The final day of the year brings our annual tradition of closing the year with IndyCar predictions. The 2021 season saw a surprise first-time champion and IndyCar continued to be a wide-open championship with race winners coming from any and nearly every team.
We can expect more of the same in 2022, but what exactly should we look out for? Here are a dozen predictions!
1. Scott Dixon will be the top Ganassi finisher in at least seven races
Last season, Dixon was beat in the intra-team Ganassi battle, and handily for the first time since Dario Franchitti left the team.
It wasn't a bad year for Dixon, as he was fourth in the championship, but Álex Palou won the championship and Palou was the top Ganassi finisher in seven of 16 races. Marcus Ericsson was top Ganassi finisher in five races. Dixon was the top Ganassi finisher in only four races! He went 11 consecutive races at one point without being the top Ganassi finisher. It was only the third time in Dixon's career he went more than five consecutive races without being the top finisher for a race team!
Dixon was good, but he never had a team where two teammates were at his level prior to 2021. He has had one before, but typically Dixon was at least second in the team. Ericsson's level of success was unexpected. The Swede was going to be a top ten driver, but I don't think anyone saw him winning more races than Dixon and challenging for a top five championship finish.
In 2014, Dixon had a stretch of ten races without being the top Ganassi finisher. He bounced back and won the 2015 championship while being the top Ganassi finisher in seven of 16 races.
I don't necessarily think Dixon will win the 2022 championship but being the top Ganassi finisher in seven of 17 races is possible. Palou and Ericsson both could come down to Earth. Both those drivers will be competitive, but not keep up the same pace as they had in 2021. Dixon will be strong and will be back leading the Ganassi contingent.
2. Andretti Autosport will have multiple top ten finishers in at least eight races
It has been a strange few seasons for Andretti Autosport. Alexander Rossi hasn't won a race since June 2019. Colton Herta has been great but has let races slip and could have been champion in 2021. Ryan Hunter-Reay had two of his worst seasons with the team. Marco Andretti backed away from full-time competition and James Hinchcliffe returned only to have a disappointing season.
In 2020, Andretti Autosport had multiple top ten finishers in only six races! Only twice did the team have multiple top five finishers.
The team is mixing it up in 2021. Romain Grosjean is in for Hunter-Reay. Rossi is in a contract year. Delvin DeFrancesco is replacing Hinchcliffe. No one expects DeFrancesco to contribute greatly, but between Herta, Rossi and Grosjean, Andretti should be a regular race winner and should have multiple championship challengers.
A successful season for this team is all three of those drivers winning races and at least one of them competing for a championship. If it wasn't for some of the mechanical issues, Herta could have been been in the fight in 2021. Herta arguably could have had five victories in 2021 if it wasn't for mechanical issues, and an accident that was on him. If Herta converts those results, he could have been champion.
Andretti Autosport needs to have a great year. It is approaching ten years since its most recent championship. A "Big Three" team can't go a decade without a championship.
3. There will be at least three first-time winners
In 2021, there were four first-time winners in IndyCar.
Álex Palou won the season opener, Patricio O'Ward won the second Texas race, Rinus VeeKay won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Marcus Ericsson won the first Belle Isle race. There were four first-time winners in the first seven races of 2021.
For all the first-time winners IndyCar had in 2021, there are just as many drivers out there still waiting for their first career victory.
Romain Grosjean, Jack Harvey and Scott McLaughlin have all finished on the podium before. Jimmie Johnson will be running a full season and his oval expertise could prove important. There are some exciting young drivers with Christian Lundgaard, Callum Ilott, Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas joining the series. The road/street course position in Ed Carpenter Racing's #20 Chevrolet is still unfilled.
Here is the one thing going against this prediction: Since reunification there has never ben multiple first-time winners in consecutive seasons. There were three new winners in 2008 and then no new winners until 2011, when Mike Conway and Ed Carpenter each won. There were no new winners in 2012 and then four in 2013 before one in 2014, two in 2015 and one in 2016.
There were then two seasons without a first time before Herta won in 2019, Felix Rosenqvist won in 2020 and then the four-driver splash in 2021. The last time a series had multiple first-time winners in consecutive seasons was Champ Car from 2005 to 2007. Each of those three seasons had two first-time winners.
We could see another surprise addition to the IndyCar grid at some point. Everyone expects Grosjean to win. Harvey is in position to get a victory. Lundgaard could be the breakout star of 2022. McLaughlin has ovals figured out. Three might be a stretch, but it is highly possible, especially in the current landscape.
4. Team Penske will not lose a race in the final five laps due to a mechanical issue
It happened twice to Team Penske in 2021.
First was at Belle Isle, when Will Power overheated under the red flag period late in the Saturday race and was unable to restart his car when the red flag was lifted late in the race. Power went from almost assured victory to 20th.
Two races later, Josef Newgarden dominated at Road America, but had Álex Palou staying within touching distance. A late caution for a Ed Jones spin set up a restart with two laps to go. Newgarden had been having gearbox concerns all race. On that final restart, Newgarden's gearbox jammed, and he lost the lead. Palou won the race, it was a pivotal point in the championship, as it went from a +13 point race for Newgarden to a -38 point race, a 51-point swing.
This is also not taking into considering the second Belle Isle race, where Newgarden led the first 67 of 70 laps before Patricio O'Ward passed Newgarden on fresher tires after multiple late cautions bunched up the field.
Multiple mechanical issues will not rip victories from Team Penske's hands again in 2022. Power does have a knack for falling into mechanical issues, so we cannot rule it out, but for it to happen in the closing laps in multiple races in one season, that doesn't happen often. Twice in a season is unfortunate. Penske has covered its bad breaks for the next few seasons.
5. Patricio O'Ward will lead the most laps in at least two races
For as great as O'Ward's 2021 season was, he never led the most laps in a race.
O'Ward won twice, but he only led 25 laps at Texas and three laps in the second Belle Isle race. He never led more than 28 laps in a single race in the 2021 season. His 118 laps led were fifth most of the season, but it was also the most laps led for a driver who did not lead the most laps in a race.
In 2020, O'Ward led the most laps in the second Road America race and the first Gateway race, but he could not get a victory.
We will see a more balanced O'Ward in 2022. He should be in the championship fight again, but his race victories will be more dominant performances, races where he starts on the front row and he leads 75% of the laps. He was great on ovals again with finishes of third, first, fourth and second. He could be the next driver to lead 200 laps at Iowa.
6. Simon Pagenaud and Hélio Castroneves average greater than 12.0 in final championship position
Meyer Shank Racing stepped up to full-time competition in 2020, and in 2022 it is going to have two full-time cars. It will also bring in a new driver.
Pagenaud is moving over after a few good, but not spectacular seasons with Team Penske. Castroneves is returning after four years as a part-time IndyCar driver, which saw him win his fourth Indianapolis 500 in 2021 and give MSR its first IndyCar victory.
MSR has had good results ever since it has entered IndyCar. Jack Harvey might not have won a race or been on the podium as much as his speed would have suggested, but it is a good organization and can mix with the IndyCar big boys.
But I am not set on the Pagenaud/Castroneves pairing. Pagenaud will be good, but Castroneves showed weak points in 2021 that an Indianapolis 500 victory papers over. I am not sure how both these drivers finish in the top 12 of the championship. I could see Pagenaud finishing eighth to tenth, but I don't think Castroneves can match that. Castroneves could end up outside the top fifteen in the championship. It is not crazy when you consider there are three Penske teams, four Ganassi teams, four Andretti teams, three Rahal Letterman Lanigan teams, two Arrow McLaren SP teams and Rinus VeeKay is a race winner with Ed Carpenter Racing.
That is 17 teams. Drop Johnson and DeFrancesco and that leaves 15 teams besides the MSR cars. How many of those cars can Castroneves beat? He could get McLaughlin and VeeKay. That would put him 14th in the championship. Fourteenth would be generous for Castroneves in his first season back as a full-time driver. If Castroneves is 14th, then Pagenaud has to be 11th or worse for this prediction to be correct, a conceivable result.
7. Ed Carpenter Racing will not have a top ten finish drought longer than six races
Ed Carpenter Racing started 2022 on fire, and it felt like the team had turned a corner it had long been trying to get around since Josef Newgarden left.
Then the rest of the season happened.
Coincidentally, the team's decline coincided with Rinus VeeKay's broken collarbone from a cycling accident the Monday prior to Road America. The team ended 2021 without a top ten finish in the final nine races. It opened the season with at least one top ten finish in six of the first seven races.
ECR might not be either the team we saw in the first half of 2021 nor the team we saw in the second half. There should be some middle ground. VeeKay's injury knocked him off his game. A fully healed VeeKay should be better than what we saw in the summer.
Conor Daly could be back in the #20 Chevrolet for road and street courses, but the team could be set to move on and whatever driver is brought in will have a low bar to clear to better Daly's results. Daly had zero top ten finishes in two seasons as the road/street course driver.
A driver change should help this team, and with Iowa returning as a doubleheader, there will be one more oval race for Ed Carpenter to contest, not to mention the ovals are more spread out. It is less likely ECR will suffer a long dry spell.
8. The rookie drivers will combine for fewer than four podium finishes
IndyCar just had an impressive rookie class with Scott McLaughlin, Romain Grosjean and Jimmie Johnson running for rookie of the year. There will be more rookie of the year contenders in 2022, but I don't think they will have the same kind of success we saw from the class of 2021.
Christian Lundgaard qualified fourth on debut last year for the August Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race. Lundgaard lost some spots in the race, but for his first weekend in a car he had never driven prior to the first practice, he looked to have it under control.
Driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Lundgaard is the rookie best setup to succeed. There are other good drivers in the class of 2022, but I don't know if any can be regularly competitors at the front of the grid.
Kyle Kirkwood has made it to IndyCar after years of Road to Indy success, including winning the 2021 Indy Lights championship. However, Kirkwood will be driving for A.J. Foyt Racing, a team with one podium finish and eight top five finishes over the last six seasons.
David Malukas was runner-up to Kirkwood in Indy Lights last year and he joins Dale Coyne Racing. Coyne has a history of successful rookies, some have even finished on the podium, but DCR is going through another shakeup. Malukas' teammate will be Takuma Sato, who moves over from RLLR. Coyne is a small team, and engineer Olivier Boisson left with Grosjean. Coyne finds a way to work its magic, but eventually it will have an off year.
Callum Ilott nearly won the Formula Two championship, losing out to Mick Schumacher in 2020. Ilott is regarded as a respectable gain for IndyCar. He was a test and reserve driver for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo in 2021. The talent is there, but Ilott will drive for Juncos Hollinger Racing. The combination ran the final three races in 2021. It was a dress rehearsal, but the team has some work to do. For a team that has never finished better than 15th in its limited IndyCar experience, I cannot think Ilott and JHR will be on the podium in 2022. It could have a few good days, but I need to see more before thinking it will be on the podium.
We still don't know who will be in the #20 ECR entry on road courses, but looking at the current rookie crop, the only one who could regularly fight for the podium is Lundgaard. Is Lundgaard going to have four podium finishes? Probably not. He could get on one or two, and that would be a good rookie season. Four will be out of reach for him.
9. There will be consecutive winners on at least two occasions
It wasn't until the final two races of the season, the last possible opportunity, that IndyCar had a driver win consecutive races in 2021. Colton Herta closed out the season with victories at Laguna Seca and Long Beach.
If Herta had not won at Long Beach, 2021 would have been the first season without a single consecutive race winner since 2015.
While IndyCar is hyper-competitive and it feels like the series could produce 17 different winners from 17 races, the best drivers find a way to win multiple times. Sometimes those victories come in consecutive races.
We saw it with Herta. In 2020, Scott Dixon opened the season with three consecutive victories. In 2019, Simon Pagenaud swept the Indianapolis races. Will Power swept the Indianapolis races in 2018, and Alexander Rossi won consecutive races at Mid-Ohio and Pocono that season. Graham Rahal swept the Belle Isle doubleheader in 2017 and Josef Newgarden won at Toronto and Mid-Ohio. Pagenaud had three consecutive victories in 2016 while Power won consecutive races at Belle Isle and Road America.
It happens all the time. Next IndyCar season will see at least two drivers have a great pair of races. While IndyCar could have 17 different winners from 17 races, the series also has ten drivers you look at and think they could easily win two or three races on the spin.
10. No race will have more than 35% of its laps under caution
There were a few caution heavy races in IndyCar in 2021. Most notably, Nashville, which had 33 of his 80 laps behind the safety car. That was 41.25% of the race!
Overall, 247 of 1,925 laps run in 2021 were under caution, 12.831% of the season. Before you say that is a lot or IndyCar has a caution problem, let's look at some reason seasons, and how many laps were run under caution.
2014: 323 of 2,385 laps (13.48%)
2015: 426 of 2,232 laps (19.08%)
2016: 302 of 2,070 laps (14.58%)
2017: 311 of 2,331 laps (13.34%)
2018: 249 of 2,368 laps (10.51%)
2019: 270 of 2,092 laps (12.91%)
2020: 203 of 1,900 laps (10.68%)
2021: 247 of 1,925 laps (12.83%)
Over the last eight seasons, 2,331 of 17,303 laps have been under caution, or 13.471%. Last season was below the recent average despite Nashville's choppiness. If Nashville was more in line with the rest of the races and ten laps were under caution, the overall caution lap percentage would have been down to 11.636%.
I don't think we will see another Nashville. I don't think we will have an oval race go off the rails. Iowa will feel normal. Next year will be calm.
11. Jimmie Johnson will be involved in 0.25 cautions or fewer per start
Johnson's IndyCar debut season was not fantastic.
It took him ten laps for Johnson to cause his first caution at Barber. Johnson brought out two cautions at St. Petersburg. His spin in the second Belle Isle race changed the outcome significantly, allowing Patricio O'Ward into the battle for the lead. He spun at Road America and was then caught in the infamous turn 11 restart accident at Nashville.
Through eight races, Johnson's best finish was 19th, he was in six caution periods, and had severeal other spins and accidents in practice sessions, and he did not finish on the lead lap once.
However, Johnson was heading in the right toward the end of the season. He was 19th in the August IMS road course race and finished on the lead lap. He was 20th at Portland and again on the lead lap. In the final two races, he finished 17th in both, and he was on the lead lap at Long Beach.
Most importantly, Johnson caused no cautions in those final four starts.
Johnson might not be a top ten driver on a regular basis, but I don't think he will cause as many cautions as he did in his rookie year. Johnson is smart, and most of his cautions were about car control. He didn't have a grip on it. These weren't reckless moments where he overstepped the limit significantly. They were mostly because Johnson wasn't used to the limit of an open-wheel car.
Based on 12 starts in 2021, he had 0.5 cautions per start. Johnson has announced he will run a full season, but I still hold out Johnson might pull back if he doesn't feel comfortable on ovals. There is also the chance Johnson doesn't qualify for the Indianapolis 500. We cannot rule it out considering Will Power was in the Last Row Shootout in 2021.
Averaging 0.25 cautions per start would be 4.25 cautions over 17 races. Four or fewer and this prediction is correct. Five or more and this prediction is wrong.
12. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's qualifying average will be 12.5 or under
For the last few seasons, RLLR has been a strong team, a regular race winner and it regularly puts its drivers in the top ten in the championship.
In 2021, Graham Rahal had seven top five finishes and 11 top ten finishes. He was seventh in the championship, his seventh consecutive top ten championship finish. Takuma Sato finished in the top ten in eight of 16 races and Sato just missed out on the top ten in the championship, ending up 11th.
Those results came despite poor qualifying results for RLLR. Rahal qualified in the top ten five times. Sato didn't start in the top ten once! The team's best qualifying result was Lundgaard starting fourth at the August IMS road course race. Rahal had one top five start and Oliver Askew had one top five start.
Overall, between Rahal, Sato, Lundgaard, Askew and Santino Ferrucci, RLLR's average qualifying result in 2021 was 15.729.
Rahal remains, but Jack Harvey joins the team, and Harvey has been one of IndyCar's better qualifiers over the last four seasons, though he took a dip last season. We already saw what Lundgaard did with limited time in the car.
The team is set on making a move forward. It has invested in the future with Harvey and Lundgaard. RLLR will find its footing and bounce back after a winless 2021 season. We will see improvement in the team's qualifying results.
And that is a wrap on 2021. Five sets of predictions are in the books. Check out NASCAR, Formula One, sports car and motorcycle predictions before the year is out. We have plenty of fun ahead of us.
