We have reached the final predictions for 2019 and it is IndyCar. The 2018 season saw a big boost for the series with the new universal aero kit, new teams on the grid and great races. It appears the momentum is still on IndyCar's side heading into 2019 with more new teams joining the series, some teams expanding their operations and an exciting rookie class joining an already highly talented grid. Plenty could happen in 2019, here are 12 things I think will occur.
1. There will be multiple first time race winners in 2019
In combination with this year's rookie class, there are a handful of veteran drivers looking for their first victory.
Let's start with the rookies as this year's class has a European ladder vs. Road to Indy system feel to it. The most notable name is Felix Rosenqvist, who was a European Formula Three champion, won races in Formula E, won in Blancpain GT Series, was competitive in Super GT and Super Formula and yes, he did run a bit of Indy Lights in 2016 and won three races but for the most part he is a European developed driver and the Swede has landed at Chip Ganassi Racing.
Santino Ferrucci will become full-time in 2019 with Dale Coyne Racing. Ferrucci contested three IndyCar rounds last year while his Formula Two season ended prematurely after an unceremonious divorce with Trident. In 23 Formula Two starts, Ferrucci's best finish was sixth and in 24 GP3 Series starts, he had a third in the 2016 sprint race from Spa-Francorchamps and he finished fourth in sprint races at Silverstone and Hockenheim but he never finished better than ninth in a feature race in GP3 and Formula Two.
Pato O'Ward is coming off the Indy Lights championship and he was tremendous in his IndyCar debut in the 2018 finale from Sonoma. The Mexican driver started fifth and finished ninth. The good news for O'Ward is he has experience at 13 of the 16 tracks on the 2019 schedule. Eleven of those tracks came from Road to Indy experience, including Laguna Seca. The other two come from when he ran in Prototype Challenge in 2017. The only tracks he doesn't have experience at are Long Beach, Texas and Pocono. O'Ward has won at ten of the 13 tracks he has experience at.
Colton Herta was the vice-champion to his teammate O'Ward in Indy Lights in 2018 and he too made his IndyCar debut at Sonoma. While O'Ward out qualified and finished ahead of Herta, the American started 19th and finished 20th. Like O'Ward, Herta has experience at most of the tracks on the 2019 schedule with Herta having run at ten of 16 circuits. Of those ten tracks, he has won at five of them. O'Ward and Herta will remain teammates in IndyCar with both drivers running Honda-powered cars for Harding Steinbrenner Racing
Then there is Marcus Ericsson, who comes over from Formula One. Ericsson will be driving for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to fill in for Robert Wickens. Ericsson is coming off his best championship finish in Formula One after he finished 17th on nine points. Other Circuit of the Americas, the other 15 tracks on the schedule will be new to Ericsson.
It will be interesting to see how this rookie class plays out because it could answer the question about whether the competition of European junior series trains a driver better than the Road to Indy and that perceived talent gap means track experience does not outweigh overall driving talent. At the same time, if the likes of O'Ward and Herta do run better than or at the same level as at least Ferrucci and Ericsson then it will bode well for the Road to Indy system and might convince people that running a year of Indy Lights would be better for a young driver in Formula Three or Formula Two then jumping right into IndyCar.
I think Rosenqvist will win at least one race. He should be in Formula One and his bit of Indy Lights experience will help him out. Ovals will still be somewhat new to him. He did run at Phoenix and Indianapolis but that is not much experience.
I am not sure any of the other rookies can win a race. Ferrucci was respectable in his four IndyCar starts but I am not sure he will be the best Dale Coyne Racing driver most of the time let alone good enough to win a race. Ericsson is with a team capable of winning but he may have a learning curve and it might take him a quarter of the season to get comfortable. Harding Steinbrenner Racing should be in better position with Honda engines and Andretti dampers but it will be a monumental task to take now the senior team of Andretti Autosport.
As for veterans, I think Zach Veach can win an oval race. Veach made big gains in the second half of the season and we know Andretti Autosport puts out great cars at Indianapolis, Pocono and the team has a history of short track success. If Veach wins in 2019, it will most likely be on an oval. I am not sure he is at the level of teammates Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay to win on a road course yet.
Ed Carpenter Racing will have two drivers looking for their first career victories. Ed Jones will be the road course driver in the #20 Chevrolet and he will run the Indianapolis 500 in a one-off while Spencer Pigot will be full-time for the second consecutive year in the #21 Chevrolet. Jones had a bit of a rough sophomore season at Chip Ganassi Racing. He did have a few good days but he never really seemed to win the team over. Ed Carpenter Racing can win on road/street courses and while he will not be full-time Jones will have time to focus on the road and street courses. It would not be surprising if he pulled one out. Pigot was a bit wishy-washy in 2018 but the results got better toward the end of the year. If Pigot improves on qualifying results then he will get himself into a better position for race victories. Although, I feel like Pigot is in the same boat as Veach and if he were to win in 2019, it would most likely be on an oval.
And if there is one more name we cannot rule out it is Fernando Alonso in the Indianapolis 500. This year's effort will be a bit different. It will not come with the support of Andretti Autosport and it will be with Chevrolet engines. There is no guarantee Alonso will replicate his pace of 2017 but if there is one thing we know about Alonso is he is determined. He is going for something greater than a World Drivers' Championship and the Indianapolis 500 is the final leg of the Triple Crown. It is there for the taking and I think Alonso will be toward the sharp end of the field on Memorial Day weekend.
2. There will be no more than three cars failing to qualify for the Indianapolis 500
It is December 28th and we have almost a field of 33 on paper and still another half dozen realistic entries. This will not be a year of scrambling to fill the field but it appears 2019 will be another year of bumping. The only question is how many cars will not be making the race.
Some are coming up with as many as 40 entries. Everyone seems to think 38 is possible but we have to remember it comes down to the engine manufactures. It sounds like one has already said the limit is 19 and I bet that manufacture is Honda. Honda has gone over and beyond the call of duty the last two years. If Chevrolet matches that then there will be 38 entries. However, Chevrolet has fewer teams and fewer teams means fewer one-off entries.
I think we are looking at most 36 entries, which would be one more than 2018. If it was an even split than each manufacture would have 18 entries but I bet this falls at 19 Honda entries and 17 Chevrolet entries.
Despite not reaching our greatest predictions, 36 entries is a great thing and as much as I want 40 entries and beyond I realize that there are production factors that keeps the entry list a bit lower than it probably could be and that is not a bad thing. These are good days for IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500. For the better part of two decades we have had worrisome experiences with Indianapolis 500 entries and bumping. The fact that it appears we will have bumping no matter what in December is a wonderful thing.
3. Passing will be down in over half the street course races but up in over half the oval races
The universal aero kit may have had an argument for rookie of the year in 2018 over Robert Wickens because the production of the new bodywork was better than I think most people anticipated.
The first race at St. Petersburg had 336 total passes and 283 passes for position. Long Beach had 200 total passes and 134 passes for position. Four of five street course races had over 100 passes with the lone exception being the first Belle Isle race, which had 96 total passes, 82 for position. The next Belle Isle race had 144 total passes and Toronto had 184 passes.
The ovals were a weaker area for the universal aero kit compared to its two predecessors.
Phoenix was better than the previous two years with 280 passes and 98 for position. Somehow 633 passes in the Indianapolis 500, 428 for position, was a dismal performance. Texas had 688 passes, 242 for position. Iowa nearly broke into the four-figures with 955 passes but it had fewer passes for position than Texas with 234. Pocono had fewer passes than four street course races at 135 passes and it had fewer passes for position than every street course race with only 53. Gateway ended the season with 396 passes, 137 for position.
The good news for the ovals is IndyCar has been tweaking the aero kit in hopes of improving overtaking especially at Indianapolis and Pocono. Those are the two races where I think we could see significant jumps in 2019. Gateway was better in 2018 but there is definitely room for improvement. I am not sure there can be any more passing at Iowa and Texas could be marginally better but I am not sure it could see much of a gain.
The street courses are a bit of a crapshoot. We saw passing numbers on street courses we had never seen before. Every race was dazzling in terms of street courses from years ago. I think we are bound to see a step back on the street courses. Are we really going to see 336 passes again at St. Petersburg or 283 passes at Long Beach? We kind of saw the decline start during the 2018 season. At the first two races shattered the 200 passes mark but none of the final three street courses broke 200 and only one got over 150 passes.
There is still the possibility that passing could be down on street courses and the races are still fantastic. Would anyone complain if St. Petersburg only had 210 passes? What if Toronto had 180 passes? The numbers might be down but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to be alarmed.
It was a dangerous thing when IndyCar started publishing passing statistics because we really don't know what they mean. A large number doesn't mean it is a great race and a small number doesn't mean a bad race. We should not be slave to the numbers and let them dictate whether a race is good or not. I hope our critical commentary does not need numbers to steer how we feel about a race.
4. Simon Pagenaud wins multiple races and more than double his podium finishes from 2018
Pagenaud did not win in 2018 despite ending the season with ten consecutive top ten finishes and 14 top ten finishes in 17 starts.
While he had that stats line and finished sixth in the championship, there wasn't a race Pagenaud should have won in 2018. The two races he finished runner-up in he probably deserved no better than second. Scott Dixon was the best driver at Texas and Dixon was better than Pagenaud at Toronto. The Frenchman may have been gifted an extra position had teammate Josef Newgarden not slapped the wall while coming to the green flag for the restart while in the lead.
Plenty of parallels were drawn between this season and Pagenaud's first season at Penske in 2015, which coincided with the introduction of the manufacture-specific aero kits but Pagenaud was borderline championship-caliber in 2018 while his 2015 definitely showed a few growing pains.
He only led 31 laps in 2018, 26 of which came at Texas but he had the fourth best average finish and completed the fifth most laps. His only retirement was completely out of his control when Graham Rahal ran into the back of Pagenaud in turn one on lap one at Long Beach and Pagenaud had started third. That ended 22 consecutive races of running at the finish. Prior to that streak, Pagenaud had a 23 consecutive finish streak.
Pagenaud is going to finish races and he is bound to have his weekends again where he starts on the front row and leads two-thirds of a race on his way to victory. Not to forget mentioning that Pagenaud is better on ovals than he was prior to his Team Penske days and he is just as likely to win at Indianapolis, Texas and Pocono as he is to win at Road America, Toronto and Mid-Ohio.
5. Will Power will start at least one race outside the top ten
Power has started 27 consecutive races in the top ten. The last time he did not start in the top ten was in the first Belle Isle race in 2017 when he started 11th. Power has started outside the top ten in three of 65 starts since 2015 and that does not include his pole position for the 2016 season opener at St. Petersburg, which Power was forced to withdraw from on the morning of the race due to an inner-ear condition.
Power was a qualifying master in 2018. He started 15 of 17 races in the top five and his worst starting position was seventh at Sonoma, the only time he didn't make the Fast Six.
He isn't going to slip up on a road/street course. He is too good. You can pretty much pencil him into the top six at every road/street course and if you are penciling him into the top six, you mind as well put him in the top three. Penske also has a way of producing some good cars in oval qualifying trim and Power does have the benefit of Penske having deeper pockets than some other teams. Penske is able to focus on qualifying set up more than some other teams and on top of that Power can overcome wrecking a car in qualifying because Penske has spares while other teams might not and have to be conservative in qualifying to focus on the race.
While Power has a lot going for him, IndyCar can be a bit unpredictable. There have been plenty of occasions where a fast driver is caught out during a qualifying group with an untimely yellow and someone you thought would make the Fast Six all of a sudden hasn't made it out of group one. It happened to Power in 2015 at Long Beach. There could be an oval qualifying session where Power just gets the wrong conditions and has a head wind that he can't overcome or he has a twitch and is forced to get out of the throttle and that drops him down the starting order.
Power is going to win plenty of pole positions in 2019 but he will have one uncharacteristic starting position.
6. Sébastien Bourdais has at least three podium finishes
Bourdais has not had three podium finishes in a season since 2013 when he had three consecutive podium finishes between the Toronto doubleheader and Mid-Ohio.
It was impractical to expect Bourdais to match his Champ Car numbers when he returned to IndyCar. He has been solid driver during the DW12-era but he has yet to have a season that is shadow of his previous success. He has won a race in five consecutive seasons, something only Dixon and Power can claim but Bourdais has not strung together consistent finishes at the front. He has two podium finishes in four of the last five seasons.
Bourdais has had some close calls with three podium finishes. In 2014, he finished fourth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the first Houston race, which was a bit of a gift after Graham Rahal got into Tony Kanaan under caution. His two victories were his only podium finishes in 2015. Last year, Bourdais led 60 laps from pole position at Phoenix but he could not overcome an early penalty for clipping a crew member and finished 13th. He had to start last at Mid-Ohio and put on a performance working his way to sixth in a caution-free race. He finished fourth at Pocono and he was less than a second behind Dixon for third.
There are plenty of places where Bourdais can get results and Dale Coyne Racing might be the smallest team on the grid but they get the most out of what they got. I am not sure he can win three consecutive races at St. Petersburg but what is stopping him? He probably should have been on the podium at Long Beach as well in 2018 had it not been for an untimely yellow and not getting to pit lane in time. Coyne has also established a dangerously quick superspeedway program.
It feels like this fairy tale is bound to come to an end. Nothing lasts forever but Bourdais finished seventh in the championship last year and I think he and Dale Coyne Racing aren't done yet.
7. Both Harding Steinbrenner Racing drivers score more points per start than Gabby Chaves
A lot has changed in a short period of time for Harding Racing. The team finished ninth on debut in the 2017 Indianapolis 500 and then finished second in the team's second race a few weeks later at Texas. After three oval races the team expanded to a full-time operation in 2018 and it started eighth at St. Petersburg.
Things went downhill from there. The team did not score a top ten finish until the season finale with O'Ward and after the team had divorced its young stud in Gabby Chaves.
Chaves did not do a bad job in his 13 starts. He did not match the output of Indianapolis and Texas from 2017 but he was running at the finish of 12 of his 13 starts with his lone retirement being at Iowa due to a handling issue. He did finish 14th in the Indianapolis 500 and complete all 200 laps.
Harding Racing was playing with some dated equipment. The dampers were eight years old for most of the season. It was a team fighting an uphill battle and doing it with little funding. Chaves got the most out of what he was given. O'Ward and Herta will have upgrades across the board.
Not only will the team have Andretti dampers and those dampers provided a big boost at Sonoma but the team has switched from Chevrolet engines to Honda engines. The Honda camp is quite deep with four Andretti cars, two Ganassi cars, two Rahal cars, two Schmidt Peterson cars and Bourdais at Coyne. That is 11 stout drivers to contend with in Honda's own camp but O'Ward's debut has everyone's hopes yet and while Herta didn't pull off what O'Ward did, he will still be 18 years old at St. Petersburg and he is bound to grow.
Chaves scored 187 points from 13 starts, good enough for 20th in the championship and on average 14.384 points per race. To beat that, O'Ward and Herta have to finish 15th or better in ever race. That doesn't sound like much but that is a huge task. I listed 11 Honda entries alone that we all think can win a race and then there are the three Penske entries and Ed Carpenter Racing should have an entry in the top 15. It is going to be tough to breakthrough but I think these two drivers will do it.
I am not saying O'Ward and Herta are both going to be in the top ten in the championship and will each have a race victory but I think each will have respectable days and if both drivers run all the races it should not be a surprise if both break 245 points. Matheus Leist scored 253 points in 2018 and he was far from spectacular. O'Ward and Herta should be able to at least match that but most likely surpass that with ease.
8. There will be at least two races with three rookies finishing in the top ten
It might sound crazy but the only rookies to get a top ten finish in 2018 were Zach Veach and O'Ward and O'Ward only ran the finale. This is despite there being 13 rookies. In 2017, Ed Jones was the only rookie to score a top ten finish. He was also the only rookie to run a full season.
The most recent race with three rookies in the top ten was at Watkins Glen in 2016 when Conor Daly finished fourth, Alexander Rossi finished eighth, RC Enerson finished ninth and Max Chilton came home in tenth. The next race with at least three rookies in the top ten was the first Houston race in 2014, which Carlos Huertas won (with an illegal fuel cell), Carlos Muñoz rounded out an all-Colombian podium (Montoya was second) and Jack Hawksworth finished sixth.
It is a mixture of we are due for this to happen, this rookie class is strong and it is quite a big class. There are five rookies scheduled to go full-time. It is not crazy to think there will be a race, let's say Barber, where Rosenqvist finishes sixth, Ericsson seventh and Herta tenth or at Road America Ericsson could finish fifth, Ferrucci could finish eighth and O'Ward finishes tenth.
Those are possible outcomes and lets not rule out at Indianapolis Alonso finishing sixth, Rosenqvist seventh and Herta ninth.
This is a really good rookie class and none of the five drivers are with terrible teams. We still have to see where Harding Steinbrenner Racing falls but if Sonoma is any indication it appears that team will be better than 2018. This is going to be a fun season.
9. There will not be a race decided under caution, barred rain-shortened races
Two races ended under caution in 2018: St. Petersburg after Rossi and Wickens got together and Iowa after Ed Carpenter brushed the wall exiting turn two, forced some debris on the track and there just was not enough time to restart the race.
Texas was the only race to end under caution in 2017; Phoenix was the only race to end under caution in 2016 and 2015 had NOLA, Fontana and Pocono end under caution with the first Belle Isle race being stopped early due to rain.
It has been a while since an IndyCar season did not have one race end under caution. In fact, you have to go back to the 2007 Champ Car season for the last time it happened.
However, IndyCar does not have a problem and it doesn't need to adopt green-white-checkered finish. There may be a race or two that finish under caution in a given season but it hasn't been a quarter or a third of the races.
This year I think every race will have a green flag finish and that is tough to predict. You never know if someone will bin it in the final corner of a street course and force a caution to be thrown with the leader on the other side of the circuit. Oval racing can be wild and that last lap move could end up taking out a few drivers. You never know but I think this will be the year of green.
10. Honda wins the most races for the second consecutive season
It really comes down to power in numbers and Honda is going to have it for a third consecutive year. It isn't just the quantity but the quality as well. It wasn't long ago Honda was lost with Hunter-Reay really being the manufactures' only consistent winner. Now it has Dixon, Rossi and Bourdais to give with Hunter-Reay and there are also Rahal, Hinchcliffe and Sato that have won a few races. All five full-time Honda teams have won a race the last two seasons. That is something Chevrolet can brag about.
Chevrolet has Team Penske and Team Penske has been pulling the boat for a while now. Team Penske has had some dominating seasons all on its own but that is not a reliable source. Eventually a team is going to hit a rough patch. One team cannot win nine races a season forever. The last non-Team Penske win for Chevrolet was Josef Newgarden with Ed Carpenter Racing at Iowa in 2016. Bourdais won earlier that season at Belle Isle with KVSH Racing.
There isn't that second team waiting in the wings to swoop in if Team Penske is off. ECR has that potential but we are not sure yet if the driver lineup is capable of being there like it once was. A.J. Foyt Racing is a mess. Carlin is still new.
If every Honda team wins at least one race again that is five and it is four victories away from sealing most victories. Dixon is likely going to win another, Rossi is likely to win another and Hunter-Reay has two victories that gives Honda nine victories and clinches most victories over Chevrolet. That also doesn't mention the possibility of Rosenqvist, Veach and possibly both Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers getting a victory.
I do not think Honda will dominate and win 12 of 17 races. I think it will be close to even but Honda could clinch this with two or three races to go.
11. The first caution in the Indianapolis 500 does not come after a lead lap car runs into a lapped car
It has happened the last two years. First, it was Scott Dixon and Jay Howard in 2017. Then it was James Davison and Takuma Sato. They have been funky incidents and unfortunately these incidents are used to diminish drivers and smeared them as being hazardous and not fit enough to run the Indianapolis 500.
That isn't fair to those drivers and sometimes accidents happen. But three consecutive years seems to be a bit much. Personally, I don't want to see any cautions. I want a 500-mile sprint with no room to breathe but a caution will likely come at some point in the race. I just don't think we will see lapped traffic and faster lead lap cars colliding as the cause in 2019.
12. Every driver in the top twenty of the championship starts every race.
This may be one of those things you haven't realized has not happened in a while and that is because it has never happened.
Never in IndyCar history has all twenty drivers in the top twenty of the championship started every race.
It sounds crazy and it sounds like it has to be wrong but it is completely correct. There have been plenty of times when 20 drivers have started every race but there has always been one driver in the top twenty that has missed a race whether it is because of injury or that driver was part-time.
IndyCar has had some oddity in the championship. During the days of AAA running the series and the early days of USAC there would be the drivers who only ran Indianapolis, would win it and then finish fifth in the championship or run a few other races but not all of them. In the 1960s, many drivers skipped Pikes Peak. In the 1970s, there were fewer driving running full-time and even those who did run majority of the schedule might have missed a round or two.
More drivers running full-time started in the 1980s but there were still the occasional DNS or DNQ or missed race due to an injury. By the time the mid-1990s rolled around we had the split and for many years neither series had enough drivers to have 20 run full-time. Things have been better since reunification but there have still been drivers not starting a race due to mechanical issues or injury.
Here are a few times when it was close to happening:
1991: The top 15 drivers started every race. Mike Groff was 16th and missed four races, Willy T. Ribbs missed six races, John Jones missed seven races and Ted Prappas missed five races. Gordon Johncock was 20th in the championship and his only start was the Indianapolis 500, where he started sixth.
1994: Nineteen of the top 20 and 20 of the top 21 started every race. The lone exception was Mark Smith, who finished 19th in the championship. Smith withdrew from Phoenix and did not qualify for Indianapolis. Willy T. Ribbs was 22nd in the championship and only missed Indianapolis.
1995: Al Unser, Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi both missed Indianapolis. Robby Gordon didn't start at Michigan. Eddie Cheever missed the final two races. Danny Sullivan missed the final four races due to injury.
1996 CART: Adrián Fernández did not start the U.S. 500. Paul Tracy didn't start the second Michigan race and missed Mid-Ohio. Mark Blundell broke his foot at Rio and missed the next three races. Emerson Fittipaldi suffered his career-ending injury at Michigan and missed the final four races. Eddie Lawson's only IndyCar season ended at Toronto, five races early.
1996 IRL: Buddy Lazier and Eddie Cheever both withdrew from Phoenix. Scott Brayton was fatally injured before Indianapolis. David Kudrave did not attempt Indianapolis. Michel Jourdain, Jr. and Jim Guthrie did not run the season opener at Orlando.
1998 CART: Christian Fittipaldi was the only driver in the top 20 not to start a race. He did not start at Milwaukee.
2000 IRL: Sarah Fisher did not start the season opener at Orlando. Tyce Carlson did not qualify for Indianapolis. Jaques Lazier missed Phoenix and Atlanta.
2001 CART: Tony Kanaan withdrew from Belle Isle due to a concussion. Memo Gidley did not run the first six races.
2004 Champ Car: The top 15 ran every race but Nelson Philippe missed three races, Gastón Mazzacane missed five races. Guy Smith missed seven races. Alex Sperafico missed the final six races. David Besnard was 20th in the championship and his only start was at Surfers Paradise, where he finished seventh.
2005 IRL: Buddy Rice missed Indianapolis. Tomáš Enge missed three races. Ryan Briscoe missed three races, including the final two after his Chicagoland accident. A.J. Foyt IV did not run the road courses.
2007 IRL: The top 17 ran every race but Jeff Simmons ran the first 11 races before he was replaced by Ryan Hunter-Reay, who ran the final six races and Milka Duno rounded out the top 20 after making only seven starts.
2008: Graham Rahal missed Homestead after he suffered an accident in a test days before the race. Bruno Junqueira missed Iowa after he wrecked his car in practice. E.J. Viso and the entire HVM Racing team missed Nashville due to the mumps.
2009: Hélio Castroneves missed the season opener due to his tax evasion case. Mario Moraes missed Mid-Ohio after the passing of his father. Will Power was 19th as a part-time entry and Tomas Scheckter was 20th as a part-time entry.
2010: The top 19 drivers started every race. Graham Rahal was 20th running a piecemeal season with Sarah Fisher Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Newman-Haas Racing. Takuma Sato was 21st in the championship, ran every race but scored 21 fewer points than Rahal.
2011: James Hinchcliffe missed the season opener at St. Petersburg. Alex Tagliani missed Kentucky because Dan Wheldon got an extra race before Las Vegas. Mike Conway did not qualify for Indianapolis. Simona de Silvestro missed Iowa due to injury and Sonoma due to visa issues.
2012: Rubens Barrichello did not start Texas due to a mechanical issue on the grid. Alex Tagliani and Byran Herta Autosport did not make the flight to São Paulo. Charlie Kimball missed Mid-Ohio due to injury.
2013: Dario Franchitti missed Fontana after his Houston accident. E.J. Viso missed Fontana due to illness.
2014: Jack Hawksworth missed Pocono due to injury and Mikhail Aleshin missed Fontana due to injury.
2015: The top 17 drivers started every race. Ryan Briscoe was 18th but ran as a substitute for James Hinchcliffe. Sage Karam was a part-time entry.
2016: Nineteen of the top twenty started every race. Will Power was second in the championship but missed St. Petersburg after his inner-ear condition.
2017: J.R. Hildebrand missed Barber due to injury. Mikhail Aleshin was benched for Toronto and released with four races to go. Spencer Pigot was part-time.
2018: James Hinchcliffe did not qualify for Indianapolis. Robert Wickens missed the final three races due to injury. Ed Carpenter was 20th and ran only the ovals.
There have been some close calls but with the number of full-time drivers expected I think this is the year it happens.
And that unnecessarily, long-winded, detailed final prediction closes out the five-part prediction series for the 2019 season. If you have missed the NASCAR, Et Cetera, Formula One or sports car predictions, please check them out.
The New Year will be here soon. Musings From the Weekend return on New Year's Eve for one final goodbye to 2018 and a look ahead to 2019.
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