should lift the competition. 

In 46 days, we will find out if 2024 was a fluke for the Foyt organization or if the team has raised its game for sustained competitiveness.

At First Glance... Results should be better

No offense to Sting Ray Robb but David Malukas is an upgrade. After two seasons at Dale Coyne Racing and a partial season as a mid-year replacement at Meyer Shank Racing, we know Malukas has bursts of speed and can run at the front of the pack without needing strategy to get there. With another driver that can bring the pace, Foyt should be better.

That doesn't mean Foyt will finish higher than it did and best the ninth-place championship finish Ferrucci achieved in 2024. As much as Foyt succeeded, it was all one-sided. Ferrucci did all the heavy lifting. The team could get better because the gap between the two drivers level out. Foyt could end up with more top ten finishes as an organization, let say 13 or 14, but it could come at the expense of Ferrucci. It could be a seven-six split or a seven-seven split between the drivers. Better for the team, but a slight dip for one of its drivers. 

As celebrated as Foyt's 2024 season was it is only one season. Prior to 2024, Foyt had not had anything remotely close to a good season since 2013, the year of its most recent victory. Even with all that went well in 2013 with Takuma Sato, who led the championship entering the Indianapolis 500 that year, Sato still finished 17th in the championship. 

IndyCar has a knack for the middle of the pack to rotate. It wasn't that long ago Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had two top ten championship finishers and Dale Coyne Racing was winning races and had a top ten championship finisher. It has been difficult for any team that is not Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Global or Arrow McLaren to have sustain success. A team might have a good season or two, but it has yet to last for anyone else. 

Much of Foyt's improvement has been linked to the Team Penske technical partnership, and that is certainly a plus, but the team did lose lead engineer Mike Cannon to the new Prema organization. For every step forward, there can be an equal or greater step back. It should not be a complete slide. 

For all his faults, Malukas finds a way to have good days. Considering what the team produced with the second car last year, anything more than one top ten finish will be a step in the right direction. Foyt should be more competitive on road and street courses. Malukas has shown promise on ovals with his best days coming at Gateway. That will only help the Foyt organization, however, it must be openly acknowledged the short comings. Malukas is celebrated, but in nearly three seasons, 44 starts, he has three top five finishes, 11 top ten finishes and his career average finish is 15.386. 

Many believe Malukas is a future Penske driver, but he must be better and this will be his best chance to prove himself. Ferrucci will feel the need to back up last year. Foyt is going to have two motivated drivers in an organization that must at least match 2024 and cannot afford a dip. This team should not fall off in 2025 even if it does not quite match what we saw the year before. 

2024 A.J. Foyt Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 4th (Milwaukee I & II)

Poles: 1 (Portland)

Championship Finishes: 9th (Santino Ferrucci), 20th (Sting Ray Robb)

David Malukas - #4 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

5: Retirements in ten starts last season with Meyer Shank Racing. 

8.7: Average starting position last season.

16.0: Average finishing position last season.

What does a championship season look like for him?

Malukas exploding on ovals. It is an Indianapolis 500 victory followed by a victory at Gateway and a sweep of the Iowa doubleheader and then a victory at Milwaukee and Nashville to close the season. 

With six oval victories, Malukas will have at least 306 points and only need about about 244 more points to win the championship. That is around 22 points per the 11 road and street course races, an average finish of about ninth. Malukas doesn't quite hit that, but he is respectable and piles up top ten finishes.

There are a few top five finishes on the road and street course races, and he finishes in the top ten in vast majority of them. Malukas benefits from other drivers not being as clinical on road and street courses as he is on ovals. With no other driver winning more than two races in the season, Malukas does enough to pull out the championship with a victory in the finale being icing on the cake. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Somewhere between tenth and 17th in the championship, a wide range, but we could see Malukas join Foyt and become the best in the team, get the most top ten finishes among the two drivers, run respectable and raise his level to higher than it has been in IndyCar while not winning a race. Or we could see Malukas continue to be a driver that averages a 15th-place finish with two or three really good races, another two or three plain good races and then is rather anonymous for eight to ten races. 

There is also the world where Foyt isn't as good as 2024 and the best the team can do is 15th in the championship. 

From what we have seen from Malukas is spurts but nothing consistently outstanding. He has pulled off some impressive drives in less than stellar equipment, but that has not been at any greater rate than some of the drivers that preceded him. 

In three seasons, we have seen Malukas hit a snag and have a spell where he isn't noticed each year. There is bound to be a four or five-race stretch where we are not thinking about Malukas. That hasn't been a problem when he has been the best driver in his team. However, if his teammate is running respectably at that time, it will not look good.

Santino Ferrucci - #14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

13: Times finishing better than his starting position in 2024.

4: Consecutive top ten finishes to end the 2024 season.

9,639: Days between the last time an A.J. Foyt Racing driver had at least five consecutive top ten finishes (Kenny Bräck on October 11, 1998 at Las Vegas) and the 2025 St. Petersburg season opener. 

What does a championship season look like for him?

Something similar to what Malukas' dream championship season looks like: Incredible results on ovals and respectable results on the road and street courses. 

It likely would include an Indianapolis 500 victory plus three or four more victories, likely all coming on ovals. He would finish in the top five of every oval race and have a strong cushion to the rest of the field. 

Ferrucci's road and street course resuts might not match that dominance but they are a step forward. Days that were eighth or ninth-place finishes last year become fourth or fifth-pace finishes. It is consistency that cannot be matched even by the likes of Álex Palou and Patricio O'Ward. Every race sees Ferrucci at the front even if he is not leading the way and it is something the rest cannot beat.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Somewhere between how he did last year and a slight step back. Nobody saw Ferrucci and Foyt producing those kind of results entering 2024. It will be a tough act to follow. The team should still have good days, especially on ovals. It would surprise no one if Ferrucci found a way to win at Gateway, Iowa or Milwaukee. Even Indianapolis is a plausible place for triumph. 

The toughest part will be breaking into that next level. For all the good results, the team had only two top five finishes, both were at Milwaukee. The team ran well on road and street courses but it was mostly breaking into finishes of eighth, ninth or tenth. Six of his 11 top ten finishes were in one of those three positions. He was 11th on the road in the opening race at St. Petersburg and benefitted from two Penske cars being disqualified. Such gifts likely will not come in 2025.

There will be competition that raises its game. Meyer Shank Racing is a greater threat with Chip Ganassi Racing as its technical partner. Marcus Ericsson will look to improve in year two with Andretti. Christian Lundgaard is with Arrow McLaren. Ed Carpenter Racing will look to do more with Alexander Rossi. These are five entries/drivers Ferrucci finished ahead of last year but all could be ahead of Ferrucci in 2025. That is the nature of the IndyCar Series. The middle is tight and a handful of results swinging in one direction can take a driver out of the championship top ten to know fault of his own. 

Ferrucci should push for the championship top ten, but probably come down a little bit from the 2024 results. A few top five finishes on ovals will boast his efforts with about seven to nine top ten finishes.

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.

IndyCar Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2024 Season

We have moved into the final half of our IndyCar Wrap-Ups and we are starting to click off the drivers that finished in the top ten of the championship. Little did we expect to wait this long to get to A.J. Foyt Racing, but the team had its best season in a long time. Victory did not occur, but for the first time in 22 years, the team had a driver finish in the top ten of the championship. Results were a little one-sided in this organization, but the first year of the Team Penske technical partnership yielded great fruit.

Santino Ferrucci

Year two with A.J. Foyt Racing could not have gone much better for Ferrucci. After a year where he was third in the Indianapolis 500 but that was his only top ten finish in the entire 2023 season, Ferrucci became a regular top ten finisher in 2024. He showed pace at many different circuits with ovals still being his comfort zone. He wasn't closer to victory, but he was more competitive across the board.

What objectively was his best race?
Ferrucci's only two top five finishes were both fourth place finishes and both were at Milwaukee. In the first race, Ferrucci went from 19th to fourth and was making up five to six spots on every restart. In the second race, he went from 12th to fourth, again making aggressive passes all over the place.

What subjectively was his best race?

It is probably the first Milwaukee race, but the second one also deserves a mention. In both races, he kept taking the outside and flying pass other cars. Barber Motorsports Park also deserves a mention because Ferrucci went off strategy at that race and ran a three-stop strategy. It saw him lead 14 laps and he finished seventh in a race where if he ran a two-stop strategy he likely finishes 15th at best. 

What objectively was his worst race?
At the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Ferrucci was 27th, retiring after completing only 55 laps after he damaged his own car when running Romain Grosjean of the road. Ferrucci's aggressive was his own downfall in this race.

What subjectively was his worst race?

It is the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but some of the antics carried over the entire season. In the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, it was pretty deliberate the driving he did to Grosjean, and this was after the two had a run-in during practice. It was a theme this season where Ferrucci was stepping on toes in practice and unnecessarily so. He ended up having a good season, but there were still things where Ferrucci could work on. 

Santino Ferrucci's 2024 Statistics

Championship Position: 9th (367 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 11
Laps Led: 21
Poles: 1
Fast Sixes: 2
Fast Twelves: 3
Average Start: 14.764
Average Finish: 10.941

Sting Ray Robb

Expectations were not that high for Robb's sophomore season. After failing to score a top ten finish and never starting inside the top twenty as a rookie for Dale Coyne Racing, minimal gains were expected. Robb had some rough days and repeated many of his 2023 performances, but he did make strides in other areas, though was still well off his Foyt teammate.

What objectively was his best race?
Robb got his first career top ten finish at Gateway Motorsports Park. He was ninth after starting 24th, and his first career top ten finish came in the 30th start of his career.

What subjectively was his best race?

It is Gateway, though this ninth-place finish wasn't all due to a phenomenal drive from Robb. Robb benefitted from the misfortune of others. Patricio O'Ward lost his engine early. Marcus Ericsson had mechanical problems. Kyle Kirkwood had damage after contact with Conor Daly and Romain Grosjean. David Malukas, Will Power, Alexander Rossi and Jack Harvey all were caught in accidents. Robb probably should have finished 15th or 16th but he kept his nose clean.

Robb's Indianapolis 500 should also get a mention because he finished 16th, but he went off-strategy early in an attempt to pull off some unthinkable strategy to leap ahead of the front runners. It put him in the lead and at the front for a bit, where he held his own, but as the race played out, he settled into the middle of the field.

What objectively was his worst race?
Robb had an accident at Barber Motorsports Park leave him 26th.

What subjectively was his worst race?

Top ten finish aside, this year was a slight improvement from 2023 from Robb, and he didn't have many horrible days. Barber is probably his worst race in terms of on-track performance, but he didn't have many other races where he made notable mistakes. He did have two spins in the second Milwaukee race. 

Sting Ray Robb's 2024 Statistics

Championship Position: 20th (185 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 1
Laps Led: 31
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 23.882
Average Finish: 19.176

An Early Look Ahead

There will be a slight change in the Foyt line in 2025, as Ferrucci will stay but David Malukas will join the organization and take over the #41 Chevrolet from Robb. 

Expectations are high and might have unreasonably shot through the roof. 

Ferrucci had a great season by Foyt's standards. He set a personal-best for top ten finishes in a season. He won a pole position at Portland. He finished better than his starting position in 13 of 17 races. He did something no Foyt driver had done since 2002, finishing in the top ten of the championship. Foyt hasn't had the greatest list of drivers ever, but it has had some good names. None of Vitor Meira, Mike Conway, Takuma Sato, Tony Kanaan nor Sébastien Bourdais could do it. Ferrucci did.

It appears the alliance with Team Penske has benefitted A.J. Foyt Racing, but every other team will be making improvements into 2025. Chip Ganassi Racing will focus in on its three cars after spreading resources over five teams. Andretti Global is coming off its best season in a few years, and Marcus Ericsson is bound to rebound. Meyer Shank Racing is now in cahoots with Ganassi and that lineup has only gotten better with Marcus Armstrong joining Felix Rosenqvist. Arrow McLaren added Christian Lundgaard. Alexander Rossi moved to Ed Carpenter Racing. 

It will take a lot of work just to get back to ninth in 2025 for Ferrucci and Foyt. Let's not forget Lundgaard was eighth in 2023, was the surprise of that season, and then he and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing came back down to earth in 2024. It was not a disastrous season for Lundgaard and RLLR, but it wasn't as good as the year before.

We do not have a long track record of sustained success for Foyt. Prior to 2024, Foyt had gone four consecutive years without a driver finishing in the top fifteen in the championship. Ferrucci was only the third Foyt driver since 2012 to finish in the top fifteen in the championship, and that isn't including 2013, the most recent year a Foyt driver won a race and was leading the championship entering the Indianapolis 500 with Sato. 

Excitement is understandable, but history tells us to settle down. 

Even with Malukas coming in, we should adjust emotions accordingly. For all the buzz Malukas has generated in three seasons in IndyCar, his results haven't been as flawless as they have been made out to be. 

Malukas might have been on the path to a podium finish at Gateway, but his average points per start this year was only 14.8. That would have put him 18th in the championship, practically level with Graham Rahal. It actually down from Malukas' first two seasons when he averaged 17.941 points and 15.588 points per start. 

Head-to-head with Felix Rosenqvist over the final ten races of 2024 with Meyer Shank Racing, Rosenqvist beat Malukas 6-4 in races and 7-3 in qualifying. They were nearly identical in average finish with Rosenqvist having the slight edge at 15.8 to Malukas' 16th. Malukas did have the edge in qualifying at 8.7 to Rosenqvist's 8.9. 

There were positive signs from Malukas, but in three seasons his entire career is built upon three Gateway races. That should not make up for the ten finishes outside the top twenty in 44 career starts. He has finished outside the top fifteen in 21 of those starts. Malukas only has 11 top ten finishes in his career. He should be an improvement over Robb, but let's pump the brakes before thinking A.J. Foyt Racing is about to have two drivers finish in the top ten of the championship and each will be race winners. We have plenty of evidence to suggest that is unlikely no matter what fantasy we can create in our heads.

2024 IndyCar Team Preview: A.J. Foyt Racing

Thirty-two days remain between us and the 2024 IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg. Things were better for A.J. Foyt Racing in 2023. Not great, but better, especially considering the team was third in the Indianapolis 500 and showed legitimate pace that could have won the race. However, the season is more than the Indianapolis 500. One great day in May can do a lot for an organization, but 16 uncompetitive days are a more accurate sign of where this team stands.

At First Glance... This is a test for the drivers

Late last season, it was announced A.J. Foyt Racing and Team Penske had agreed to a technical partnership supplying the Foyt team with dampers and providing engineering support. For a team that has long been in the cellar and behind the rest of the teams in the series, this is a shot in the arm for the Foyt organization. 

Now, it is on the drivers.

These new parts and support will lift the team up to a certain level. It isn't going to take Foyt from 22nd to second on the grid, but it should be a boost. It should help the drivers. It is on the drivers to perform. 

Last year, neither Foyt driver averaged a top 18 finish. There is very little room to go down, but there is a great amount to room to move up into. Can either of its drivers make that move?

Santino Ferrucci stood out as Indianapolis, as he has been accustomed to do on a yearly basis. His results elsewhere were reasonable for Foyt. He did have a few events where he did much better than expected, 11th at Long Beach and 16th at Road America after qualifying 11th are two examples, but he couldn't crack the top twenty at Iowa. He was outside the top twenty at eight races. 

Sting Ray Robb did not impress anyone during his rookie season driving for Dale Coyne Racing. Robb had 12 finishes outside the top twenty last season. He didn't have a lead lap finish until the 13th race of the season. He didn't have a top fifteen finish until the final race of the season at Laguna Seca, where he was 12th. 

Robb is here mostly because of money, but Benjamin Pedersen had worse results than Robb driving this second Foyt entry last year. There were three drivers between them in the championship. Any change from Pedersen was likely going to be an improvement. 

Expectations must be properly set for the Foyt organization. The team isn't going to go from 22nd to second, but this is a team that has had only two driver finish in the top fifteen in the championship since the introduction of the DW12 chassis in 2012. The team hasn't had a top ten championship finisher since 2002. 

For Ferrucci, fighting for the top fifteen feels practical. In the Road to Indy, Robb improved in each year he returned to a series. We know he can grow. Growing a significant amount in IndyCar will be his greatest challenge yet. 

The equipment will be there. These will not be Penske cars outright, but they should be better than what the team had in previous seasons. If the results are stagnant from 2023, it will say more about the drivers, and it will likely lead to some changes come 2025.

2023 A.J. Foyt Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 3rd (Indianapolis 500)

Poles: 0

Best Start: 4th (Indianapolis 500)

Championship Finishes: 19th (Santino Ferrucci), 27th (Benjamin Pedersen)

Santino Ferrucci - #14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

17: Average finish on ovals in 2023

18.2: Average finish on street courses in 2023

19.857: Average finish on road courses in 2023

What does a championship season look like for him?

The Penske parts works wonders from the start and Ferrucci starts with a surprising top ten run in St. Petersburg. Another top ten follows at Long Beach. There is a dip at Barber Motorsports Park, but he is back in the top ten on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. 

In the Indianapolis 500, this time Ferrucci wins the late battle and comes out ahead of the rest of the field in a somewhat surprising victory. There will be a hangover at Detroit, and Road America will only be a little better, but he is back with a top five at Laguna Seca. A victory in a wet Mid-Ohio race bolsters his confidence before he finishes on the podium and in the top five in the two Iowa race. He closes his pre-Olympic break run with a top ten at Toronto. 

Returning from the Olympic break, Ferrucci wins Gateway, he is top ten in Portland, one Milwaukee race he is just outside the top ten, but he cracks the top five in the other. At Nashville, he needs to come up big and he finishes second, but trouble for others means Ferrucci comes from behind and takes a stunning championship by a few points.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Better but still not extravagant. This could be a season where Ferrucci has three or four top ten finishes. His average finish gets a two or three position bump, and he could get into the top fifteen in the championship. That will be tough. His season lives and dies with the Indianapolis 500. It seems like A.J. Foyt Racing has it set up that way. Ferrucci has five top ten finishes in five Indianapolis 500 starts. Nobody has ever started an Indianapolis 500 career with six consecutive top ten finishes. History is not on his side. Though, a great Indianapolis 500 might not matter.

He was third in last season's Indianapolis 500, with a handful of qualifying points to boot, and he was still only 19th in the championship. Give him 15 more points, the difference between a victory and third, and he would have still only finished 18th in the championship. Even if he had three more top ten finishes, netting him another extra 15-25 points, that still might not be better than 16th or 17th. 

Sting Ray Robb - #41 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

0: Races started in the top 20 last season

24.235: Average starting position in 2023, the worst in IndyCar

22.176: Average finish in 2023, the second worst in IndyCar

What does a championship season look like for him?

A flu-bug runs rampant through the IndyCar paddock for the entire season. It is a bug that keeps a driver out for two months at a time. Once one guy gets it, it spreads through a team. It affects everyone but Robb. He is the only driver not to catch it. With every other driver missing anywhere from six to ten races at a time, and with it hitting drivers right as race weekends start, Robb is competing in depleted fields and allows he to amass more points than if the entire grid had been healthy. Due to Robb being the only driver to complete all 17 races and no other driver completing more than 11 races, Robb takes the championship despite not winning a race nor finishing on the podium all season.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Top twenty feels like a stretch. Robb was 23rd last year and 30 points behind Devlin DeFrancesco in 22nd. Robb was 67 points short of 20th last year. Moving from Dale Coyne Racing to A.J. Foyt Racing might be a marginal improvement, especially with the Penske alliance, but it isn't necessarily a 67-point improvement. The IndyCar grid is tough and at least six full-time drivers are going to finish outside the top twenty. 

Nineteen of the 22 drivers that finished ahead of Robb last year are returning, but Linus Lundqvist will now be full-time and driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, Pietro Fittipaldi is in the third Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry, and Christian Rasmussen might be only competing in 12 of 17 races, and Robb has already finished behind a driver that competed in only 12 of 17 races last year, so absenteeism isn't in Robb's favor either. 

If Robb can crack the top twenty in the championship, it is great season. At best, we are looking at four or five top fifteen finishes, maybe one goes his way and is a top ten result.

The first round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season will be the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10. Coverage will begin at noon on NBC and Peacock.

IndyCar Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2023 Season

The second 2023 IndyCar Wrap-Up brings us to the team that normally goes first for being the worst team on the grid. It was marginal, but A.J. Foyt Racing got off the very bottom. Things were only slightly better for the Foyt organization in 2023, and one great day in May is really the only thing that saved it from being the first reviewed again. As has become the usual for A.J. Foyt Racing, the team had two new drivers, one of which with minimal Road to Indy success.

Santino Ferrucci

After spending the past two seasons as a part-time IndyCar competitor while dabbling in NASCAR, Ferrucci returned to full-time IndyCar participation in 2023. A driver remembered for his oval performances, Ferrucci again proved to have the touch at Indianapolis, and it nearly ended with one of the most stunning victories in the last decade. Results remained mostly uninspired on road and street courses. 

What objectively was his best race?
Ferrucci was third in the Indianapolis 500 from fourth on the grid. It was the best finish of Ferrucci's IndyCar career, and he spent 158 laps in the top five, 178 laps in the top ten, and his average running position was 5.72.

What subjectively was his best race?

It is clearly Indianapolis. This could have been a flash in the pan, A.J. Foyt Racing showing blistering pace in qualifying only for it to disappear in the race, but Ferrucci remained at the front. He led 11 laps and was genuinely in it through the closing laps. There was a near pit stop error that cost him, but the team had a practically flawless race.

What objectively was his worst race?
It came at another oval, as Ferrucci and the Foyt team struggled mightily at Iowa. In the first race, Ferrucci was classified in 26th, nine laps down, but part of that deficit was after being trapped in his pit box after his Foyt teammate Benajmin Pedersen had an unsafe release and hit Devlin DeFrancesco. 

What subjectively was his worst race?

Ferrucci was caught in the opening lap accident at St. Petersburg and did not complete a lap in the season opener. That wasn't his fault, but it is not how anyone wants to start a season. Laguna Seca was probably the only race he made a bad error, running over Tom Blomqvist coming to a restart after Ferrucci was running in the top ten. The Iowa weekend was particularly tough, especially off the wave of Indianapolis momentum. They are two different ovals but to go from knocking on the door of victory to the worst team on the grid was startling. 

Santino Ferrucci's 2023 Statistics

Championship Position: 19th (214 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 1
Top Fives: 1
Top Tens: 1
Laps Led: 11
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 1
Fast Twelves: 3
Average Start: 20.588
Average Finish: 18.529

Benjamin Pedersen

After two seasons in Indy Lights, Pedersen made the move to IndyCar with little signs he was ready to take on the increased competition. The Dane had only one Indy Lights victory, and he had dropped from fourth to fifth in the Indy Lights championship from 2021 to 2022. His IndyCar results showed that multiple top five championship finishes in Indy Lights does not really mean a driver is ready for IndyCar.

What objectively was his best race?
In his oval debut, second IndyCar start, Pedersen qualified 13th and spent much of the race in the middle of the field at Texas. He did finish two laps down, but it earned him a 15th-place result.

What subjectively was his best race?

Pedersen was caught in an accident late in the Indianapolis 500, but he qualified 11th, as both Foyt cars made the Fast 12. During the race, Pedersen lost some positions, but was running respectively, and was holding onto the lead lap until that accident when Ed Carpenter got into Pedersen on the main straightaway, setting up the final red flag and the one-lap dash to decide the race..

What objectively was his worst race?
Pedersen was run over at the start of the Gateway race, and again Ed Carpenter had a lapse in judgment. This sent Pedersen into the wall in turn one and ending his day before he even completed a corner. He was classified 28th.

What subjectively was his worst race?

The Dane was 27th in three races this season: St. Petersburg and both Iowa races. Two of the three are particularly bad. Pedersen started last in St. Petersburg, but completely failed to slow down coming up on the opening lap accident and slammed into Devlin DeFrancesco, launching DeFrancesco into the air. It was a terrible first impression. 

In the second Iowa race, after being off the pace in the first one, Pedersen was black-flagged for being too slow 57 laps from the finish.

Being disqualified is bad, but the race everyone will remember from Pedersen's season is Mid-Ohio, where he finished 26th, and he was a lap down for a good portion of the race. Then got in everyone's way. He balked leader Álex Palou. He gave Scott McLaughlin fits. When the field reconvened at Toronto, Pedersen apologized for his driving. There aren't many bright spots from this rookie season but plenty of blemishes.

Benjamin Pedersen's 2023 Statistics

Championship Position: 27th (129 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 2
Average Start: 22.353
Average Finish: 23.294

An Early Look Ahead

On-track results do not give anyone a reason to be optimistic, but off the track, there is a major reason to be excited about A.J. Foyt Racing's 2024 season. 

Announced in August, A.J. Foyt Racing and Team Penske formed a technical alliance, which will see the Foyt cars have access to the Penske dampers as well as technical support. Team Penske crew members and engineering staff will be loaned to the Foyt organization through this partnership. 

Foyt hasn't been in the ballpark for the most part. The most basic help from Team Penske should make the team moderately more competitive, especially with a competent driver. That little bit of help could see Foyt at least competing for top ten finishes, something the team really has not done since pre-reunification. 

The team already found something at Indianapolis. Ferrucci was one of the best drivers at Indianapolis this year and the team showed staggering pace. Single-car pace is one thing, but Ferrucci showed the speed carried into the race. Pedersen did not quite have it, but he did not drop immediately to the bottom. 

IndyCar is greater than the Indianapolis 500 though, and other than Texas, which might not be on the schedule next year, the Foyt cars were not close to being in the discussion at any other race. This partnership points to the team knowing it needs more than being in the conversation one race a year. However, Foyt has never been a top team when IndyCar has been at this level. The team's greatest success came when A.J. Foyt himself was driving and in the early days of the Indy Racing League. IndyCar is not going to fracture again and create a void that A.J. Foyt Racing can exploit. Success must come beating the best the series has to offer. 

Ferrucci has a seat based on his oval ability alone. He has been good on road and street courses, but never quite pushed into the top tier of drivers. Perhaps with better equipment he can make a leap forward, but he has yet to rub elbows with those top drivers, and it is tight at the top. 

Pedersen is not going to be the long-term future of A.J. Foyt Racing. Whether his money keeps being deposited in a Houston-area bank remains to be seen, but even with Penske dampers and technical support, it would not turn the Dane into a threat for the top fifteen in the championship. 

With the influx of improvement, the two Foyt cars could be a glorious opportunity for a driver to showcase his or her talent, a foot in the door most would relish, something Foyt has not been for quite sometime. It has already been theorized Foyt could become a talent pipeline for young drivers into IndyCar, especially those coming from Indy Lights. 

That might not be true in 2024, but it feels practical for 2025 onward. 

For all this excitement, it must be remembered this is A.J. Foyt Racing. A decade ago, the team had ABC Supply Co. funding a seat, which would soon expand to two fully-funded seats. It had Honda's favorite driver, Takuma Sato. Everyone talked about Foyt as a sleeping giant, and all it had to show for that hype was one victory at Long Beach and a second at São Paulo, both now over a decade in the rearview mirror. 

Foyt wasn't able to turn all the resources it had, more than other teams, into any regular success. Compared to Dale Coyne Racing, Foyt had the world and squandered it. 

There is a chance Foyt does it again with the Team Penske alliance. With Penske involved, it likely does not turn out that way, but we cannot rule it out. Perhaps it is best to remain cautiously optimistic, but things are pointing in the right direction for A.J. Foyt Racing.

2023 IndyCar Team Preview: A.J. Foyt Racing

The New Year may have just begun, but the IndyCar season will be here in no time and with just under two months until the engines fire on the streets of St. Petersburg, it is time to start rolling out previews for the 2023 season. 

Nearly every seat is accounted for, some by returning drivers and others will have new occupants. A.J. Foyt Racing is in the latter camp, a camp the team is familiar with. It is a wholesale change for the Texas team. This will be the fourth consecutive season where Foyt has not retained its driver lineup from the previous season, and it is the sixth time in the last seven offseason it has changed its lineup. How will things be better this time around? We will surely find out over the 17 races.

At First Glance... A.J. Foyt Racing will only go as far as Santino Ferrucci will take it

It is another new pairing for Foyt, but the team has brought in one of the flashier young drivers in recent seasons. Santino Ferrucci hasn't won races. He hasn't competed for championships, but he has caught your attention. 

Ferrucci has not raced full-time since the 2020 season, but he has six top ten finishes from his last eight starts and one of those finishes was an 11th. On ovals, and at Indianapolis in particular, he is a snake in the grass but one in our line of sight. We are ready for him to strike but even with preparation we aren't sure if we will react in time to avoid being bitten. 

Four starts in the Indianapolis 500 and four top ten finishes, averaging a finish of 6.75, and that isn't even the most impressive thing Ferrucci has done in his IndyCar career. It isn't even competing for the victory at Gateway while a rookie. Over the last two seasons as a part-time driver, Ferrucci has stepped into races and been competitive when he otherwise was overlooked. 

Sixth at Indianapolis is one thing, but to finish sixth and tenth in the 2021 Belle Isle doubleheader, the second result coming after an accident in qualifying left the team scurrying to rebuild the car in time for the start is downright astonishing. Most drivers of a common ilk wouldn't be competing for a top fifteen finish in such an instance, and Ferrucci scored two top tens. 

Once more, Ferrucci was an 11th-hour substitute for Jack Harvey last year at Texas. With only a few shakedown laps underneath him and stepping into a car that qualified 24th, the best of a three-car  Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing operation, Ferrucci drove to ninth and finished on the lead lap. 

The Connecticut-native keeps finding results and from the most unlikely situations. Now comes the most unlikely situation for success of his career. 

A.J. Foyt Racing has been far from producing a regular top ten finisher. Ferrucci has been able to work his magic driving for Dale Coyne Racing, RLLR and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, but all those teams are a step up from Foyt, and honestly, they are all likely two steps up. 

This could be a damned if you, damned if you don't situation for Ferrucci. Succeed and he likely will get a promotion. If he was to pull out a top fifteen championship finish with this team, he could put himself at the front of the line for the anticipated opening at Chip Ganassi Racing once Álex Palou leaves after this season. However, when drivers fail at Foyt, they usually disappear. 

Has anyone seen Matheus Leist lately?

Ferrucci will carry all the attention. Teammate, and rookie, Benjamin Pedersen is along for the ride. Pedersen adds his name to a list of moderately successful Indy Lights drivers Foyt is cashing a check from to run in IndyCar. Pedersen had flashes in the junior series, more than his predecessor Dalton Kellett, but it is difficult to imagine he will be leading this organization to the promised land. It all comes down to Ferrucci. 

2022 A.J. Foyt Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 10th (Long Beach)

Poles: 0

Best Start: 9th (Mid-Ohio)

Championship Finishes: 24th (Kyle Kirkwood), 25th (Dalton Kellett), 29th (Tatiana Calderón), 30th (J.R. Hildebrand)

Santino Ferrucci - #14 Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

9.8571: Average finish in 14 oval starts

14.344: Average finish in 29 road/street course starts

4: Consecutive top ten finishes on ovals

25: Percent of the last 16 oval races have had an A.J. Foyt Racing driver finish in the top ten

27: Average championship finish of the four Foyt drivers from the 2022 season

What does a championship season look like for him?

Considering no Foyt driver could crack the top twenty in 2022, no Foyt driver has cracked the top fifteen since 2019, no Foyt driver has cracked the top twelve since 2010 and no Foyt driver has cracked the top ten since 2002, anything that is marginally competitive will be considered a great success. 

An unthinkable championship starts with oval victories, and I mean all of them. Texas, Indianapolis, sweeping Iowa and Gateway. Five victories where the minimum points alone for such a result would pay Ferrucci 305 points, leaving him with a good foundation. Those 305 points alone in 2022 would get him 16th in the championship without even taking into consideration a road/street course race. 

Since reunification, the champion has averaged 598.333 points. From the remaining 12 road/street course races, Ferrucci would need 293 points, about 24 per race, meaning he would need to average an eighth-place finish. It would have to be a historic season for himself and the Foyt team for that to happen.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

With Foyt, it feels like the results are more on the team's side than the driver's side. The team is going to be more of anchor than a rocket. It hasn't worked for Tony Kanaan. It hasn't worked for Sébastien Bourdais. I think we can still see those flashy oval days from Ferrucci, but not necessarily at each oval round. The road course results will likely be in line with what we have seen from Ferrucci before but probably a little bit worse.

The entire Foyt team had one top ten finish last year. Ferrucci should do better than that, but it will not shake up the IndyCar scene. The top fifteen will still be out of reach, but he should be comfortably in the top twenty. 

Benjamin Pedersen - #TBD Chevrolet

Numbers to Remember:

329: Days between A.J. Foyt Racing's most recent top ten finish and the 2023 season opener at St. Petersburg

32.352: Percent of podium finishes over 34 Indy Lights starts

4: As in Pedersen is the fourth rookie driver to run for A.J. Foyt Racing in the last six seasons

19.333: Average finish of the previous three rookie drivers for Foyt

What does a championship season look like for him?

Something unexpected. Pedersen would need to blow the doors off the competition from the start and then maintain that form throughout the rest of the season. Something that would rival what we saw from Robert Wickens during his rookie season in 2018 but it would need to see Pedersen pull out a few victories. 

However, if Pedersen is doing that, how good would Ferrucci's results have to be? It is difficult to envision a season where Pedersen is significantly better than Ferrucci.

In reality, if Pedersen is competing from the championship, something serious has happened to about 24 other drivers and IndyCar would be in greater trouble than we can imagine at this time.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Unfortunately, somewhere outside the top twenty. IndyCar is too good to think Benjamin Pedersen, a driver with one victory in 34 Indy Lights races, will join this series with a full-time grid 27 entries deep, driving for A.J. Foyt Racing and crack the top twenty. 

He should be better than Dalton Kellett and probably have a few races where the pace is respectable. But in a field that has only gotten deeper as McLaren expands to three cars and the only other rookie is a Formula Two race winner driving for Ganassi, Pedersen's road to success only got tougher. Any top ten finish would be staggering. There should be a few races he cracks the top fifteen, but most days will be in the back third of the field.

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.

IndyCar Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2022 Season

Another IndyCar season has concluded, and we have some distance from the Laguna Seca season finale. It is time to go over the IndyCar grid and look at how each team and driver performed this year. We start in a familiar place, A.J. Foyt Racing. A champion left the team with another young driver coming in. The team also expanded to three cars with a rookie and a veteran splitting the seat based on circuit discipline. For all the positivity entering the season, it quickly disappeared once the cars hit the circuit. 

Kyle Kirkwood
Fresh off an Indy Lights championship, Kirkwood moved up to IndyCar with Foyt, effectively on the loan from the Andretti Autosport organization. In a rookie class split between Road to Indy participants and those with a European background, Kirkwood was seen as a favorite for Rookie of the Year honors based on his ladder series success. Sunny days were few for the Floridian. 

What objectively was his best race?
At Long Beach, Kirkwood started 12th and spent basically the entire race between tenth and 13th. He ended up finishing at the front end of that range in tenth position, the first top ten finish of his IndyCar career.

What subjectively was his best race?

Though the final result says otherwise, it would be Belle Isle, and that might be his best weekend period. He started the weekend topping IndyCar Friday practice, and he won the pole position in the GT Daytona class for the IMSA race, where Kirkwood substituted for an injured Jack Hawksworth in a VasserSullivan Lexus. 

Then Kirkwood broke his wrist on Saturday morning in IndyCar practice. With his hand constantly wrapped in ice, he qualified fifteenth for the IndyCar race, but he won in GTD with Ben Barnicoat in the IMSA race. 

In the IndyCar race, Kirkwood was making up ground on the two-stop strategy and then hit the barrier on an out-lap and it ended what looked to be developing into another top ten result. 

What objectively was his worst race?
Kirkwood was 26th in two races, first the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after contact from Graham Rahal broke Kirkwood's gearbox and ended what was likely going to be no better than a 15th-place finish, and the second was at Mid-Ohio, where Kirkwood started ninth and it looked like he was bound for a turnaround result only to go off course in turn eight and into the barriers not long after making a pit stop.

What subjectively was his worst race?

It is Mid-Ohio because that felt like it was going to be a race where Kirkwood could hit his marks and score a respectable result. Instead, it was a mistake from overdriving the car early in the race and it led to another retirement, one of too many this season for the rookie. 

Not every retirement was his fault, and he was 25th at Texas after Devlin DeFrancesco got loose underneath Kirkwood in turns three and four and spun the American. Kirkwood was impressive before that and could have pushed for a top ten in that race as well. 

Kyle Kirkwood's 2022 Statistics
Championship Position: 24th (183 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 1

Laps Led: 5
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 3
Average Start: 19.412
Average Finish: 20.176

Dalton Kellett
For the third consecutive season, Kellett was back in the Foyt fleet. This was his second full season, and he was looking to improve from 23rd in the championship with a best finish of 12th in the 2021 season. An extra race on the 2022 schedule did not work to the Canadian's favor. 

What objectively was his best race?
Kellett picked up a 17th-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway. He has started 22nd. 

What subjectively was his best race?

Oof... this is a tough one. Road America was his only lead lap finish and that was a 23rd-place result. Not great. He was 18th at Gateway. It is likely Texas or Gateway. He was also 20th at Belle Isle.

What objectively was his worst race?
Twice was Kellett 27th, both at Indianapolis and both in the month of May. In the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, he spun into the barrier in the turn five and six section. In the Indianapolis 500, he was slow, qualified 28th and finished two laps down in 27th.

What subjectively was his worst race?

Kellett was quite poor at Nashville. After catching a break and being elevated into the second round of qualifying when Colton Herta got into the barrier in that round one qualifying group Kellett was a roadblock until he was caught in the lap 25 logjam in turn seven. 

Dalton Kellett's 2022 Statistics
Championship Position: 25th (133 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 1 
Average Start: 23.176
Average Finish: 22.764

Tatiana Calderón
After splitting the last few years between Super Formula and sports car racing, Calderón moved into IndyCar for the 2022 season. She tested the year before with A.J. Foyt Racing at Mid-Ohio. The plan was for Calderón to split the #11 ROKiT Chevrolet with Calderón taking the road courses and J.R. Hildebrand running the ovals. Money became an issue for this entry midseason. 

What objectively was her best race?
It was the Grand Prix of Indianapolis where Calderón was 15th in the wet and led a lap through pit cycle. She benefitted from other cars having problems and falling out of the race, but Calderón kept it on the circuit and in changing conditions that is most important.

What subjectively was her best race?

It is probably the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but Long Beach deserves a mention because she was 16th and only a lap down in that one. Again, benefitted from others falling out, but she kept her nose clean. 

What objectively was her worst race?
Her worst finish was 26th at Barber Motorsports Park, finishing two laps down. 

What subjectively was her worst race?

How about the races she didn't get to do because the ROKiT funding dried up after Mid-Ohio causing her to miss five races? Calderón struggled in IndyCar. We cannot ignore that. St. Petersburg was tough with her finishing three laps down. She was wrestling the car at Belle Isle. But she wasn't dragging the rear of the field. She had reasonable speed. Those extra few races would have benefitted her development.

Tatiana Calderón's 2022 Statistics
Championship Position: 29th (58 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 1
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0 
Average Start: 25.143
Average Finish: 22

J.R. Hildebrand
Splitting the #11 Chevrolet, Hildebrand was set to return for his 13th IndyCar season, but his first year competing in multiple races since the 2017 season when he was full-time driving for Ed Carpenter Racing. Hildebrand drove for A.J. Foyt Racing the year before at the Indianapolis 500, where he was the top qualifier and top finisher for the team in his only start in 2021. 

What objectively was his best race?
Hildebrand was 12th at the Indianapolis 500, the top A.J. Foyt Racing finisher for a second consecutive year. 

What subjectively was his best race?

It is Indianapolis, but what makes that result even more impressive is Hildebrand made an early first pit stop, however the way the cautions fell early in the race trapped Hildebrand a lap down. He was waved back onto the lead lap and then drove into the top 12.

What objectively was his worst race?
A 14th at Texas, but Hildebrand did well in that race trying a few different things to move up from 25th starting position. 

What subjectively was his worst race?

Like Calderón, the races Hildebrand didn't get to do. The Iowa races and Gateway. Hildebrand did two races and was the best Foyt driver of the season. Kirkwood was ok at Iowa, good enough to finish 15th in the first Iowa race. I think Hildebrand could have beat that and possibly contended for a top ten result. 

J.R. Hildebrand's 2022 Statistics
Championship Position: 30th (53 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 1
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 21
Average Finish: 13

An Early Look Ahead

Uncertain is one way to describe Foyt's future. Foyt is a team with no sponsors, no money, no agreement with any drivers and no exceptional engineering ability to carry the team up the grid. 

It is hard to see how Foyt improves from this situation in 2023. Juncos Hollinger Racing entered IndyCar last year after throwing together a program for the final three races of 2021 and ran significantly better than Foyt. JHR was competitive, even making the Fast Six at the Laguna Seca season finale. Foyt rarely showed competitiveness for the top fifteen.

There are so many things wrong with this team that my biggest wish is somebody with millions of dollars to burn who wants to own an IndyCar team decides to buy it and take the Foyt name off the grid. That is what the Foyt team is best served to be entering the 2023 season, a starting point for someone else. 

Who is going to drive there that is much better than Dalton Kellett? With no sponsors, it is dependent on drivers with funding, nothing wrong with that, but with how poor the results have been, why would any respectable driver step down to drive at Foyt when JHR is expanding to two cars? The team's average finishing position in 2022 was 21.162. I know the IndyCar grid grew a little bit in 2022, but the team couldn't average cracking the top twenty in a 26-car field with three cars in half the races! What competent driver would join such an organization?

Even worse is the team isn't sure it will take Kellett back. Being down to nobody, what is Foyt hoping to accomplish next year? 

Indy Lights driver Benjamin Pedersen has been linked to Foyt since June, but I don't see Pedersen as the knight in shining armor that will save the team. Pedersen has been good in Indy Lights, but he hasn't shown any outstanding skill to suggest he will be someone who can lift the worst IndyCar team out of the cellar. Even if it signed Pedersen, the team would still need a second driver. 

I doubt Santino Ferrucci would step down to Foyt to run a full-time program and Ferrucci has been part-time the last two years. There will be available Formula Two drivers, but Foyt would be a bad choice to enter IndyCar with. It is baffling American Logan Sargeant was in talks with Foyt for a move for the 2022 season before Sargeant returned to Formula Two, won multiple races and currently sits third in the championship with two races remaining and has a chance to clinch 40 Super License points as the American has been linked to a Williams F1 seat for 2023.

I am at the point where I would rather see Foyt close down and those two Chevrolet engine leases go to Ed Carpenter Racing and Paretta Autosport. We would at least have two more competitive cars on the grid at that point. Hell, Dale Coyne Racing wants to expand but Honda doesn't have any more engines to give. I would rather Foyt close, Coyne switch to Chevrolet and Coyne easily expand to three cars. 

The best thing for this team and for IndyCar would be someone else stepping in and taking over with a fresh set of ideas. One team always has to be at the bottom, but it has been Foyt for too long in IndyCar. Foyt has only twice had a driver finish in the top fifteen in the championship since the 2012 season. It hasn't had a top ten championship finisher since 2002. 

With the DW12 chassis we have seen a number of teams pull out respectable results. Dale Coyne Racing has been a semi-regular race winner. Meyer Shank Racing has come in and been competitive. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing have had drivers compete for championships. Foyt has been none of that. Worse of all, for most the last decade it was one of the better funded teams on the grid.

Next season will be ten years since Foyt won at Long Beach with Takuma Sato and Sato ended up leading the championship into the Indianapolis 500. It was a victory that many said showed how the DW12 leveled the playing field and had many considering Foyt as a sleeping giant. The team hasn't been asleep. It has been in a coma, and it doesn't show signs of waking up anytime soon.

2022 IndyCar Team Preview: A.J. Foyt Racing

After spending the first two 2022 IndyCar Team Previews at the front of the grid, we now go to the bottom of the grid and the team that has settled into the cellar, A.J. Foyt Racing. It is approaching nine years since the team's most recent victory. It has three podium finishes in the 147 races since that victory. The team has one championship finisher in the top 15 in the last five seasons. It hasn't had a top ten championship finisher since Airton Daré was ninth in the 2002 Indy Racing League season. 

After trying a combination of veterans and youth, youth and veterans, veterans and veterans, rookies and past champions, you name it, Foyt has tried it. Foyt is giving youth and youth a shot this season and expanding to three cars. Dalton Kellett has experience, two-dozen IndyCar starts, all with the Foyt organization, to his name. Kellett will be back for his third season with the team. Joining the Canadian is the reigning Indy Lights champion, Kyle Kirkwood. Tatiana Calderón will drive Foyt's third entry on the road and street courses, with unannounced driver taking the oval races.

2021 A.J. Foyt Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 5th (Barber and Gateway)

Poles: 0

Best Start: 5th (St. Petersburg)

Championship Finishes: 16th (Sébastien Bourdais), 23rd (Dalton Kellett), 33rd (J.R. Hildebrand), 36th (Charlie Kimball)

Dalton Kellett - #4 K-LINE Insulators Chevrolet

Kellett opened the 2021 IndyCar season setting a career best finish, an 18th at Barber. He was 23rd at St. Petersburg, but then was 18th again in the first Texas race, his first visit to the track and it was his first lead lap finish. Things took a sudden stop in the second Texas race when Kellett was involved in the start accident.

The good results were tough to come by. He was 20th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and then 23rd in the Indianapolis 500. He was 18th again in the first Belle Isle race, but he would finish outside the top twenty in the next five races. He was particularly off in the August IMS road course race. 

A significant number of accidents in Gateway allowed Kellett up the order and he took advantage of the opportunity, finishing 12th but was sniffing a top ten result. He came down to Earth in the final three races with his best result being 19th. 

Numbers to Remember:

1: Top fifteen finish in 24 IndyCar starts.

2: Top twenty starting positions in 24 IndyCar starts.

3: Lead lap finishes last season.

18: Finishes in 24 IndyCar starts.

What does a championship season look like for him?

Every single road and street course race becoming a wet race and Kellett switching to wet tires at the right time each time to come out in the lead or in the top five and then finishing in those positions with no other drive having more than two victories, five podium finishes and seven top five finishes in a season. 

On the ovals, Kellett replicates his 2021 Gateway race each time and on the edge of the top ten every time out. Some races he sneaks into the top ten and in others he is 12 or 13th but he is always in the top 15.

What does a realistic season look like for him?

It doesn't look good. Never expected to accomplish much in IndyCar, in about two seasons Kellett has been a regular cellar dweller and bringing up the bottom of the field. In 2021, he had competition in Jimmie Johnson and Cody Ware. While Kellett was coming out on top in some of those battles early on, he started losing to those two toward the end of the season.

Driving for Foyt doesn't help, but Kellett is going to be at the rear of the field again. He is going to be struggling to break into the top 20. Most race weekends he will toward the bottom of the timesheet and likely be a regular on the last row of the grid. Among the drivers who started every race in 2021, Kellett scored the fewest points. If Kellett starts every race again in 2022, I expect him to hold that dubious honor again. 

Kellett had better days in 2021 than in his part-time season in 2020, but he wasn't fighting for top fifteen positions on a regular basis. Twelfth was flattering at Gateway considering he was gifted six positions in the first 65 laps due to drivers caught in accidents. There could be a few races he is in the top 20 on speed and ends up finishing 16th or 17th, but those days are as good as it gets.

Tatiana Calderón - #11 ROKiT Chevrolet

Calderon has spent the last two years combining Super Formula with LMP2 sports car outings. 

In 2021, she moved into the FIA World Endurance Championship with the Richard Mille Racing Team and co-drivers Sophia Flörsch and Beitske Vasser. She participated in five of six races, as she missed the first Bahrain race due to her Super Formula commitments. Her best finish with the team was sixth in class at Portimão, the second race of the season. 

For the second consecutive year, Calderón drove for Drago Corse with ThreeBond in Super Formula, a single-car, Honda-powered team. She was 13th in the Fuji season opener, and 17th in the first Suzuka race, but missed the next three races to focus on her sports car responsibilities. She was back for the penultimate round at Motegi, a retirement, and she ended the season with an 18th-place finish at Suzuka.

Numbers to Remember:

12: Road and street course races Calderón will participate in this IndyCar season. 

5: Tracks on the 2022 IndyCar schedule Calderón has raced at before, all in the then-Star Mazda series (St. Petersburg, Barber, Road America, Iowa and Laguna Seca).

1: Victory in the Florida Winter Series, a one-time series organized by the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2014. Other drivers in that race included Max Verstappen, Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi, Ed Jones, Antonio Fuoco and Raffaele Marciello.

15.222: Average finish in nine Super Formula starts between 2020 and 2021 with her best finish being 12th twice. 

What does a championship season look like for him?

Seeing as how Calderón is only running road and street courses, she is giving up five races to score points, including the possible double points race in the Indianapolis 500. 

In 2021, Álex Palou scored 549 points to score the championships. If Calderón won all 12 of her starts with the maximum 54 points, she would have 648 points. To match Palou's output, she would need to average 45.75 points per start. Basically, she would need six victories and six runner-up finishes at worse to win the championship. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?

Calderón was at the back of Super Formula. That will not change in IndyCar. Palou might have moved from Super Formula and won the IndyCar championship within two seasons, but Palou was also at the front of Super Formula. Palou's rookie season wasn't a historic season. He had a few good races, a few other promising races where the results did not match and a few other tough races. 

It doesn't help that she is driving for the worst team on the grid. Her hope is to beat her teammate Kellett on a regular basis. It is a low bar to clear, and even if she beats it that doesn't mean the results will be that impressive. Calderón has done a good job of staying on track and completing laps in her career. It would not be surprising if she is running at the end of all of her starts and no worse than a lap down. If she does that, a few top 20 finishes might fall her way, but with 26 cars prepared to be entered for the entire season, it is hard to see her sneaking into the top 15. 

The oval driver is still unknown for this car. Foyt's oval pace is not significantly better than its road/street course pace, but, depending on the driver, it could be the team's best chance at quality finishes.

Kyle Kirkwood - #14 ROKiT Chevrolet

After spending 2020 in sports car racing after the Indy Lights season was cancelled, Kirkwood returned to single-seater racing with Andretti Autosport in Indy Lights. 

Kirkwood had a tough opening weekend at Barber Motorsports Park. Early contact knocked him down to ninth in race one and he was fifth in race two. He rebounded with a victory and second at St. Petersburg and took a slight step back with a pair of fourth-place results on the IMS road course. 

From there, Kirkwood was near flawless. He swept the Belle Isle races. He won the first Road America race and was going to finish on the podium before a late mechanical issue knocked him back to 12th. He swept the Mid-Ohio races, was second in both Gateway race and then was second and first in Portland. Another sweep came at Laguna Seca and a victory in the opening race of the October Mid-Ohio weekend clinched him the title.

Numbers to Remember:

62: Winning percentage in 50 Road to Indy starts.

5: Kirkwood is one of five drivers with at least ten Indy Lights victories. The others are Greg Moore, Tommy Byrne, Alex Lloyd and Paul Tracy. Kirkwood tied Moore's record for most victories in a single Indy Lights season last year with ten victories.

18: The best championship finish for an A.J. Foyt Racing rookie is 18th (Billy Boat in 1996-97 and Matheus Leist 2018).

What does a championship season look like for him?

Kirkwood continues his Road to Indy form and is immediately in the top five from the drop of the green flag at St. Petersburg. Texas is his first big oval race, and he keeps his nose clean and pulls out a top ten result. Long Beach is a solid day with a top ten finish and the same goes at Barber. At the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the familiarity of the course is in his favor, and he is on the podium. His Indianapolis 500 debut sees him as the fastest rookie qualifier and then the top rookie finisher somewhere in the top ten. 

He hits his stride at the start of June, and he starts to win races. He pulls off his first career victory at Road America and keeps up his unbeaten streak at Mid-Ohio. He makes it three consecutive victories at Toronto. A pair of top five finishes follow at Iowa and he is on the podium again on the IMS road course. 

The season closes with a top ten a Nashville, another top five at Gateway and victories at Portland and Laguna Seca. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?

All the Road to Indy success in the world is not going to turn A.J. Foyt Racing into a race winner. Kirkwood has been known for winning ever since he joined the Road to Indy system. This will be an awakening for a driver that is used to winning nearly a dozen times a year. 

He will regularly be outside the top ten, and there will be frustrating days where nothing works for him despite endless changes being made on the car. A few days will work out and progress will be made. The best days are going to be tuning a car into a top ten contender and those top ten finishes will feel ten times better than any previous Road to Indy victory. 

Sébastien Bourdais drove this car last year, a four-time champion ranked in the top ten in victories, and Bourdais could only finish 16th in the championship. Kirkwood is talented, but he isn't better than Bourdais at the moment. Anything close to matching Bourdais' output would be incredible. Bourdais had two top five finishes and four top ten finishes. Four top ten finishes would be great for Kirkwood, and they don't even need to be top five results. 

Many champions have had tough first years in IndyCar. Dario Franchitti had one top ten finish, a ninth. Josef Newgarden had zero top ten finishes. Álex Palou might have been third in his third career start, but Palou had only three top ten finishes all season. This season will not define Kirkwood's career and he could have a few races that outshine his overall points total. 

The 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday February 27 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBC's coverage will begin at noon ET.

IndyCar Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2021 Season

A few weeks have passed since the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season concluded on the streets of Long Beach and this is our chance to go through each IndyCar team and review the season for each organization. Our first IndyCar Wrap-Up begins at the very back of the grid and A.J. Foyt Racing. The team brought in a former champion and promoted a part-time driver to full-time for 2021. The team ended 2020 on a good note and hoped to carry that momentum into a new season. 

A great turnaround did not come for Foyt with Sébastien Bourdais

Sébastien Bourdais
After running only the final three races of 2020, Bourdais returned to full-time competition in the famed #14 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet. Much hope was put in the four-time champion to lift IndyCar's historic doormat. It began pleasantly but immediately fell apart in Foyt's backyard. There were a few more bright spots, but not nearly as many as were first thought as possible. 

What objectively was his best race?
Twice did Bourdais finish in fifth-place, first at Barber and then at Gateway.

What subjectively was his best race?

I have to say it is Barber because Bourdais switched to a three-stop strategy and ran hard for the final 79 laps. It lifted him from outside the top fifteen into the top ten and it got him into the top five. For a moment, it looked like he might have a shot at a podium spot. 

Gateway was a good night, but he got to the front going off-strategy and having a timely caution late shuffle him into the top five. Gateway was likely going to be a top ten result aided through some good fortune and it was boosted with one caution. 

Lond Beach deserves a mention because he stalled at the end of lap one to bring out a caution and then fought his way from 28th to eighth at the end of the race.

What objectively was his worst race?
Nashville, where Bourdais was infamously run over from behind. Marcus Ericsson knocked Bourdais out of the race after only five laps and finished 27th. Ericsson went on to win the race.

What subjectively was his worst race?
Bourdais was run over three times this season, both Texas races and Nashville. I will say the first Texas race is the worst because that happened right before his first pit stop and he was in the top ten before Josef Newgarden got into Bourdais. 

Before that race, Bourdais had finished in the top ten of the first two races. That contact would start a ten-race drought without a top ten finish. He was run out the next day at the start! If that contact with Newgarden doesn't happen, we cannot say for certain Bourdais' season would be much better, but he would have finished better than 24th in the first Texas race, possibly gotten a top ten, but let's just say 13th. That moves him up a few more spots on the grid for race two and he could have avoided the start crash and had another good day. Momentum would have been on his side and his summer would not have been as difficult. 

Sébastien Bourdais' 2021 Statistics
Championship Position: 16th (258 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 4
Laps Led: 22
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 1
Fast Twelves: 5 
Average Start: 15.5
Average Finish: 15.25

Dalton Kellett was regularly fighting from behind in 2021

Dalton Kellett
Kellett was part-time last year in Foyt's #14 Chevrolet and this year he took over the #4 Chevrolet full-time. For a driver who never won in 128 Road to Indy starts and only had eight podium finishes in those 128 starts, Kellett's first full IndyCar season went exactly as expected.

What objectively was his best race?
Kellett ended up 12th at Gateway, race where he spent a good portion in the top ten before falling out of the top ten late.

What subjectively was his best race?
It is Gateway. Kellett benefitted from a rash of cautions at the start that took out many of the front-runners, but he had to earn that top ten spot for most of the night. A few teams were not as good as him on this night. Kellett did make a questionable chop on Romain Grosjean into turn three. No contact was made, but Kellett's wonderful night nearly was snuffed out at his own inability.

What objectively was his worst race?
He was 26th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, four laps down. It was so bad he finished behind Cody Ware. Kellett was also 26th at Portland after a mechanical issue stopped him on track.

What subjectively was his worst race?

It is hard to look at a four-lap down performance behind a dismal NASCAR Cup Series driver cosplaying as an IndyCar driver because his father has a perplexing amount of money that he burns on multiple different forms of motorsports and find any positives. 

Dalton Kellett's 2021 Statistics
Championship Position: 23rd (148 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 24.429
Average Finish: 21.313

An Early Look Ahead

Another offseason is upon us, and A.J. Foyt Racing is again forced to shake things up. 

Bourdais will not be back full-time, but one thought is he could run a significant number of the races. The word is Bourdais will be full-time with Chip Ganassi Racing's sports car program and there are five direct IMSA/IndyCar conflicts. Sebring and Texas are the same weekend and if Bourdais isn't full-time, I don't think he is going to waste his time flying to Texas when it will not be his full-time job. 

Laguna Seca and Barber are the same day. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis is the day before the IMSA race at Mid-Ohio. IMSA is at Mosport the same day IndyCar is at Mid-Ohio. IMSA will be at Road America the same day IndyCar races on the streets of Nashville. 

Not only does it sound like Bourdais will be part-time but 2022 could be his final year in an IndyCar. 

Who would fill-in for the five or six races Bourdais could miss? Super Formula and sports car driver Tatiana Calderón tested for Foyt this summer at Mid-Ohio and Calderón is a RoKIT-sponsored driver. This season was RoKIT's first in IndyCar. 

Calderón did run in Star Mazda with Juncos Racing in 2010 and 2011, finishing tenth and sixth in the championship in those respective seasons. She had podium finishes at Barber and Mosport along with a fifth at Iowa. She scored points in Formula Three and has had a few good races in Super Formula, but I don't think she is ready for an IndyCar. She should really spend a year in Indy Lights.

To put Foyt in a more precarious position, Bourdais could be done with IndyCar already and not return in 2022. If that is the case, the team will either bite the bullet and run Calderón full-time or find another driver to pair with her. 

Foyt is in greater limbo than it ever has been before and with all signs pointing to Kellett remaining a full-time driver, I think it is borderline irresponsible to put Calderón in a car. If Bourdais was going to be Calderón's full-time teammate then I would feel more comfortable, but pairing Kellett and Calderón is combining an unexperienced IndyCar driver with the least talented IndyCar driver. That is not a recipe for success. 

The team doesn't really have a choice now. Since ABC Supply Co. left as the team's sponsor after the 2019 season, it must keep the lights on and take what it can get. Unfortunately, the team has been abysmal for years and respectable drivers with money will skip over Foyt knowing they are better off lighting a couple million dollars on fire than driving for the team. 

Think about some of Foyt's recent drivers:

Jack Hawksworth lost his ride after 2016 and went to sports cars. He has not been in an IndyCar since. 

Carlos Muñoz lost his ride after 2017, made three more IndyCar starts the following year and hasn't been seen since.

Conor Daly lost his ride after 2017 and he was not full-time again until last year. 

Matheus Leist lost his ride after 2019 and no one else in IndyCar touched him.

Charlie Kimball lost his ride after 2020 and then appeared in three race weekends for the team in 2021.

Takuma Sato might have moved onto to something better and Tony Kanaan might have become the oval driver in Chip Ganassi Racing's #48 Honda this year, but history suggests A.J. Foyt Racing is not a launching pad for an IndyCar career. It is a grave.

This is how we get Kellett, a driver whose best Road to Indy championship finishes were seventh in Indy Lights seasons that had seven full-time cars and eight full-time cars. Kellett had the worst average finish among series regulars and the worst average starting position among series regulars in 2021.

Foyt has tried so many different things and nothing has worked. It wasted ABC Supply Co. title sponsorship for over a decade while other competitive teams struggled for funding. It switched engine manufactures and in five seasons with Chevrolet it has one podium finish and six top five finishes. In the last ten seasons, only twice has Foyt had a driver finish in the top fifteen in the championship and regularly during that time IndyCar had fewer than 24 full-time drivers. 

We all want Foyt to be better and just be remotely competitive. I don't see how it gets better in 2022. I don't see how this round of changes will be the answer. 

2021 IndyCar Team Preview: A.J. Foyt Racing

Our third IndyCar team preview takes us to the cellar. It is A.J. Foyt Racing. Last year was the team's first season without primary sponsor ABC Supply Co. since 2004 and with this change the team had a rotation of drivers go through the #14 Chevrolet while Charlie Kimball was full-time in the #4 Chevrolet.

Tony Kanaan took the oval races in the #14 Chevrolet while Dalton Kellett made his IndyCar debut and ran majority of the season. Sébastien Bourdais took over the car for the final three races. It was another difficult season. The results kept falling short of acceptable and more times than not the Foyt cars were afterthoughts. Bourdais turned the tide a bit and the team carries some confidence into 2021 with the Frenchman leading the charge while Kellett will expand to full-time competition. 

2020 A.J. Foyt Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 4th (St. Petersburg)

Poles: 0

Best Start: 7th (St. Petersburg)

Championship Finishes: 18th (Charlie Kimball), 24th (Tony Kanaan), 26th (Dalton Kellett), 28th (Sébastien Bourdais)

2021 Drivers:

Dalton Kellett - #4 K-Line Insulators Chevrolet

Kellett made his debut at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and he rounded out the grid in 26th before climbing to 21st, finishing one lap down. He had identical races at Road America, starting 23rd and finishing one lap down in 20th in each.

After taking Iowa off, Kellett returned for the Indianapolis 500 in a third car for Foyt. He qualified on the outside of row eight, with Kanaan to his inside and five positions ahead of Kimball. Just after 200 miles, Kellett had an accident in turn three and he took 31st in the box score.

Mid-Ohio was his next race weekend and he qualified 23rd in race one before finishing a lap down in 22nd. In the second race, Kellett spun in turn one, bringing out a caution, ruining his best starting position of the season of 20th. He would finish four laps down in 21st. His season concluded in a third car for the Harvest Grand Prix weekend. He started 25th in both races and finished 24th and 25th, two laps down on each day.

Numbers to Remember:

0: Lead lap finishes in 2020.

23.625: Average starting position in 2020 with one top twenty start, 20th at Mid-Ohio II.

23: Average finishing position in 2020 with two top twenty finishes, 20th in both Road America races.

Predictions/Goals:

Kellett has only one way to go, but even the scantest of improvements would go unnoticed 

I think IndyCar is too big for him. He wasn't competitive in the Road to Indy at any level. We saw eight IndyCar races where he was the bottom each weekend. He isn't a hazard on track. He doesn't put his fellow competitors in danger, but he isn't going to be pushing for top 15 finishes let alone top ten finishes. He is going to provide a good measuring stick for Jimmie Johnson in each race. 

All he can do is get more laps and gain more experience. It isn't going to matter, but if he stays on the track and sees the checkered flag, he increases his chances of picking up a good finish during the days of high attrition. He likely isn't going to end up with a top ten, but he could go from 22nd to 15th or 20th to 13th. 

He will likely be the worst full-time driver.

What does Kellett need to do in 2021?

Not get into accidents.

Complete as many laps as possible.

Pull out at least one lead lap finish. 

Sébastien Bourdais - #14 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet

Bourdais' original 2020 schedule was going to be front loaded, with him starting three of the first four races before returning for Portland and he was going to fill the middle of his season with a full season in IMSA driving a Cadillac for JDC-Miller Motorsports. 

Instead, Bourdais did not get into a car until the Harvest Grand Prix weekend and he spent that entire weekend knocking off cobwebs. He qualified 16th for the first race but went backward and finished a lap down in 21st. For the second race, he rolled off the grid from 21st, but went forward, picking up three positions and finishing 18th and on the lead lap. 

With some mileage underneath him, Bourdais qualified seventh for St. Petersburg and finished fourth. 

In IMSA, Bourdais opened the 2020 season with three consecutive third-place finishes, and he had five consecutive top five finishes. He had seven top five finishes from nine races, and he was fifth in the championship.

Numbers to Remember:

14: Top five finishes for A.J. Foyt Racing since 2010.

26: Top five finishes for Bourdais since he returned to IndyCar in 2011.

9: Consecutive seasons with a top five finish for Bourdais.

2: Consecutive seasons with a top five finish for A.J. Foyt Racing

Predictions/Goals:

Bourdais lifts every organization he has joins. He put Dragon Racing on the podium. He is responsible for the only top ten finish Lotus had in its one IndyCar season, a ninth at Barber, which should be celebrated more than it is. He won races and led the championship with Dale Coyne Racing.

Foyt is a chore, but Bourdais alone makes the team a top ten contender and I think he will get close. There are limits. Even for all the good days Bourdais had at Coyne, he couldn't paper over all the shortcomings of a small team. Foyt presents the same situation.

I think Bourdais can finish in the top ten in at least seven races. He will position himself to turn a seventh starting position into a fourth or fifth. He may even sneak into the top five in qualifying and be fighting for podium results. Winning will remain difficult. Foyt will have to be perfect in all areas, from setup to pit stops. We have seen small teams fighting for victories only for slow pit stops to take them out of it, see Meyer Shank Racing in the 2019 Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Bourdais cannot win races if he is losing two or three seconds per pit stops to the likes of Penske and Ganassi. 

Foyt has not had a top ten championship finisher since 2002. Bourdais will come close to that. The road and street course results will be better than his oval results. He should ravage his teammate, qualifying and finishing ahead of Kellett at every race. 

What does Bourdais need to do in 2021?

He needs to make the second round of qualifying at least 70% of the time and he needs to make the Fast Six at least three or four times. 

He needs to be respectable on ovals, at least finishing in the top half of the field in all of them.

Average a finish between 11.0 and 11.9.

The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season will begin on April 18 at Barber Motorsports Park. NBC will have coverage of the season opener. 

IndyCar Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2020 Season

Our second 2020 NTT IndyCar Series wrap-up will see us drop to the bottom and cellar-dwelling regulars A.J. Foyt Racing. This was an odd year for the organization. After another driver shakeup, the pandemic completely re-arranged the driver schedule. Good results continued to be hard to come by, but the good news is Foyt may have turned a corner late in the season and be looking toward a bright 2021.

Charlie Kimball's first year with Foyt was difficult

Charlie Kimball
After a part-time ride with Carlin in 2019, Kimball returned to full-time competition with A.J. Foyt Racing, his third team in four seasons. The results were not up to the Charlie Kimball standard. Very few days saw the one-time IndyCar race winner pull out a top ten finish from nothing, but most of the time he kept the car on the track and out of the barriers.

What objectively was his best race?
Kimball picked up an eighth-place finish in the final race of the season at St. Petersburg. His only other top ten finish was a tenth in the second Road America. 

What subjectively was his best race?
None of Kimball's races really stand out, but I think a special shout out should go to his from 22nd to 11th in the first Road America race, and he also went from 29th to 18th in the Indianapolis 500. However, that Indianapolis 500 is a bit lackluster when you consider he made up 11 positions and still wasn't in the top half of the field. He did complete all 500 miles, so that is something.

What objectively was his worst race?
In the first Harvest Grand Prix, Kimball ended up 23rd after starting 24th and the only cars he was ahead of were part-timer Sage Karam and his teammate Dalton Kellett.

What subjectively was his worst race?
If 11th is your subjectively worst race of a season, you did something wrong that day, and Kimball and his team made a foolish decision in the Texas season opener. Kimball was running sixth when the caution came out for Felix Rosenqvist's accident in turn two. There were only 11 cars on the lead lap. Kimball was the only lead lap car to pit to take tires before the final restart. 

However, IndyCar did not wave around lap cars, it was a single-lane racetrack because the traction compound put down for the NASCAR race stained the top half of the racetrack and made grip non-existent for the Firestone tires and instead of being a rocket against a bunch of sitting ducks. Kimball, hoisted by his own petard, spun on the backstretch and instead of finishing sixth and maybe sneaking into the top five with one late pass, he ended up 11th, outside the top ten in his first race with the team. 

It was shaping up to be a banner start to the 2020 season for A.J. Foyt Racing and instead it was another one for the blooper reel. 

Charlie Kimball's 2020 Statistics
Championship Position: 18th (218 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 2
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 19.785
Average Finish: 15.428

Rain fell on Tony Kanaan's retirement tour

Tony Kanaan
Kanaan had planned for 2020 to be his farewell season where he would compete only in the oval races to close out an IndyCar career that stretched over two decades. He was unable to compete in front of spectators at most events and his all-time consecutive start streak came to an end. There were a few good days, however, it was a bittersweet end.

What objectively was his best race?
Kanaan had a ninth-place finish in the first Gateway race from 21st on the grid. 

What subjectively was his best race?
It would probably be that first Gateway race, although, he started and finished tenth in Texas, though he likely only got a top ten finish because of his teammate's feeble pit strategy. Kanaan was also in the top ten for most of the night in the second Iowa race after starting eighth, but lost tenth position on the final lap to Marco Andretti.

What objectively was his worst race?
On paper, he was 19th in the Indianapolis 500 and 19th in the second Gateway race. 

What subjectively was his worst race?
None of these races were great for Kanaan this season, and his two 19th-place finishes were equally lousy. I think the worst thing is Kanaan planned this to be his final hooray, and the pandemic hit. Sure, it allowed him to extend his consecutive start streak by one race thanks to Texas becoming the season opener, but he raced in front of empty grandstand for two of six races, including the Indianapolis 500, and the other four were significantly reduced. 

Talk about planning your swan song and then having one of the greatest buzzkills steal your goodbye. 

If there is any solace, Kanaan might give it one more go next year. It is not clear if it will be all the oval races (there are only four), but the Indianapolis 500 appears to be a definite. And Kanaan could probably do the Indianapolis 500 for another two or three years after that if he really wanted to. 

Tony Kanaan's 2020 Statistics
Championship Position: 24th (106 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 2
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 16.667
Average Finish: 14.333

Dalton Kellett made eight IndyCar starts... good for him

Dalton Kellett
After a subpar Road to Indy career, Kellett moved up to IndyCar and things were not any better at the top level of the ladder system. 

What objectively was his best race?
Kellett cracked the top twenty in both Road America races, with finishes of 20th on each day.

What subjectively was his best race?
Pick one of the two Road America races.

What objectively was his worst race?
Kellett suffered an accident on lap 83 of the Indianapolis 500 and it ended his day with a 31st-place finish.

What subjectively was his worst race?
Oof... Kellett was always going to struggle in this situation. Between the pandemic cutting down his seat time, driving for A.J. Foyt Racing and him not quite having all it takes to be an IndyCar driver, a year that consists of six finishes outside the top twenty, an average starting position of 23.625 and an average finish of 23rd was the best it could be, though terrible no matter how you slice it. 

If we had to pick out low moments, it was spinning into the gravel and causing a caution in the second Mid-Ohio race and in his final start at the second Harvest Grand Prix race, starting and finishing 25th, dead-last. He never finished on the lead lap. He finished multiple laps down in his final three starts. I am sure he is a good guy and he had some good results last year in sports cars. I think he could have a good career in LMP2 or LMP3 racing as a professional driver in a pro-am driver pairing.

Dalton Kellett's 2020 Statistics
Championship Position: 26th (67 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 23.625
Average Finish: 23

A.J. Foyt Racing may have found something special in Sébastien Bourdais

Sébastien Bourdais
After a lengthy delay, Bourdais finally got into an IndyCar for the final three races of 2020, a year he spent primarily in sports cars with respectable success. Once in the cockpit of the #14 Chevrolet, things started slow, but it ended on a high note and everyone should be encouraged heading into 2021.

What objectively was his best race?
A fourth-place finish at St. Petersburg from seventh on the grid.

What subjectively was his best race?
Hands down it is St. Petersburg. After a woeful Harvest Grand Prix weekend, Bourdais hit the streets of his adoptive hometown blazing. 

A.J. Foyt Racing had not shown any significant pace all season, especially on road courses. Prior to St. Petersburg, Foyt's best starting position on a road course was 13th at the second Road America race with Kimball. It was the only top fifteen start on a road course for the team until Bourdais at St. Petersburg. Bourdais' second outing of 2020 showed the Frenchman remains one of the strongest drivers on the grid.

What objectively was his worst race?
His first race of the season was a 21st-place finish in the first Harvest Grand Prix. 

What subjectively was his worst race?
The entire Harvest Grand Prix weekend was difficult. Bourdais struggled starting 16th and 21st in the two races. His finishes were 21st and 18th. He had been out of an IndyCar since the one preseason test day in February. It was a weekend where a lot of rust had to be knocked off.

Sébastien Bourdais' 2020 Statistics
Championship Position: 28th (53 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 1
Top Tens: 1
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 1
Average Start: 14.667
Average Finish: 14.333

An Early Look Ahead

We know part of A.J. Foyt Racing's plan for 2021 with Bourdais signed to drive the #14 Chevrolet. Outside of Bourdais, there are still questions. 

Before the Bourdais news, I was ready to write Foyt should downsize to a one-car team and focus on running one car successfully for Kimball instead of running two mediocre cars. With Bourdais announced, it could still be a one-car team and Kimball could be the odd man out. However, both cars got Leader Circle money, and if Kimball still has funding, I think Foyt will remain a two-car outfit. Although, Kimball might still be the odd man out, as a rumor of Pietro Fittipaldi combining with Kanaan in that second car was mentioned around the St. Petersburg weekend.

Things did not improve for Foyt in 2020. Somehow the results got worse compared to the previous few seasons. This has to be rock bottom, which means the only way the team can go is up in 2021. 

This year started promising between Bourdais' pace in the damp at Austin testing and the team's run at Texas, and it plummeted from there onward. 

Bourdais has lifted every team he has competed at. Between Dragon Racing, KV Racing and Dale Coyne Racing, Bourdais turned each organization into a podium contender and in the latter two cases regular race winners. Foyt last won a race in 2013. It has one podium finish in the last five years. Foyt hasn't had a driver finish in the top ten of the championship since 2002 with Airton Daré. 

Teams have been able to turnaround the results in one year before, but Foyt is a different animal. 

With the right people around him, I think Bourdais could be competitive, get a handful of top ten finishes and maybe sneak into the top five once or twice. If Bourdais can get those results, then I think Kimball sees an uptick in results and gets a few top ten finishes. 

We have watched Foyt clean house three times in the last four seasons. They have gone young, they have gone old, they have gone Brazilian, and they even changed engine manufactures. They have tried a bunch of things and none have gotten the team any closer to victory or competing for a top ten championship spot. Looking at the results, there is skepticism because nothing has worked for Foyt. Maybe, with Bourdais leading the way, 2021 will yield improved results.