On another New Year's Eve, we end our year with a set of IndyCar predictions. After a topsy-turvy year, IndyCar looks to have a more stable 2020. Fewer doubleheaders are on the schedule and hopefully we will get to see the return of Barber, Long Beach, Belle Isle, Toronto, Portland and Laguna Seca.
We do know we will see some new faces on the IndyCar grid. Jimmie Johnson will run all the road and street courses. Scott McLaughlin will attempt a full season in a Penske car. Tony Kanaan is back at Chip Ganassi Racing. Hélio Castroneves has joined Meyer Shank Racing. Juan Pablo Montoya will drive for Arrow McLaren SP. A lot has already happened, and there are still 66 days until the 2021 season opener from St. Petersburg. What else should we expect to see in the new season?
1. Will Power will at least match Mario Andretti's record of 67 pole positions
This is inevitable. Someday, Will Power will be the all-time leader in IndyCar pole positions. Power will turn 40 years old six days before the 2021 season opener at St. Petersburg and he is only six pole positions from the record being all his.
In seven of Power's 14 full seasons he has won at least five pole positions, including last year. Five pole positions put him level with Andretti. There is one reason why Power should be feeling good about at least tying Andretti in 2021 and that is there will be 13 road and street courses to four ovals.
Power has been one of the best oval drivers in the last five seasons, but he is still a stud on road and street courses and can run the lap of his life every time out. Nine of his 12 pole positions since the introduction of the universal aero kit have been on road and street courses. He won five pole positions last year, four of which were on road and street courses.
He won half the pole positions on road and street courses in 2020. In the previous two seasons, he won at least a quarter of the pole positions on road and street courses. If he wins half again, he will have at least six and the record will be his. If he wins a quarter, he will at least have three. You cannot rule out Power to win a pole position or two on ovals either.
If everything goes as planned (which is asking a lot during a pandemic), and we have 11 races with the three-round knockout qualifying that will only benefit Power. He finds speed over each round. There have been plenty of times he hasn't looked like he will have it and will only end up fourth or fifth at best and then pulls out a pole position. There were only two rounds that featured knockout qualifying in 2020 and he won pole position in both of them.
Power has eight pole positions at St. Petersburg, five on the Indianapolis road course, five at Mid-Ohio and four at Barber. Five races will be at those four tracks. Five great chances for pole positions. This could be the year Power gets that elusive Indianapolis 500 pole position. The Indianapolis 500 will be the sixth round of the season. There is chance Power could tie or break the record at Indianapolis. That is asking a lot, but with Power it is not out of the question.
2. Andretti Autosport drivers will combine for at least four victories
This is the Alexander Rossi gets back on track and picks up at least two if not more victories and Colton Herta keeps up the good form prediction.
Eighty percent of Andretti Autosport got off to a slow start in 2020 and once the team got it under control it was too late. Rossi had a year from hell. Mechanical issues in the first two rounds, a pair of accidents at Indianapolis and Gateway and Rossi was in a deep hole. He was ending on a strong note with four consecutive podium finishes and he was the best driver in the season finale at St. Petersburg before he had another accident in a race he was going to win.
Rossi isn't going to be down that long. He will get a second chance at St. Petersburg off the jump. He has been a threat in every Indianapolis 500 he has been in and that probably will not change in 2021. He will have to wait longer for Long Beach, but if there is one person who should be happy with Long Beach being the season finale and potentially swinging a championship, it is Rossi.
Herta led the Andretti stable in 2020 and he likely could have had two or three more victories, most notably with strong races in the Harvest Grand Prix weekend, good runs at Gateway and he was in Rossi's tracks for all of St. Petersburg before turbo issues and an error of his own kept him from ending the year with a victory when Rossi spun out of the race.
Everywhere Rossi can win Herta can win at also. It would not be any surprise if both drivers won three or four races. The question is can any of the other Andretti drivers pull out a victory?
Ryan Hunter-Reay has a two-year winless drought and he has come up empty in four of the last five seasons. Hunter-Reay's best runs in 2020 were at Mid-Ohio when the entire team was on point. He has kind of lost that oval edge he once had not long ago. We need to see Hunter-Reay flip a switch early in 2021 to have any confidence he could win again.
James Hinchcliffe could be back full-time at Andretti Autosport, but that has yet to be confirmed. Hinchcliffe had some encouraging days as a part-time driver last year, but he has been around for a decade and he has had flashes but has yet to be a regular race winner. A good day can fall his way, but we cannot expect he will be a regular contender.
As for Marco Andretti... we will touch on him a little later.
3. Chip Ganassi Racing's four cars average an entrants' championship position of 11th or higher
Scott Dixon is the defending champion. Marcus Ericsson is returning after a positive first year with Ganassi. Álex Palou moves into the #10 Honda after Felix Rosenqvist left for Arrow McLaren SP. Ganassi will expand to a four-car team with Jimmie Johnson and Tony Kanaan sharing a car, Johnson on road/street courses and Kanaan on ovals.
For the last few seasons, it has been Dixon carrying the weight at Ganassi. The last Ganassi driver not named Scott Dixon to finish in the top five of the championship was Dario Franchitti when Franchitti won the championship in 2011.
We have been waiting for this next wave of talent to come at Ganassi and at least support Dixon and it has not come. Since Franchitti's premature retirement after the 2013 season, only two Ganassi drivers not named Dixon have won a race. One was Tony Kanaan in the 2014 finale at Fontana and the other was Rosenqvist last year at Road America.
Even though Rosenqvist won a race, Dixon was the only driver in the top ten of the championship. The three Ganassi cars were first, 11th and 12th in 2020. That averages out to an eighth-place finish.
Dixon has never won championships in consecutive seasons. He will likely be in the top five of the championship, probably in the top three. Ericsson could stand to make up a few spots. Palou is moving over after being 16th with Dale Coyne Racing. The unknown is the #48 Honda with Johnson and Kanaan.
Johnson is completely new to IndyCar, especially on road and street courses. In his first major test he was bringing up the rear of the field and he has a lot of work to do, but Johnson is trying and has been testing a Formula Three car in preparation for his rookie season. I think we are going to have a lot of races where Johnson will be fighting to be in the top 20. If there are races where he is fighting to be 17th or better those will be great days.
I expect Palou will push for a top ten championship finish, as will Ericsson. It is just a matter of where Johnson will fall and how much Kanaan can counterbalance on the ovals. If Dixon is fourth, Ericsson is eighth and Palou is tenth that will mean the #48 entry will have to be 22nd or worse to fulfill this prediction. If the other three drivers fluctuate a position, then the #48 Honda will have to do better to beat 11th. Let's say Dixon is fourth, Ericsson is ninth and Palou is 12th, the #48 Honda will have to be 18th for the four entries to average better than 11th.
I am not sold the #48 Honda can be in the top 20 unless Kanaan wins the Indianapolis and is one of the five best drivers on ovals.
4. A.J. Foyt Racing gets its best championship finish since at least 2010
A.J. Foyt Racing has not had a top ten championship finish since Airton Daré was ninth in 2002. The closest it has gotten was Vitor Meira ending up in 12th in 2010. Foyt has only had two other top 15 championship finishers since Meira. Takuma Sato was 14th in 2017 and Tony Kanaan was 15th in 2019.
Basically, I am predicting Sébastien Bourdais will be 13th in the championship or better and I am comfortable with that bet.
Since Bourdais returned to full-time IndyCar competition in 2013, the only time he did not finish 13th or better in the championship in a full season was 2016 when he was 14th with KV Racing.
He has finished 12th in the championship with Dragon Racing. At KV Racing, he was tenth in the championship twice. In his two full seasons with Dale Coyne Racing, he was seventh and 11th. His 2017 season was interrupted when he broke his pelvis in Indianapolis 500 qualifying, but he averaged 26.75 points from the eight starts that season and if you extrapolate that over a 17-race season, Bourdais would have finished eighth in the championship that year on about 455 points.
It appears it doesn't matter what car you put Bourdais in, he will be on the cusp of a top ten championship finish and Foyt could use that.
Prior to the pandemic, Bourdais was strong in testing and people got excited about Foyt's chances in 2020. Then the pandemic happened, Bourdais wasn't in the car until the Harvest Grand Prix, he struggled that weekend, but he was stellar at St. Petersburg, qualifying seventh and finishing fourth.
It is one-race and Foyt is still Foyt, but Bourdais is going to carry the team and with 13 road and street course races the schedule is in his favor. Felix Rosenqvist was 11th in the championship with five top ten finishes. One of those was a victory for Rosenqvist, but if given 13 road/street course races, I expect Bourdais to get at least five top ten finishes.
On the other hand, Marcus Ericsson had nine top ten finish in 2020 and was 12th in the championship while Ryan Hunter-Reay had seven top ten finishes and finished tenth in the championship. The poor finish in the Indianapolis 500 stunted Ericsson's championship finish.
I expect Bourdais to be consistent. He is going to be strong on the road/street courses and an oval result will go in his favor. If he gets seven top ten finishes, I expect him to be between ninth and 12th in the championship. It is obvious a strong Indianapolis 500 can earn you an extra two to four spots in the championship. If he pulls out a top ten on Memorial Day weekend, Bourdais could bring Foyt back into the top ten of the championship for the first time in nearly two decades.
5. Patricio O'Ward wins at least one race, but his championship position falls
O'Ward was knocking on the door for his first career victory throughout in 2020.
If he had taken primary tires and not alternate tires on his final pit stop in the second Road America race, he likely wins that race. If the team works strategy differently in either Gateway race, he likely wins one of those races if not both. He also had strong races at Iowa.
That victory is coming, and McLaren is not going to accept going winless for two consecutive seasons in IndyCar. The team unceremoniously dumped Oliver Askew, but bringing in Felix Rosenqvist takes that team to a higher level and it will force O'Ward to step up his game. I expect O'Ward to do that.
I think O'Ward is ready to pull out a victory. It could be on an oval or a road course. He ended 2020 with a runner-up finish at St. Petersburg, which was probably three or four positions better than expected due to the late issues for the Andretti team, but in the one street course O'Ward ran a respectable pace and was in touching distance when others slipped up.
O'Ward might win a race or possibly two in 2021, but I think he will drop in the championship.
One, he was fourth in 2020. There is more room to go down than up. The drivers ahead of him were Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta. Two, notable drivers behind him in 2020 were Will Power, Alexander Rossi, Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud.
He could win two races and end up sixth in the championship because Rossi wins three times and has 12 top five finishes, Power wins four times and has eight top five finishes, Rahal wins the Indianapolis 500 and has seven top five finishes while Dixon wins another three races and is in the top ten in 15 races and Newgarden has two victories, eight podium finishes and his worst finish all season is 12th.
I just accounted for 15 of 17 victories in that hypothetical above. O'Ward could win twice and those could be his only top five finishes in 2020. Look at Rosenqvist. He won the fourth race of the season and he probably should have been second in the season opener. Rosenqvist was eighth in the championship after that victory and we all thought things were going to get better from there. He didn't finish in the top five again and he dropped three spots in the championship, finishing 11th.
IndyCar is tough. You can win races and still underperform your results from the year before when you were winless. O'Ward is going to be strong, but his championship results will likely take a step back, not a large step back but just enough.
6. Rinus VeeKay will not be the top ECR finisher in at least five races
VeeKay ended up taking the 2020 rookie of the year honors and he was the class of Ed Carpenter Racing despite being paired with Ed Carpenter and the plucky underdog Conor Daly.
Carpenter has spent his entire life in IndyCar and Daly has been around for the better part of the last five years. Despite this wealth of experience that favored the Americans, VeeKay was the top ECR finisher in 12 of 14 races. He was 8-0 against Daly. His only two losses came in his first and fifth starts. He ended the season topping the team head-to-head battle in nine consecutive races.
Daly didn't have a top ten finish with ECR. Ed Carpenter was fifth in the season opener at Texas and then he finished 15th or worse in the other five races. Carpenter's average finish was 18.333.
I don't think Carpenter will be that bad again. I can't imagine Daly will get shut out in 13 consecutive races head-to-head against VeeKay. I would expect Daly to get at least two or three top ten finishes at a minimum. VeeKay got five top ten finishes in his rookie season. The fact Daly went 0-for-12 despite having nearly 50 more starts in experience speaks more about Daly than it does ECR's capabilities.
VeeKay is also going to have bad days. Not Texas bad, but he is going to have a day where he will be 16th and his teammate is ninth or tenth. There will be a race where VeeKay suffers a puncture, has to make an extra pit stop and end up 19th while his teammate is 12th.
There will only be four ovals in 2021. I don't think Carpenter is going to sweep those, but I think a split makes the most sense. If the ovals are split, only three of 13 road/street course races have to go against VeeKay for this prediction to be sealed.
I am not predicting VeeKay is going to struggle or have a significant sophomore slump. I am predicting the rest of ECR will be more competitive. VeeKay could still end up the top ECR finisher in 12 of 17 races. That could get him 12th or 13th in the championship. He will be fine. It is a matter of the veterans stepping up their game.
7. Jack Harvey will set a career-high in top five finishes
This should not be that difficult, because Harvey has only one top five finish in his IndyCar career, a third in the 2019 Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Getting two might sound simple, but Harvey probably should have had three or four top five finishes in 2020 and scored none.
Even for the lost results, Harvey had an outstanding first full season with Meyer Shank Racing, better than 15th in the championship would suggest. Between the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the first Road America race, both Gateway races, a Harvest Grand Prix race and St. Petersburg, Harvey could have had a half-dozen top five finishes and easily been in the top ten of the championship.
Harvey's 15th in the championship needs context because four more points would have put him 12th in the championship and 19 points would have put him 11th. He was running in the top five when James Hinchcliffe clipped him under caution, and it dropped him from a possible finish of third or fourth to 19th. Instead of picking up let's say 32 points, he left with 11 points. That one race alone cost Harvey at least four championship positions.
MSR is ready to fight with the big boys and it will continue its IndyCar expansion with Hélio Castroneves contesting a half-dozen races. There could be chance the team is spreading a little too thin and it could affect Harvey, but I think it will only make the team stronger. Harvey was already the fifth-best qualifier in IndyCar in 2020, behind only the Penske drivers Will Power and Josef Newgarden and the Andretti drivers Colton Herta and Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Hunter-Reay was only 0.785 positions better.
If Harvey keeps up that qualifying form, not only will get top five finishes, but he will likely end up on the podium and possibly win a race or two. It is not crazy to suggest Harvey and MSR could end up on the top step of the podium. From everything the team showed in 2020, it is knocking on the door.
8. At least two winless droughts over 30 starts will come to an end
This is the Graham Rahal ends his slump prediction.
It is kind of absurd Rahal has not won in the last three seasons, and yet his teammate Takuma Sato has four victories in the same amount of time. Over the last three years, Rahal is better across the board in almost every notable category compared to Sato.
Top fives? Rahal is up 12 to ten.
Top tens? Rahal is up 32 to 23.
Average finish? Rahal is two positions better at 10.7 to Sato's 12.7.
Straight up head-to-head? It is advantage Rahal, 33 to 15.
Yet Sato has four victories to Rahal's none!
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing might have the most even lineup in IndyCar. Take all of the above and then consider Sato is better than Rahal on average starting position, but only slightly at 11.851 to 12.0 and they are nearly identical on points with Rahal scoring 1,158 to Sato's 1,114. When it comes to retirements, Rahal has had nine and Sato has had eight. In the last two seasons, the RLLR drivers have finished one ahead of the other in the championship. Sato was ninth and Rahal was tenth in 2019. This past season saw Rahal in sixth and Sato in seventh.
Rahal is due. It has been 57 races.
Who else falls in this boat?
Ryan Hunter-Reay has gone 31 races since his last victory. Sébastien Bourdais is quietly up to 36 races. I already predicted Patricio O'Ward will get a victory, but if he can wait until Road America to get his first career victory then he would fulfill this prediction's criteria. The same goes for Alexander Rossi, who is on a 21-race drought. If Rossi can wait until Mid-Ohio, that would be work for me. James Hinchcliffe has not won in his last 29 starts, so as long as he doesn't win his first start of 2021, he could fulfill this prediction.
Tony Kanaan is on an 89-race slump, Ed Carpenter has not been on the top step of the podium in 38 starts, Charlie Kimball has made 110 starts since his last victory and then there is Marco Andretti's 157-race streak.
Of drivers looking for first career victories that could fit this description: Marcus Ericsson (30 starts), Jack Harvey (33 starts), Santino Ferrucci (35 starts), Conor Daly (64 starts), Max Chilton (71 starts).
Rinus VeeKay and Álex Palou could both fulfill this prediction if either's first career victory is the 2021 season finale at Long Beach.
There are already a dozen drivers that fit the criteria for this prediction. There are another five drivers that could become eligible for this prediction during the season. That is 17 drivers of a 24-car grid. We are not going to have the same seven drivers win again in 2021. There are going to be some new faces pulling into victory lane.
9. There will be no repeat winners on the ovals
This is the Penske isn't going to wax the field on ovals prediction. At least, one Penske driver isn't going to do the waxing.
There are only four oval races scheduled for 2021. In 2020, we had four different winners on ovals with Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden being the only repeat winners. Will Power didn't win an oval race. Alexander Rossi didn't win an oval race. Patricio O'Ward didn't win an oval race. All three could have and we could have gone six-for-six.
With Iowa gone, that leaves one fewer place for Josef Newgarden to dominate. With Texas now a doubleheader, that could provide one driver a chance for two bites at the apple. After all, we saw Newgarden be strong in both Iowa races last year and Dixon could have pulled off the sweep at Gateway.
Then there is the Indianapolis 500. Takuma Sato's victory last year was the first time a Penske or Andretti driver didn't win since Tony Kanaan with KV Racing in 2013. Chip Ganassi Racing has not won the Indianapolis 500 since 2012.
There is a possibility Team Penske could sweep the oval races with all of its drivers. I do not think that will happen, but I could see Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud splitting Texas, Scott Dixon finally getting his second Indianapolis 500 victory and Will Power winning at Gateway.
Or Dixon and Alexander Rossi split Texas, Josef Newgarden wins at Indianapolis and Power wins at Gateway.
Or Newgarden and Power split Texas, Rossi wins the Indianapolis 500 and O'Ward wins at Gateway.
Or Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato split Texas, Colton Herta wins the Indianapolis 500 and Ed Carpenter wins at Gateway.
Or Dixon and Tony Kanaan split Texas, Carpenter wins Indianapolis and Ryan Hunter-Reay wins at Gateway.
There are a lot of possibilities. Could Newgarden win at Texas and Gateway? Yep! Could Dixon sweep all four ovals? You would not rule that out. With the depth of the IndyCar grid, it is more likely the four oval races have four different winners and I think that is going to happen.
10. More than 36 drivers compete in a race
There was a lot of buzz ahead of the 2020 season about possible one-off team and driver combinations.
Arrow McLaren SP was possibly going to run a third car in a handful of races and Jenson Button was possibly going to do a few races. Jimmie Johnson was first talking with AMSP when it came to joining IndyCar. Carlin was planning on having Felipe Nasr run a few events and we might have seen a few other drivers cycle through the #31 Chevrolet. DragonSpeed was hoping to do a handful of races and there were some thoughts it would try a driver other than Ben Hanley. Juncos Racing was not back. We did not see Pippa Mann, Oriol Servià, Ed Jones, Kyle Kaiser, Matheus Leist, Gabby Chaves or Stefan Wilson in 2020.
Only 35 drivers started an IndyCar race in 2020. It matched the fewest drivers in a season since reunification with 2012 and 2015. The 2018 season had 41 drivers start a race. I don't think we will see that many drivers, but we are looking at two-dozen full-time entries. We are likely going to get 33 drivers with the Indianapolis 500, we just need three more drivers.
Where could we see drivers rotate in and out? Dale Coyne Racing has a history of rotating drivers when it does not have a solid lineup. With neither DCR car filled, let's not be surprised if we see three or four different drivers in the DCR outfit this season. Maybe this is the year AMSP gets to run its third car in a handful of races and maybe we get to see Jenson Button run at Road America and/or Laguna Seca. Does Carlin run a second car and have two or three drivers try out? Does Carlin need to find a new oval driver if Conor Daly is not available for the Texas doubleheader and Gateway? Does Citrone/Buhl Autosport return in partnership with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and will Spencer Pigot still be its driver? Could a new entry that isn't even on our radars pop up in 2021 and run a few races?
The one concern is there is no class of Indy Lights driver looking to make IndyCar debuts in 2021 because there was no Indy Lights season in 2020. There are going to be limited opportunities for debutant drivers unless we see an influx of competitors from Europe and other international series.
Even without a new crop of Indy Lights graduates, there are more than 36 drivers out there that want to be in IndyCar. Only 33 can be in the Indianapolis 500. This prediction depends on if sponsors decide the other 16 races will yield a reasonable return on investment. If they do, then we could see at least three-dozen drivers hit the track in 2021.
11. There will be one minor issue that leads to a circuit alteration in Nashville
Many are excited about Nashville joining the IndyCar schedule and it has been a while since IndyCar has had a new street course. Nashville is a city of the moment and IndyCar will be racing through the heart of it.
The course is interesting, running around Nissan Stadium, home the Tennessee Titans, and crossing over Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge twice. There are a few long straightaways that will provide suitable passing zones. It is a street course that is encouraging on paper. The only problem is we know there are street courses that look good and then do not pan out.
We all remember Baltimore, which had train tracks and required a chicane to be inserted during the race weekend. It is forgotten is the Baltimore layout that we got wasn't even the original Baltimore layout when the race was announced. Houston had plenty of track issues and required grinding of the surface. Even Toronto has been altered with the pit lane moved to the outside portion of the esses leading to the start/finish line instead of the inside of the front straightaway. I think the five corners on the downtown side of the river could be changed. That is a pretty tight section of roadways from how it looks on Google Maps.
No one wants Nashville to be a repeat of Baltimore or Houston where we lost Friday due to circuit corrections, but I could see a decision being made beforehand to change some of the corners or add a chicane if the straightaways prove to be too long and might not be safe for competition. There is also the case where the start line is planned to be at the end of the straightaway once the cars cross the bridge on the stadium side of the river and the finish line will be on the straightaway parallel with the stadium where the pit lane will also be located. That could change as well.
We have to wait and see how Nashville plays out. We are hopeful there are no major issues and this race ends up being remembered for the right reasons, but when it comes time to setting up the course, there might need to be a slight revision.
12. Marco Andretti improves his average finish by at least 5.5 positions
This year was bad for everyone. This year was horrendous for Marco Andretti.
In Andretti's 15th IndyCar season he had his worst average finish at 19.285. His best finish all season was tenth. He won pole position for the Indianapolis 500 and didn't even lead a lap. He was on the lead lap for only two races.
There is no way to make Andretti's 2020 season look positive. There were a lot of breaks that went against him. He suffered three mechanical failures and was taken out of two races, one was Gateway before he had even taken the green flag and the other was St. Petersburg, which was his best race of 2020 and he was running in the top ten on pace.
I don't think Andretti is that bad. We have 14 previous seasons showing he is not a driver who averages a 19th place finish. He has been in the top ten of the championship nine times. He has averaged a finish better than tenth in three seasons and better than 12.5 in seven seasons. The entire Andretti Autosport organization struggled, and Andretti never found his footing.
I don't think Andretti will have the same amount of bad luck. I am concerned that he will not be able to solve his race weekend woes where he starts strong but declines with every session. Too many times we see Andretti start a weekend in the top ten of a practice and then end up 17th in qualifying and finishing about 14th or 15th in the race.
Prior to this season, he had only three seasons where his average finish was over 13.785, two of those were 2011 and 2012, but the other was 2019. He is not going to continue the decline in 2021, but another year averaging somewhere between 14th and 19th will suggest a larger problem, one that might not be reversible.
In 2020, there was a clear break in average finish. Sixteen drivers averaged below a 13th-place finish; all were full-time drivers. Seventeenth on back averaged 14.333 or worse. The only full-time drivers mixed into that crowd were Conor Daly, Álex Palou, Charlie Kimball, Oliver Askew (though he missed two races), Zach Veach (though he missed three races) and Andretti.
Basically, we are asking, can Andretti be a top 15 driver again? Driving for Andretti Autosport, top 15 should be a given. The top 15 should not be some type of accomplishment. This is a team that wins races and challenges for championships. Three of its drivers ranked in the top 11 of average finish in 2020 and that included Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was not spectacular, and Alexander Rossi, who had a rough year.
This feels like the last straw for Andretti. He will turn 34 years old a week after the 2021 season opener. He could run another ten years, but with 15 years already under his belt, how much more growing can he do? He rebounded from a poor 2012 season with a top five championship finish in 2013. There were at least two or three races that season he should have won. I don't expect that kind of rebound in 2021, but he has to make a substantial gain.
And that is a wrap for 2020! Wonderful! We are ready to move into the New Year, which will still be different and less than ideal, but we are ready for something new. Do not forget to check out 2021 prediction for NASCAR, Formula One, sports cars and motorcycles. Though this is a down period, events will be starting in a blink and we will be busy before we know it.
