IndyCar Wrap-Up: KV Racing's 2016 Season

The third IndyCar wrap-up will be KV Racing. The team downsized from previous seasons to one car, hoping consolidation would improve the team's results. While having respectable and comparable numbers to the big teams, the final championship result was anything but pleasing.

Sébastien Bourdais matched with some of the best in 2016 but had his worst championship finish

Sébastien Bourdais
For the third consecutive season, Sébastien Bourdais raced for KV Racing, his second-longest spell with a team since his days with Newman-Haas Racing. The season didn't start well after being caught up in a turn three incident where he was collateral to Carlos Muñoz's mistake and got the worst of it. Bourdais rebounded quickly with an eighth-place finish at Phoenix but that came with a bit of fortunate after he grazed the wall and had to go over strategy. He was the worst Chevrolet at Long Beach but through hard work and other drivers having missteps, he ended up in ninth. He was penalized for spinning Scott Dixon at Barber and he could do no better than 16th.

He started eighth for he Grand Prix of Indianapolis but he was caught up in an incident in turn one, this time with Tony Kanaan. He tried to keep going but retired after 20 laps. He qualified 19th for the 100th Indianapolis 500. He wasn't flashy but he kept his nose clean while other front-runners didn't or had reliability issues and he finished ninth. Bourdais went off strategy at Belle Isle and while everyone else tried to stretch the fuel, Bourdais ran all-out and gapped the field enough where he could stop and maintain the lead and in this case it gave the Frenchman his 35th IndyCar victory. He went off strategy again in the second race but this time he had to stop late while most didn't. Fortunately a fuel-only stop dropped him only to eighth in the final results.

Contact on lap one at Road America forced him to stop immediately and he couldn't overcome that premature pit stop and finished 18th. At Iowa, he went off strategy and it benefitted him but he stalled on a late pit stop, costing him a chance to run on the lead lap late. Fortunately, Bourdais was able to finish eighth. He started fifth at Toronto and was in contention for the podium but cautions didn't fall his way and others were able to leapfrog him and stay ahead of him because of cautions. Seventh was all he could manage north of the border.

Bourdais was fighting for a top five at Mid-Ohio with Takuma Sato. However, contact between the two left Bourdais in the gravel and instead of a top ten, he finished 20th. He gambled by going fuel-only on the final stop at Pocono and held on for a fifth-place finish. He really didn't have a great car at Texas but just like at Indianapolis, he kept his nose clean while the front-runners didn't and he finished tenth. He spun in first corner of the race at Watkins Glen. He was 40 seconds behind the leader but through cautions and mixing up the strategy, he managed another fifth-place finish. In the season finale, Bourdais qualified ninth and stayed on the edge of the top ten all race and finished in tenth.

Sébastien Bourdais' 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 14th (404 points)
Wins: 1
Podiums: 1
Top Fives: 3
Top Tens: 11
Laps Led: 24
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 3
Fast Twelves: 7
Average Start: 11.9375
Average Finish: 11.1875

Other KV entries in 2016 included Matthew Brabham, in partnership with Team Murray, who had two respectable performances at Indianapolis. He finished 16th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after qualifying 14th and he went from 27th on the grid in the Indianapolis 500 to 22nd, one-lap down. Stefan Wilson made his Indianapolis 500 debut and he qualified 30th with an electrical issue ending his race before completing 300 miles.

Bourdais really didn't have a bad year. Fourteenth in the championship seems a bit harsh considering Simon Pagenaud and Tony Kanaan were the only drivers to have more top ten finishes than Bourdais and Bourdais had as many top ten finishes as Will Power, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Charlie Kimball. Bourdais' struggle shows that the Chevrolet engine and aero configuration was better than average but to get to the top takes more than the right pieces. KV Racing's finish in the championship is kind of indicative of how important multi-car teams are. The worst Chevrolet team was the only single-car Chevrolet team. The only other single-car team in IndyCar is Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and while Graham Rahal finished fifth in the championship, it shows RLLR are the exception, not the rule.

KV Racing had run two cars for most of its existence prior to 2016. The drivers paired with Bourdais weren't a good complement to the Frenchman's skill. He was paired with Sebastián Saavedra in 2014 and Stefano Coletti in 2015. One driver couldn't seem to find the speed and the other was new to the United States and visiting most of the circuits for the first time. Neither driver was going to help Bourdais take the team forward and the team never hired a veteran (Justin Wilson, Oriol Servià) who could have easily helped Bourdais and KV reach that next level.

KV Racing is at a difficult spot. All signs point to Kevin Kalkhoven becoming distant from the team and leaving the team's future in jeopardy. Kalkhoven's exit could allow for Trevor Carlin to slide in and expand his Carlin empire to IndyCar. The team is moving to Florida and Carlin's US racing shop is based in Florida. However, all this appears to be too late to keep Bourdais. The Frenchman appears to be heading to a new team in 2017 and Dale Coyne Racing is the clubhouse leader for landing the four-time champion.

The entire KV-Carlin situation isn't one IndyCar should be excited about. It is a net zero gain. The series should want KV to remain standing on its own and Carlin to enter the series on its own and expanding the grid. Perhaps a collaboration of the two could bring an extra car to the grid but it still leaves IndyCar with only nine teams on the grid. The unfortunate thing for KV Racing is it always appeared KV was on the cusp of being a powerhouse. When the new engine formula was introduced everyone assumed Cosworth, the company Kalkhoven owns with former team owner Gerry Forsythe, would come into the series with an OEM and KV Racing would be the lead team. That never happened and it was a wasted opportunity, especially after getting Bourdais.

The future of KV is hard to predict with Bourdais all but officially gone and ownership in flux. This winter will be long and unbearable and for some fans will be terrifying.

2016 Verizon IndyCar Team-By-Team Preview: KV Racing

KV Racing had its best season in 2015, scoring two victories while Sébastien Bourdais finished tenth in the championship for the second consecutive season. Bourdais had a competitive season but rookie Stefano Coletti struggled and scored only one top ten and one fastest lap. Bourdais will return for his third season at KV but for the first time in the Frenchman's career, he will be flying solo as KV Racing will be taking a page out of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing playbook and become a single-car team.

2015 KV Racing Review
Wins: 2 (Belle Isle 2, Milwaukee).
Poles: 0
Best Start: 3rd (Mid-Ohio).
Final Championship Positions: 10th (Sébastien Bourdais), 19th (Stefano Coletti).

2016 Driver:

Sébastien Bourdais
The four-time champion had arguably his best season since he returned to IndyCar full-time in 2013. Bourdais won the second race at Belle Isle after needing to conserve fuel in the closing laps and surviving dry to wet to dry conditions. At Milwaukee, he dominated the second-half of the race, leading 118 of 250 laps. After eight top tens in the first thirteen races, Bourdais was sixth in the championship and appeared to have an outside chance at the title but in the final three races his best finish was 17th and he fell to tenth in the final championship standings.

Numbers to Remember: 
8.8- Average podiums per season for Bourdais in his first five seasons.

2.33- Average podiums per season for Bourdais in the last three seasons.

1- Bourdais has only won one race after starting outside the top ten. That was last year at Milwaukee when he started 11th. Bourdais has 34 career victories.

Predictions/Goals:
Bourdais is one of the most talented drivers on the grid and he has always been considered a sleeper for the championship. Every Chevrolet team won in 2015 and I think Bourdais can get one victory in 2016 but I don't think he will be able to put together a championship caliber season. Two or three podiums aren't enough to win a title but Bourdais will get 8-10 top tens and find himself in the top ten of the championship.

The 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series seasons commences with Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 13th. ABC's coverage of the race will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Wednesday Warm-Up: KV Racing's 2015 Season

We have reached the halfway point of the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series team reviews. The fifth team being review is KV Racing. One half of the team was at the top, fighting for a top five in the championship before settling for a top ten. The other half of the team was stuck in the cellar for most of the season and questions linger about whether there will be a change in 2016.

Sébastien Bourdais had one of his best season since returning to IndyCar

Sébastien Bourdais
Consistency was the name of Sébastien Bourdais' game for the first 4/5ths of the season. Bourdais was on the backend of the Penske domination at St. Petersburg with a sixth place finish, the second best non-Penske behind only Tony Kanaan, who finished third. He was collateral at NOLA when Simon Pagenaud and Ryan Hunter-Reay took each other out. At Long Beach, Bourdais was again the second best non-Penske and again was sixth and again was behind only Tony Kanaan, who finished fifth. He was caught out on pit strategy at Barber but managed to pull out an eighth.

In the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Bourdais had a great run and was pressuring Juan Pablo Montoya for the final podium position but had to settle for fourth. He was always around the top ten in the Indianapolis 500 but did have a point in the race where he faded to around 20th, only to recover and to finish 11th. After being one of many drivers to screw up tire strategy in Belle Isle 1, Bourdais used tire and fuel strategy to his favor and benefitted in the second race from a bunch of cautions that caused the race to be a timed race. He held off Takuma Sato and had enough fuel to get the victory. He always struggles at Texas and believe it or not, Bourdais scored his best race finish at Texas when he came home in 14th.

Bourdais always runs well at Toronto and he scored another top five at Exhibition Place and could have had a podium if Josef Newgarden and Hélio Castroneves had not jumped him on pit stops. He was mid-pack all day at Fontana and finished 14th. At Milwaukee, Bourdais laid a shellacking on the field. Josef Newgarden dominated the first half of the race but when Newgarden and company pitted under a caution, Bourdais stayed out after pitting just 16 laps prior to the that caution. The Frenchman pulled away and scored his second victory of the season. He started 24th at Iowa after brushing the wall in qualifying and worked his way to a ninth place finish.

After the first thirteen races, he was sixth in the championship, 79 points behind Montoya and appeared to have a shot at the title. He started third at Mid-Ohio and was running around the top ten all race but the penultimate caution caught him out, just like Montoya, except Bourdais was mired in 18th and could only pick up one position in the final 20 laps. Pocono ended with an early accident on a restart and Bourdais would have had a top ten if he hadn't run into the back of Graham Rahal, causing him to be handed a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to 20th. That penalty dropped him from seventh in the championship to tenth.

Sébastien Bourdais's 2015 Statistics
Championship Positions: 10th (406 points)
Wins: 2
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 4
Top Tens: 8
Laps Led: 145
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 4
Fast Twelves: 7
Average Start: 10.285
Average Finish: 10.875

Stefano Coletti rarely stood out in his rookie season

Stefano Coletti
The Monegasque driver did not have a great rookie season in IndyCar. Stefano Coletti finished a lap down in his debut at St. Petersburg and made a great save in the wet at NOLA but once again finished a lap down. At Long Beach, Coletti had an extended pit stop put him 11 laps down but the Monegasque driver did set the fastest lap of the race despite finishing last. He scored his first lead-lap finish at Barber but was 19th.

The Grand Prix of Indianapolis was Coletti's best race of the year. He scored his first career top ten start and he scored his first career top ten finish as he battled up to eighth and was running with the big boys of Tony Kanaan and Takuma Sato. It went all downhill from there. He struggled in Indianapolis 500 practice and qualifying. He was going to start 32nd but all the driver changes bumped him up to 29th on the grid. In the race, he was in the back half of the pack all race and was in the wrong place at the wrong time when Jack Hawksworth and Sebastián Saavedra made contact, causing Saavedra's car to come into Coletti's path.

He would finish the next three races one lap down. He retired after 40 laps at Toronto. He slightly rebounded at Fontana, finishing on the lead lap in 11th but benefitted greatly from attrition. His engine failed him at Milwaukee. He had an accident at Iowa. He was no-where to be found at Mid-Ohio and a mechanical failure ended his race before completing 20 laps at Pocono. At Sonoma, Coletti worked himself to the top five, and I mean legitimately worked his way to the top five. However, his radio quit on him and because IndyCar is too over the top with safety and has completely forgotten about pit boards, black-flagged Coletti, dropping him to 17th in the final results.

Stefano Coletti's 2015 Statistics
Championship Positions: 19th (203 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 1
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 2
Average Start: 18.642
Average Finish: 18.5

This was a good year for KV Racing but it definitely could have been better. After Iowa, it appeared Bourdais was going to be able to keep himself alive for the Astor Cup only to have the worst three-race stretch of his career. Bourdais meshes well with KV Racing. They have something there and they can compete at the front. It seemed though that Bourdais struggled to get by the Penske drivers at the start of the season. He would start right behind them but wasn't able to get by them during the race. That seemed to be amended as the season went on but qualifying is one area that Bourdais could improve on, although, everyone in IndyCar could improve on their qualifying form.

A lot of people want to kick Coletti to the curb after year one and I understand why. However, he was learning everything from scratch. Testing is much more limited now than 12-20 years ago when a driver (Montoya, Bourdais, Bruno Junqueira, Alex Zanardi) could come over from Europe and be fast off the plane in IndyCar. Unless a driver is horrid (Francesco Dracone), I rarely think a driver should be booted for good after one season. In Coletti's case, because he was rarely in the front half of the grid and rarely had his race end because of an accident, I would give him one more season. If he shows improvements and can finish ahead of a driver who only ran half the races in the championship, then maybe he gets a third year. But for now, I would like to see Coletti get a second chance.

I don't know if KV will give Coletti that second chance. KV has to know that they have the capabilities to run two competitive cars. If they can find the right driver to pair with Bourdais, they could find a driver in championship contention. KV is the Chevrolet-equivalent of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. They have one great driver but the second is letting them down. However, this is IndyCar. Look at who gets hired for second seats. It makes more sense for Ryan Briscoe, Simona de Silvestro, J.R. Hildebrand or even Mikhail Aleshin or James Davison to get that seat, but it's the James Jakes' and Sebastián Saavedra's of the world who get second seats.

KV has the driver and the capability to take the fight to Penske and the other top teams. If they make the right moves in the offseason, they could find themselves as championship contenders in 2016.

2015 Verizon IndyCar Team-By-Team Preview: KV Racing Technology

It was a tale of two seasons for KV Racing Technology in 2014. While Sébastien Bourdais had a respectable season and finished in the top ten in the championship for the first time since his 2007 championship, Sebastián Saavedra had a typical Sebastián Saavedra season with plenty of retirements putting him solidly in the basement. Bourdais returns but Saavedra will not as the team has drafted in a man from a principality.

2014 KV Racing Technology Review:
Wins: 1 (Toronto 1).
Poles: 3 (IMS Road Course, Toronto 1, Mid-Ohio).
Final Championship Position: 10th (Sébastien Bourdais), 21st (Sebastián Saavedra).

2015 Drivers:

Sébastien Bourdais
The four-time champion Sébastien Bourdais had his best season since returning to full-time IndyCar competition but still left a lot of room to improve on the table. While winning in dominating fashion at Toronto, he had another great run at Mid-Ohio only to have Scott Dixon's amazing fuel conservation run keep him from victory. The Frenchman also had good races at Indianapolis and Houston. Bourdais did have a few slumps over the course of the season. Outside of the Indianapolis 500, Bourdais' best oval finish was 12th at Milwaukee.

Numbers to Remember: 54.54. Bourdais has won 54.54% of the races he has started on pole position (18 out of 33).

8. Bourdais is 8th all-time in IndyCar victories, second amongst active drivers behind just Scott Dixon. With 32 victories, Bourdais trails Al Unser, Jr. for 7th all-time and is three back of Dixon and Bobby Unser for fifth all-time.

12. Bourdais is 12 starts away from passing George Snider for 50th all-time in IndyCar starts.

Predictions/Goals: We know Bourdais is fast enough to win races but to get himself back into championship contention he is going to have to be more consistently in the top five. A few races he found himself in the tires or just wasn't a factor and sat solidly in the middle of the pack. He has done well at Indianapolis but needs to improve on the other five ovals. Another finish in the top ten in the championship is absolutely possible with a chance at the top five if he is consistently finishing in the top ten this season.

Stefano Coletti
Hailing from Monaco, Stefano Coletti has been the third rookie confirmed to run majority of the season. The Monegasque driver raced in GP2 the last four seasons. He ran in Formula Three Euro Series, GP3 and Formula Renault 3.5 previously in his career. In 86 GP2 starts, Coletti won seven races, had 15 podiums, one pole and 11 fastest laps and finished fifth and sixth the last two years in the championship.

Numbers to Remember: 30,984. Amount of days between IndyCar races that featured a Monegasque driver. Louis Chiron ran the 1929 Indianapolis 500, his only IndyCar start. Chiron started 14th, finished 7th and completed all 200 laps.

15. Coletti is set to become the 15th different driver to make a start in both IndyCar and GP2. This does not include Scott Speed, who failed to qualify for the 2011 Indianapolis 500, the only time he has attempted an IndyCar race.

3. The fourteen previous drivers to have made starts both IndyCar and GP2 have combined to win three races, all at the hands of Mike Conway.

Predictions/Goals: Let's start with the bad news with the Coletti hire and it has nothing to do with him as a driver: You know the ABC broadcasters are going to shove down our throats the fact that Coletti is from Monaco the same way they shove Charlie Kimball's diabetes and Hélio Castroneves' Dancing with the Stars title down our throats. They hear one thing about a driver and then running six feet deep into the ground. I am sure there is more to him than his nationality. Maybe they should take their time to talk to him and learn about whom he is and what he is thinking as a driver.

On track I think Coletti will be the surprise of the season. I will put him as the favorite for Rookie of the Year as currently he and Gabby Chaves are the only two confirmed for the full-season (Luca Filippi will run 10 races and Sage Karam is only confirmed for St. Petersburg but his program might be expanded to more races). He has never run an oval but he will learn to love ovals. Expect a few top fives and top tens and Coletti can easily crack the top fifteen of the championship.

The 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series seasons gets underway on Sunday March 29th. ABC's coverage will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Wednesday Wrap-Up: KV Racing's 2014 Season

The fifth 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series team review features KV Racing. The 2012 Indianapolis 500 winning team lost Tony Kanaan to Ganassi and Simona de Silvestro became a Sauber F1 affiliated driver but the team kept going despite rumors leading into 2014 that they could be closing their doors. They picked up the talented Sébastien Bourdais and the Gary Petersen's AFS paycheck a.k.a Sebastián Saavedra, for 2014 with both performing up to their expectations.

2014 was Sébastien Bourdais' best since returning to IndyCar in 2010

Sébastien Bourdais
The Frenchman entered the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season fresh off a victory at the 2014 Hours of Daytona but was approaching seven years since his last IndyCar victory in his final Champ Car start before heading to Formula One and Scuderia Toro Rosso. He had another slow start to his season. He started and finished 13th at St. Petersburg, started third at Long Beach put had two trips into the tires drop him to 14th and was never a factor at Barber, finishing 15th after being black flagged for contact with Mikhail Aleshin.

The April shower at Barber sprung May flowers for Bourdais at Indianapolis with a fourth in the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis and seventh in the Indianapolis 500, his first top ten finish in the famed event. June however saw the Frenchman hit a slump with a 13th and 20th at Belle Isle with the second race ending in the tires and an accident at Texas with Justin Wilson gave him back-to-back 20th place finishes. Houston was much more kind to Bourdais with a fourth in race one after running toward the front all day and a fifth in race two after once again being toward the front of the field most of the race.

When IndyCar headed back to the ovals, Bourdais saw another slump. He finished a lap down in 16th at Pocono despite getting better fuel mileage than most of his competitors and had a mechanical failure at Iowa end his race after 130 laps. Bourdais started on pole position for race one at Toronto and the Frenchman cruised to victory, leading 58 of 65 laps. In race two, he finished ninth after having to start tenth due to the field being set by owners' points. He won another pole at Mid-Ohio and came home second after Scott Dixon nailed fuel mileage, however it would be the final top ten of the year for Bourdais.

He finished 12th at Milwaukee in an uneventful race and finished 11th at Sonoma where he hit everything but the pace car. At Fontana, Bourdais started 15th but never had a car that could compete at the front and finished 18th but ended up finishing tenth in the championship, his best championship finish since returning to IndyCar in 2011.

Sébastien Bourdais' 2014 Statistics
Championship Positions: 10th (461 points)
Wins: 1
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 5
Top Tens: 7
Laps Led: 98
Poles: 2
Fast Sixes: 3
Fast Twelves: 8
Average Start: 9.822 (8th)
Average Finish: 11.277 (10th)

Sebastián Saavedra ended 2014 at the bottom of the IndyCar Championship

Sebastián Saavedra
While Bourdais started slow, Saavedra started surprisingly fast. He finished eleventh at St. Petersburg and thanks to a lot of attrition at Long Beach came home in ninth, his third career top ten finish, despite stalling on the grid. After that it was all down hill for the Colombian. He had a promising run at Barber after staying out on wet tires longer than anyone else, led 11 laps and was in contention for a podium but because he was pitting out of sequence, he ended up finishing 18th.

He took a surprise pole position for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after Ryan Hunter-Reay brought out the red flag to end the final qualifying session but, just like at Long Beach, Saavedra stalled on the grid and gave the inaugural IndyCar race around the IMS road course it's Roberto Guerrero moment after his fellow countryman Carlos Muñoz and Mikhail Aleshin ran into the back of him. In the Indianapolis 500, he started in the middle of the last row but finished on the lead lap for the first time on an oval in his IndyCar career in 15th.

The rest of Saavedra's summer was a string of mid-pack finishes with a few retirements. He finished 14th in Belle Isle 1 and he would not finish on the lead lap again until Sonoma. He started ninth for Belle Isle 2 and he would only start in the top fifteen once in the following eleven races. Saavedra actually had a pattern from Texas to Iowa in his finishes with a 17th followed by 15th, 17th, 15th and 17th at Iowa. And Iowa was his best race of his career to this point! He was driving to the front, picking off the likes of Montoya, Castroneves, Power and Dixon and was running down Kanaan who dominated at Iowa. But then he put into the wall and let the air out of the balloon that was everyone thinking he had finally found his rhythm in IndyCar. After Iowa, his best finish was 16th at Sonoma.

Sebastián Saavedra's 2014 Statistics
Championship Positions: 21st (291 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 1
Laps Led:
Poles: 1
Fast Sixes: 1
Fast Twelves: 2
Average Start: 16.777 (23rd)
Average Finish: 17.176 (23rd)

Head-to-Head
Better Finish: Sébastien Bourdais def. Sebastián Saavedra 13-5.
Better Qualifying Position: Bourdais def. Saavedra 15-3.

Bourdais showed he still has it to compete with the big boys and I only have to think if he had a teammate to match his skill set at KV Racing, that team would be able to take a step to the next level. I don't understand why Gary Peterson continues to fund Saavedra's career when the likes of JR Hildebrand, James Davidson, Sam Bird, Martin Plowman, Tristan Vautier, Gabby Chaves and Jack Harvey are on the outside. Saavedra is only 24 and I know I defend the likes of Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal for still being relatively young and having plenty of years ahead of them to win races and championships but it least we have seen Andretti and Rahal compete at the front of races and show some type of promise. Saavedra has done nothing in IndyCar to show he is capable of being a top driver. In 56 starts, he has finished on the lead lap only 16 times and out of his 21 oval starts, this year's Indianapolis 500 is his only lead lap finish on an oval.

I wish Indy Lights can develop into a series where a driver could actually have a career at the second level just like what Jason Keller did in the NASCAR Busch, now-Nationwide, soon-to-be-Xfinity Series because Saavedra would make a great career Lights driver who could make attempt the Indianapolis 500 every year but when it comes to IndyCar full-time, he just isn't cut to be there.

He is holding KV back and that team has potential to take a step forward, pass the likes of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Other than Indianapolis the team struggled on ovals and with the triple crown races worth double points, one bad run could cost you four or five spots in the championship. I expect Bourdais to return the only question is will he have a teammate that can keep up with the four-time champion?

2014 Verizon IndyCar Team-By-Team Preview: KVSH/KV AFS Racing

The tenth team for this team-by-team preview for the 2014 IndyCar season is the defending Indianapolis 500 winner KVSH/KV AFS Racing as he team returns with two new drivers for 2014.

2013 KVSH/KV AFS Racing Review:
Wins: 1 (Indianapolis).
Poles: 0
Best Start: 3rd (St. Petersburg).
Final Championship Position: 11th (Tony Kanaan), 13th (Simona de Silvestro).

2014 Drivers:

Sébastien Bourdais
The four-time IndyCar (technically ChampCar but 6-of-1, half a dozen of another) champion moves to his third team since returning to IndyCar in 2011. He had a rough start to 2013 but ended strong with three podiums in the final half of the season and six top tens in those nine races with a strong run at the season finale, leading thirty-five laps before spinning with twenty-one laps to go while in third. The Frenchman is looking for his first victory since Mexico City in 2007, the last race before reunification in IndyCar.

Number to Remember: 103. Races since Bourdais' last victory.

Prediction/Goals: Last year I predicted Bourdais would win a race. This year, he breaks through and gets a victory but only one. Add a handful of top fives and Bourdais will finish in the top ten of the championship for the first time since returning to IndyCar in 2011.

Sebastián Saavedra
The Colombian driver returns for his third season in IndyCar and joins Bourdais at KVSH/KV AFS after both teamed at Dragon Racing in 2013. Saavedra finished twenty-first in the championship last year, the lowest of the full-time competitors and only three points ahead of Oriol Servià, who missed seven races. Saavedra picked up his first career top ten in the second Belle Isle race and improved his best career finish later in the season at Baltimore where he finished eighth. Saavedra also set his best career starting position last year when he started sixth at Milwaukee but finished two laps down in thirteenth.

Number to Remember: 10. Amount of lead lap finishes for Saavedra in 38 career starts.

Prediction/Goals: Don't expect a big jump for the twenty-three year old. He will be toward the bottom of the championship picture again. A top ten may fall his way but don't hold your breathe. To only think, Gary Anderson returns with his company Automatic Fire Sprinklers to sponsor Saavedra and JR Hildebrand, a driver who was sponsored by AFS when he won the Indy Lights championship, has a dozen top ten finishes in his IndyCar career and was in contention for the win in the 2013 season finale at Fontana before an engine failure is without a ride and career is all but over barring he wins the lottery or stuns everyone and wins Indianapolis in an Ed Carpenter Racing one-off.

Other Notes: KV Racing is strongly considering a third car for the Indianapolis 500 and Townsend Bell is the leading candidate for that ride.

The 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season opens this Sunday at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on ABC with green flag at 3:30 p.m. ET.