We have less than a fortnight until Christmas and we have still not even reached the halfway point of the IndyCar offseason. In fact, the halfway point is exactly a week away.
This has been an eventful IndyCar offseason despite not even being halfway over. Nothing really pointed to this much movement when the trucks were packed and pulled out of Laguna Seca to end the season and drive east into the autumnal air. Not long ago it seemed to be the norm to head into an offseason knowing there would be a lot of movement. It was just how it was during the rough days of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League.
Maybe we got too comfortable with consistency. Maybe things have improved in IndyCar where stability is possible for a few seasons but turnover will come again and most of it will happen at once. Maybe this has been a natural cycle for the series and we were due for an offseason that mixes everything up.
Either way, we kind of need to get our heads around what has happened, who has moved, who has stayed and what is still undetermined as Christmas approaches and IndyCar crests the offseason peak.
Who Has Stayed Put?
Andretti Autosport has retained all four drivers, Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Zach Veach and Marco Andretti. The Andretti Autosport family has also brought Colton Herta into the fold with the team absorbing the Harding Steinbrenner Racing operation.
Chip Ganassi Racing has kept Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist. This will be their 19th and second respectively seasons with the team.
Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato will be back in a two-car operation for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Meyer Shank Racing has become a full-time team and Jack Harvey will get an opportunity at a full season. This year the team will run with a technical alliance from Andretti Autosport.
Ed Carpenter has decided to keep Ed Carpenter around for the oval races in the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet.
Team Penske is going to keep 2019 championship Josef Newgarden, 2019 Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud and the driver that won the most races in the 2010s decade Will Power for the 2020 season.
Fourteen driver/team combinations will carry over from the 2019 season to 2020.
Who is Gone?
The notable news of the offseason was McLaren and Schmidt Peterson marriage kicking James Hinchcliffe and Marcus Ericsson to the curb. The McLaren/Schmidt Peterson team has also switched from Honda to Chevrolet engines for the 2020 season.
Dale Coyne Racing parted ways with Sébastien Bourdais despite Bourdais being the top Dale Coyne Racing driver in the championship in 2019.
Spencer Pigot was let go from the full-time seat, the #21 Chevrolet, at Ed Carpenter Racing. Speaking of Ed Carpenter Racing, Ed Jones will not return in the #20 Chevrolet for the road and street course races.
Who Has Found a New Home?
The good news for Marcus Ericsson is he quickly found a new home at Chip Ganssi Racing, an operation that will expand to three cars.
Conor Daly will share the #20 Chevrolet will Ed Carpenter in 2020. Daly will do the 12 road and street course events and Daly will be in a third car for the Indianapolis 500. While Daly will be part-time, Rinus VeeKay has taken over the full-time seat, the #21 Chevrolet for ECR.
McLaren and Schmidt Peterson have hired Patricio O'Ward and Oliver Askew to fill its two full-time entries. This comes after O'Ward ran seven races in 2019 before his responsibilities as a Red Bull junior driver took him to Japan for a few rounds in Super Formula. O'Ward has been released from the Red Bull junior program. Askew will move up fresh off winning the Indy Lights championship last year.
As of now, we have 18 confirmed entries for the 2020 season.
Who Has Been Silent?
A.J. Foyt Racing has not said much since the cars were last on track at Laguna Seca.
The Foyt team has seen primary sponsor ABC Supply Co. exit and there has been little said about what that team will do in 2020. When the news broke of Foyt's team losing its sponsor the team stated it still planned on running two cars. There has been no word on whether Tony Kanaan and/or Matheus Leist will return or not.
Carlin ran six drivers in two cars last year and not much has come out from that camp. Two of the drivers the team ran in 2019 have already picked up rides for 2020 in Daly and O'Ward. The other four drivers for the team, Max Chilton, Charlie Kimball, RC Enerson and Sage Karam have not confirmed any plans for 2020.
Dale Coyne Racing has not confirmed that Santino Ferrucci will be back for 2020. Everyone seems to believe these two will be together for another season but no one has said it is done and dusted.
We have not heard anything from part-time competitors in 2019, Juncos Racing and DragonSpeed, about potential 2020 programs.
Obligatory Too Early Indianapolis 500 Entry List Count
Right now we are at 18 known full-time entries, add Conor Daly and we are already at 19 car. If Carlin, Foyt and Coyne all return with at least two cars we have 25 entries, split between 13 Honda teams and 12 Chevrolet teams.
It has been really quiet on Indianapolis 500 programs this offseason. In recent seasons we have known of a few additional entries for the Indianapolis 500-only at this time of the year.
The biggest fish out there is Fernando Alonso and the Spaniard could be changing his scenery for 2020. Alonso reportedly has been in talks to run with Andretti Autosport for the 2020 Indianapolis 500. Alonso ran for the team in 2017 when McLaren formed a partnership with Andretti Autosport for the month of May. Last year, Alonso missed the field in a McLaren entry with some relation to the Carlin program.
Alonso will be at Indianapolis in May, at least it appears that way. If Alonso is in an Andretti car, that takes up the additional Andretti entry we are used to seeing. If Alonso is running with McLaren then we will still probably see an additional Andretti car with another driver.
I think people were penciling in a third McLaren but if Alonso chooses to race elsewhere I am not so certain a third entry is a slam-dunk. Last season, McLaren couldn't get one car in the field with a partnership with a full-time team. In 2020, McLaren will be on its own and with two full-time cars. It might make more sense to focus on getting those two cars with two drivers that have never qualified for the Indianapolis 500 into the race than splitting the deck and having a third driver also trying to get in.
It would not surprise me if McLaren has a third entry with a driver that is not Alonso, especially since Schmidt Peterson Motorsports ran an extra car on a regular basis at Indianapolis, but I think there is a chance the team sticks to two cars.
Because there has been so little news on full-time entries, it is hard to figure out what team would run an additional car and what teams will not.
A.J. Foyt Racing has been a team you could consistently count on to run an extra car but if the team only runs one full-time car then that is one few Indianapolis 500 entry than if it was a two-car team full-time. The same goes with Dale Coyne Racing. Coyne has a record of running two full-time teams but if the team cannot find a suitable driver for the second car then maybe the team doesn't run a third car at Indianapolis. Carlin entered three cars last year and only one made the field. Would the team roll the dice and enter an extra car again? I don't see that happening.
I think we are going to see Dreyer & Reinbold Racing return and a two-car program would not be a surprise. Last year, the third Ed Carpenter Racing entry was in partnership with Scuderia Corsa. Scuderia Corsa could be another option if it finds a new partnership or if ECR decides to expand to four cars for the month of May. Clauson-Marshall Racing made it last year but there is no guarantee the team will be back in 2020.
We are too far off and too many balls are in the air to see what the qualifying line will look like in May.
What Should We Expect
James Hinchcliffe is going to get a shot somewhere. I am not going to say he will go to Coyne since Coyne is also looking at Formula Two race winner Sérgio Sette Câmara and Super Formula race winner Álex Palou. Hinchcliffe will get something even if it is only part-time for Indianapolis and Toronto.
I expect Santino Ferrucci to eventually be confirmed at Coyne. There aren't any better options out there. Foyt isn't better than Coyne and Carlin isn't better than Coyne. Ferrucci will lose Bourdais as a mentor to lean on and he has lost engineer Michael Cannon as Cannon moves to be Scott Dixon's engineer but he will still have Craig Hampson.
The only noise we have heard about Foyt is Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball splitting a car and apparently Dalton Kellett is in contention. That would be a sad end for Kanaan because his consecutive start streak would likely end in the middle of a season at a random race because of sponsorship reasons and that doesn't feel right. I would love a pairing of Kanaan and Kimball with both as full-time Foyt drivers. That could be a pairing that really picks the team up but it will come down to funding.
Carlin is a wild card. Max Chilton stepped away from ovals in the middle of last season but he didn't rule out running ovals in the future. The introduction of the aeroscreen could bring Chilton back to full-time competition. Even if Chilton decides to remain off ovals he will still likely factor into one of the Carlin seats in a reverse Ed Carpenter role.
I think this could be the offseason with a lot of new names coming to IndyCar. All of the rides out there are dependent on funding. That is something it appears Hinchcliffe doesn't have enough of, Spencer Pigot doesn't have enough of and the only options for these teams may come from abroad.
Ed Jones is moving to Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with Audi. Jordan King seems to be focusing on sports cars. Matheus Leist hasn't made a peep. We have heard nothing from Kyle Kaiser, J.R. Hildebrand or Oriol Servià about being serious contenders for full-time seats.
While thinking we could see an influx of talent from outside the United States, outside of Câmara and Palou being linked to the Coyne seat, there aren't other Formula Two drivers or sports car drivers linked to IndyCar. Felipe Nasr, Colin Braun and Pipo Derani are IMSA drivers that have been on IndyCar's radar for a while but we haven't heard anything serious from these three for some time and none of them have significant amount of funding, definitely not enough for a full-time IndyCar effort.
The last few years we have gone into Christmas and New Year's with 95% of the IndyCar accounted for with only one or two full-time seats unknown. We will head into 2020 with a lot of unanswered questions. Stay tuned, boys and girls.
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