After spending the last few years testing the waters Meyer Shank Racing is diving into the deep end and will attempt at 17 races with Jack Harvey. This combination dates back to the 2017 season when Harvey ran for the team in partnership with Andretti Autosport. The team has shown exciting pace in its three part-time seasons and it has high expectations in 2020.
2019 Meyer Shank Racing
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Grand Prix of Indianapolis)
Poles: 0
Championship Finish: 21st (Jack Harvey)
Jack Harvey - #60 SiriusXM/AutoNation Honda
In Meyer Shank Racing's first significant crack at the IndyCar calendar, the team started strong at St. Petersburg with a starting position of seventh and a finish of tenth after battling slow pit stops and traffic.
Harvey brought out a red flag in qualifying at Austin, dropping him to a 23rd starting position. The race was not going great but Harvey kept it on the road and with his final pit stop out of the way when the only caution came out, Harvey moved into the top ten when the shuffle occurred. He kept it in the top ten and held on to finish tenth. At Barber, he qualified 12th, and had a good race going but a pit lane speeding penalty cost him. The cautions did time out to keep him in the running for a top ten finish but he needed a late splash of fuel and dropped to 13th. Long Beach was a little tougher for him, as he started 18th and early contact put him in the flowerbed around the fountain, a first but not a first any driver would want. He was able to continue in the race but was three laps down.
The breakout race for the team was Grand Prix of Indianapolis where Harvey qualified third and spent pretty much the entire race in the top five and at one point was challenging Scott Dixon for the lead. Unfortunately for Harvey, pit stops increased the gap Dixon had to him and when the rains came, Simon Pagenaud made his way to the front. The day still ended in a third place finish for Harvey, his first podium finish and the team's first podium finish.
The Indianapolis 500 was a good but not great showing, starting 25th, completing 199 laps and finishing 21st. The team's next race was Road America, which was a little underwhelming with a 15th place finish. Things got back on the right page at Mid-Ohio when Harvey qualified ninth and he finished tenth. Harvey qualified fourth for Portland and this seemed like another promising start but Ryan Hunter-Reay made one error into turn one and got into Harvey, ending his race after 19 laps. In the Laguna Seca finale, Harvey started 24th and finished 19th.
Numbers to Remember:
18.6: Points per race in 2019, better than Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Marcus Ericsson, Zach Veach and Matheus Leist.
5: Harvey made it out of the first round of qualifying on five of nine occasions.
4: Top ten finishes in 2019.
1: Finish better than tenth and that was third in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Predictions/Goals:
Be somewhere between 12th and 15th in the championship.
Mike Shank has already said the goal is to finish at least eighth in the championship, advance from the first round of qualifying on every occasion and get at least one podium finish. I think only one of those goals is realistic.
Harvey did an encouraging job in 2019. He had a competitive pace despite being a single-car, part-time team. We have seen plenty of efforts such as Harvey and MSR and been lucky to be 16th in qualifying and finish in the top fifteen in the race. Harvey got top ten results and he earned those results. These weren't fortunate turns of events that led to a top ten finish. He earned his top ten at St. Petersburg and Mid-Ohio and Harvey was legitimately the third best car in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and he was fighting with the leaders at one point.
Harvey has what it takes to piece together a great weekend, get to the Fast Six and run in the top five all race. Can he do that for 16 more weekends? I don't think so. I think he can do it three or four times a year but MSR showed weak points in 2019 and that is fine. This is a team that is still learning IndyCar; it is still growing and getting up to speed. There are going to be weak weekends. There should be weak weekends. It wouldn't look good if a team just rolled up and won eight races and had 15 podium finishes in year one.
Take into consideration that MSR is going to be learning four ovals in 2020 and we really aren't sure what the team is capable of on ovals. It has only run the Indianapolis 500 three times. Those four races could be excruciating for MSR. Those four races could swing the championship result in a negative direction for the team when the road and street course results are encouraging.
Looking at Harvey's results and extrapolating his points per race he would have been around 15th in the championship and that is not great but it would be good for a single-car team, especially a new single-car team. I think eighth is expecting too much but if Harvey was 13th, had one or two podium finishes, four or five top five finishes and seven to nine top ten finishes with three or four Fast Six appearances and seven or eight Fast 12 appearances that would be a respectable first full-time season for MSR and Harvey.
Expanding that to ovals I think Harvey just needs to complete laps. Results will come with completing laps. If he can finish on the lead lap in at least three oval races and can maybe get one top ten finish that will be a good start.
The 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 15th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBCSN's coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET
