We come to the grand finale, our annual final post of the year, the IndyCar predictions for the pending New Year. It has been 110 days since the most recent IndyCar race. There are still 72 days until the next time IndyCar thunders to the green flag. In the interim, drivers have changed teams, as have a few sponsors. A few spots remain open, and we will learn more about the 2024 grid when the New Year comes.
Even with those holes, we can start looking ahead to the new season. There are drivers coming off historic seasons, some drivers performed below a desirable level in 2023 and hope to do better. Will we see more history? Are we on the verge of a new era of dominance, or will 2024 take us on a turn in a different direction?
1. Álex Palou will have at least four finishes outside the top ten
Palou is coming off arguably the best season in IndyCar since reunification. Five victories, ten podium finishes, 13 top five finishes and he finished no worse than eighth all season, leaving him with an average finish of 3.7059. He became the first champion to clinch with a race to spare since Sébastien Bourdais in the 2007 Champ Car season.
There is also the contract situation, where Palou is staying with Ganassi but McLaren is suing him and we will have that hang over another IndyCar season. Off-track drama aside, Palou will continue to strive for more IndyCar history.
For how good as Palou has been since joining Chip Ganassi Racing, it cannot last forever. Even the best drivers have an off-year. After finishing every race in the top ten, he is going to have a few off days in 2024. Since joining Ganassi, he has never had more than three finishes outside the top ten in a season. That is going to change in 2023. It doesn't mean Palou will have a bad season, but he will not be as bulletproof as last season.
2. Chip Ganassi Racing's top five finish total decreases by at least 25%
Staying with Chip Ganassi Racing, it wasn't just Palou that had a phenomenal 2023 season. It was the entire Ganassi organization. The team won nine of 17 races. It had 19 podium finishes out of a possible 51, and it had 28 top five finishes.
It wasn't just Álex Palou. Scott Dixon had a fantastic season. Dixon finished seventh or better in 16 of 17 races. If it wasn't for a tiff with Patricio O'Ward at Long Beach, we could have seen two Ganassi drivers finish in the top ten of every race.
Palou had 13 top five finishes and Dixon had 11. The departed Marcus Ericsson had four top five finishes. That was quite a season, but it will be difficult to duplicate. Ericsson is gone, so that is at least four top five finishes lost. Marcus Armstrong had a good rookie season, and he will be full-time in 2024, but his best finish was seventh. Armstrong should breakthrough, but it is not guaranteed he will match the 2023 output.
It cannot be assumed Palou and Dixon will match their output either. Along with Armstrong, Linus Lundqvist will be full-time after a good cameo in 2023. The team will expand to five cars with Kyffin Simpson moving up from Indy Lights. Ganassi will have the numbers, but that does not mean it will get the results.
We are looking at 21 top five finishes or fewer from Ganassi. That could be eight top five finishes from each Palou and Dixon and two from each of Lundqvist and Armstrong, and the team would still be two short of disproving this prediction.
3. Every driver that did not win in 2023 but won in 2022 will win in 2024
That means Will Power, Alexander Rossi, Patricio O'Ward and Colton Herta will all win a race. It might sound like a stretch, but are all of these drivers going to be winless for another season?
For Power and O'Ward, victory feels inevitable in 2024. O'Ward probably should have won once in 2023. Power is driving for Penske. It will line up for him. Rossi is a greater question mark than O'Ward though they are McLaren teammates. Rossi had his own slumps at Andretti Autosport. A second year at McLaren should help him and he should be in better positions to compete for victories.
Herta is in an odd spot. There wasn't really a race in 2023 where you felt Herta should have won. Andretti Autosport was spotty, seemingly only able to get one car to click or none of the cars to click. Herta has the ability to win races. Things should lineup for him in 2024.
We will chalk off 2023 as an off-year for all of these drivers. They will be back on the top step of the podium in 2024.
4. Josef Newgarden will finish third-place in at least one street course race
Four victories, including an Indianapolis 500 triumph, would be a great year for most drivers. It didn't quite feel that way for Newgarden. Late troubles saw him fall out of the championship mix and end up fifth in the championship, his worst championship finish since 2018.
For as good as we saw Newgarden on ovals, his road and street course form took a dip in 2023. His only podium finish on a road or street course was second at Road America. His average finish in street races was ninth. He finished outside the top ten in five road/street course events.
Oval success is good, but you must be good on road and street courses if you want to win the IndyCar championship. Those make up nearly two-thirds of the calendar.
This is a very specific prediction. Why is it a very specific prediction?
Newgarden has not finished third since the 2020 season opener at Texas. He has not finished third on a road course since Road America in 2019.
However, the only time Josef Newgarden has finished third in a street course race was the 2017 Grand Prix of Long Beach, his second start with Team Penske. It feels improbable that he would be pushing over seven years since he finished third in a street course race. That streak will end in 2024.
5. McLaren will lead at least 100 laps over the final eight races
It has already been covered, but McLaren started 2023 with six brilliant performances that makes it more unfathomable the team did not win one of them. The three-car team led over a quarter of the laps run in that six-race period.
As for the final 11 races, McLaren led only 50 laps, just 3.448% of the laps run. Another winless season is unacceptable, and it shouldn't be the case with O'Ward and Rossi leading the way with David Malukas joining the fold.
If there is one thing that helps McLaren with this prediction it is Malukas has been good at Gateway. There are also two Milwaukee races that could play into Malukas' and McLaren's favor. This team is going to more than double the laps it leads in the second half of the season compared to 2023. It should yield a few victories as well.
6. Romain Grosjean averages less than 17 points per start
Moving to Juncos Hollinger Racing, Grosjean hopes the third team is the charm in his IndyCar career as the Frenchman continues to search for his first career victory.
There were a few performances that were good enough for victory, whether it was a pair of races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course with Dale Coyne Racing as a rookie in 2021, a few good runs at Long Beach, a deflating defeat at St. Petersburg or a losing battle at Barber Motorsports Park, Grosjean has been there, but it just hasn't gone his way so far.
It will be an uphill battle at JHR, a team that has two top five finishes in 52 IndyCar appearances and has never finished on the podium. This is also a significant change at JHR as Grosjean is replacing Callum Ilott, who is responsible for JHR's best finishes after two growing years.
Grosjean has had some close calls with victories, but he has shown some warts in his past two IndyCar seasons. He has been 13th in the championship each of the last two years. In 2023, he scored 32 fewer points than he scored finishing 13th in 2022.
After finishing second in consecutive races at Long Beach and Barber, Grosjean had one top ten finish in the final 13 races of the season, a sixth at Nashville. His average finish was 15.176, only 0.118 positions better than Ilott.
An average of 17 points per race would earn him 289 points. That would have bene good enough for 13th last year in the championship as Rinus VeeKay was 14th on 277 points. I don't think Grosjean is going to crack the top 13 for a third consecutive year and I expect a step back.
7. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will have at least three races where all three cars finishing in the top ten
No team had a more Dr. Jekyell and Mr. Hyde season than Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2023.
When the team was on, it looked like the one of the best in IndyCar and was taking it to Penske, Ganassi and was clear of McLaren and Andretti. When this team was lost, it was fighting with Dale Coyne Racing and not really challenging for the top ten.
Christian Lundgaard lifted the team to an eighth-place championship finish, better than the average driver could likely yield from such a ride, and Graham Rahal recovered after a rough start to finish 15th in the championship. The third car continued to struggle and it led to Jack Harvey being dismissed with three races remaining in the season.
Lundgaard and Rahal will return while Pietro Fittipaldi moves into the #30 Honda in what will be Fittipaldi's first IndyCar appearance in nearly three years and in what will be his first full season in IndyCar after making his debut six years ago. Fittipaldi is a little unknown, but he looked good in 2018, a year where his final starts were made while still recovering from injuries suffered at Spa-Francorchamps in FIA World Endurance Championship competition.
Last year, RLLR never had all three cars finish in the top ten in a single race. It had double top ten finishes in five races. I think the team makes a step forward and has all three cars competing at a higher level. There will be at least three races where every RLLR car is in the top ten.
8. Tom Blomqvist's average finish will be greater than 20.0
There were a fair number of unexpected debutants in 2023 that foreshadowed full-time IndyCar roles. Blomqvist was one of them, stepping into the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda for three races while Simon Pagenaud was sidelined.
It was a rude-awakening for the Briton. Blomqvist was taken out on the opening lap on debut in Toronto. He was then a lap down in 24th at Portland after starting 27th out of 27 cars, and his Laguna Seca race ended after contact with only 61 laps completed.
I don't think 2024 will be much better. IndyCar will be his focus after he made these late appearances while focused on IMSA competition, but Blomqvist is making this move with his only single-seater experience in the last ten years being 23 Formula E races from 2018 through 2021. His best finish in Formula E was eighth.
It will be ten years since his final Formula Three season when Blomqvist finished second to Esteban Ocon and nine points ahead of Max Verstappen. He is also making this move with Meyer Shank Racing, which has been woeful for the last two seasons. It currently isn't the best place for a driver to drop into IndyCar after a decade in sports car racing.
Maybe it works out and MSR's lack of a sports car program elevates the IndyCar team with more focus on Blomqvist and Felix Rosenqvist. I just don't see it, and considering Hélio Castroneves had an average finish of 17.294 and the #60 car had an average of 20.0588. Simon Pagenaud's average was 19.125 before his accident.
The pieces aren't adding up to think we are going to see much of an improvement.
9. A.J. Foyt Racing will have multiple top ten finishes
For a team that had one top five finish for the entire 2023 season, it sure had everyone raving.
All anyone remembers from A.J. Foyt's 2023 season is Santino Ferrucci was third in the Indianapolis 500, led laps and had a realistic shot at victory. That is foolish because it neglects a team that had a combined 22 out of a possible 34 finishes outside the top twenty. The team had four top fifteen finishes all season, three of which were on ovals.
A.J. Foyt Racing, once again, has a lot of work to do. The good news is the team announced a technical alliance at the end of last season with Team Penske. Penske will supply dampers and engineering support while also assigning crew members to the Foyt team. It isn't quite a full-scale satellite team, but a Penske-lite effort sounds much more competitive than anything A.J. Foyt Racing has put on track the last decade.
We aren't sure what the Foyt driver lineup will look like in 2024. The team announced Sting Ray Robb will drive its #41 entry. Benjamin Pedersen responded saying he was still under contract with Foyt and would be driving for the team. The team has not confirmed Ferrucci will be returning for any races in 2024.
Robb is not a massive improvement over Pedersen. Ferrucci already had one top ten finish. With a little more support, he could get a second on his own. A Robb-Pedersen combination does not inspire much hope of two top ten finishes. Ferrucci being in the team at all increases hope significantly. There could be a third option with an unknown driver at this time.
With Penske support, it feels like a halfway decent driver can pick up two top ten finishes. If Foyt can find that driver, 2024 should be better than 2023, nothing revolutionary, but better and better is a start.
10. The second-place starting position will produce multiple winners
Basic numbers game.
In 2022, the second-place starter won seven times, including a stretch where the second-place starter won four consecutive races.
In 2023, the second-place starter won zero times. The outside of the front row, middle of the front row at Indianapolis, enters 2024 on a 20-race winless streak.
Prior to 2023, second starting position had not gone winless in a season since 2015. That was a part of a 52-race drought that went from the middle of 2013 through the middle of 2016.
I don't think we are going to be pushing 52 races again. At least two races will season the second-place starter take victory.
11. At least one team ends an oval winless streak that is at least four years long
In the last four seasons, five different teams have won an oval race in IndyCar. That is five different teams in the last 20 oval races. That means five IndyCar teams have not won an oval race in the last four years.
Andretti Autosport hasn't won an oval race since Pocono 2018. Ed Carpenter Racing has not won an oval race since Iowa 2016. Dale Coyne Racing's only oval victory was at Texas in 2012. A.J. Foyt Racing hasn't won on an oval since Kansas 2002. Juncos Hollinger Racing is still looking for its first victory in IndyCar regardless of track discipline.
One of these streaks end in 2024, and notice how I worded this. If Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing does not win any of the first four oval races in 2024, it will enter the Milwaukee doubleheader over August 31 and September 1 having not won on an oval since August 23, 2020 at the Indianapolis 500. That means even RLLR could fulfill this prediction!
12. Ed Carpenter Racing will fail to put a driver in the top fifteen of the championship
I hate to end on a downer, but let's be honest, Ed Carpenter Racing is bound to get bounced down the grid.
ECR had four top ten finishes all season. The 2023 season was the first time the team has ever failed to score a podium finish or a top five finish in a single season. Even at Indianapolis, the one race the team puts more emphasis on the any other, it wasn't that close to challenging for victory. Yes, Rinus VeeKay started second and led 24 laps before careening into Álex Palou on pit lane, resulting in a penalty for the Dutchman that kept him from doing any better than finishing tenth, but Conor Daly qualified 16th and ended up eighth, and Ed Carpenter wasn't really close at all and ended up 20th after being in a late accident.
Since 2015, ECR has had at least one driver finish in the top fifteen of the championship in every season. With Ganassi up to five cars, of which four drivers have a realistic shot of being in the top ten of the championship, three Penske cars, three Andretti cars, a rejuvenated three-car RLLR lineup, three McLarens and JHR with a driver that constantly finishes 13th in the championship, where will ECR end up?
That is 17 strong cars. VeeKay has finished 14th, 12th, 12th and 14th in his first four IndyCar seasons, but it doesn't feel like ECR is at the same place as it was back in 2021 when he won his first career race and had six top ten finishes in the first eight races of that season.
We could also be looking at a bolstered A.J. Foyt Racing, Dale Coyne Racing isn't a stranger to the top fifteen in the championship and if Meyer Shank Racing is all-in on IndyCar with no sports car program, it easily could put Felix Rosenqvist in the top fifteen of the championship.
The order of IndyCar teams is going to move again at the bottom half of the table. It feels like ECR is destined to take a dive.
That's it for predictions! That's it for 2023! You have NASCAR, Formula One, sports cars and motorcycle predictions to chew on. The New Year will be here in a few days and we will be turn our attention to the new seasons that are closer than they appear. Until then, Happy New Year and enjoy these final days of the holiday period.
