Wednesday, February 12, 2025

2025 IndyCar Team Preview: Team Penske

Eighteen days. A little more than two weeks until the NTT IndyCar Series season commences in St. Petersburg. We have been making our way through the IndyCar grid, covering race winners and the bottom of the grid, and a number of drivers in-between. That brings us to the most successful organization. 

Team Penske remained at the top even if it didn't finish first. Winning nearly half the races and most of the pole positions, Penske is setting the tone in IndyCar. It might be beaten, but it requires exceptional results to do so. That will be the same in 2025, but for as well as Team Penske did last year, it was far from a spectacular season. Questions have already been raised for what is to come next.

At First Glance... We aren't sure of the stability of the organization
It is Team Penske. It is fine, but for the last few years we have gone into a season waiting for change to come at the Penske organization, even if the results suggests nothing should. 

However, Will Power is in a contract year and has hired Fernando Alonso's management to representative him, the first time Power has had representation. 

Josef Newgarden is coming off a second consecutive Indianapolis 500 but also his worst championship finish. 

The only driver that feels safe for the long-term is Scott McLaughlin, who is coming off finishing third in the championship and has improved his championship finish every year he has been in IndyCar. 

It feels like we are waiting on that next major change at Team Penske. We arguably got it in a way with Tim Cindric stepping down from the role of team president to just focusing on the IndyCar portion of the organization. That isn't that much, but it is something for Team Penske.

Penske isn't afraid to making changes, even if faced with difficult choices. Will Power is three years removed from a championship. Power turns 44 years old in less than a month. He is two years older than Hélio Castroneves when Castroneves was removed from a full-time ride. The future investment in Power would not be a long-term one. Newgarden and McLaughlin are both in their 30s. The stage is set for a third driver that lowers the average and look forward to the next decade.

There is always the pressure to perform at Penske. The second you believe things are settled they are bound to change. Newgarden might have won at Indianapolis but you cannot finish eighth in the championship on a regular basis. It has only happened once. The Tennessean cannot afford for it to happen twice. McLaughlin may have improved in each season he has been in IndyCar, but that doesn't mean it has bought himself a mulligan year. Results must remain at that top level. 

The team will be fine. It is not going anywhere. It will be running at the front and winning races and likely have someone, if not multiple drivers, competing for a championship, but what the team looks like today, less than a month before the 2025 season opener, may be different from how it will look this time a year from now. It feels like change is around the corner.

2024 Team Penske Review
Wins: 8 (Barber, Indianapolis 500, Road America, Iowa I & II, Gateway, Portland, Milwaukee II)
Poles: 7 (St. Petersburg, Barber, Indianapolis 500, Iowa II, Gateway, Milwaukee I & II)
Championship Finishes: 3rd (Scott McLaughlin), 4th (Will Power), 8th (Josef Newgarden)

Josef Newgarden - #2 Astemo/Hitachi/PPG Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
8: Oval victories since Newgarden's most recent road/street course victory (Road America 2022)

9: Results outside the top ten last season, his most since 11 in 2014

11: Times finishing worse than his starting position last season

What does a championship season look like for him?
Not finishing outside the top twenty in four or five races and Newgarden finishing first about two or three more times. It means finishing on the podium another four or five times. It would mean not tripping over themselves and coughing up positions on bad pit stops or lazy spins while running in the top five. 

Newgarden is going to need to win a few road and street course races. On those disciplines, he needs to qualify better, starting in the top six and turning those into finishes better than where he started. For as good as he is on ovals, last season we saw what happens when he is slightly off and is not unstoppable in oval races. Better road course form can make up for when he isn’t Superman at Iowa, Gateway and Milwaukee.

We know Newgarden can do it. We have seen him do it twice. We have seen him come close to doing it another two or three times. It is not unthinkable he can be champion. He must figure out replicating the steps again.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
It is difficult to imagine Newgarden will be stubbing his toes as much as he did the year before. That solves part of the problem. Completely eradicating those off days isn't going to be the difference between eighth and first in the championship. Cleaning up those days likely only get him into the top five, but with work to do. What should go in his favor is Newgarden shouldn't lose another race victory due to a disqualification. 

Last year, we saw a human Newgarden. For how well he ran, we also saw him have bad days at Iowa, something that we haven't seen from him at the circuit in a decade. We saw him make mistakes and go over the edge. This was after Newgarden spoke about the importance of him focusing on his craft prior to the 2024 season.

It isn't completely gone. The ovals will be where he can score a great number of points. He is going to win at least one, likely twice, possibly three times. If he does that, a championship push is within reason. The road and street courses are where he must find where he was from 2017 to 2022. If Newgarden can win once or twice on road and street courses, his championship chances increase exponentially. 

To be fair to Newgarden, he went a decade between bad seasons in IndyCar, and the bad season he had last year included a second consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory. It is a matter of perspective and acknowledging that bad isn't always that bad. It isn't going to be easy for Newgarden to get back on top, but it is a plausible outcome for the 2025 season. 

Scott McLaughlin - #3 XPEL/Good Ranchers/Pennzoil Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
5: Pole positions last season, the most in IndyCar

3.7142: Average finish on ovals last season

637: Laps led last season, the most in IndyCar

What does a championship season look like for him?
Accordingly to last season, a championship season is everything he did last year, except not being disqualified from the St. Petersburg season opener after finishing third. That flip in results was the difference between McLaughlin and Álex Palou in the championship. If the season opener results remained unchanged and the rest of 2024 played out the same, McLaughlin would have won the title on tiebreaker. 

Of course, winning on tiebreaker is not what anyone wants to bank on. Winning on tiebreaker means you can likely be a little bit better. One position goes a long way. 

McLaughlin has 95% of it. It is cleaning up those few bad days. Some of those were not McLaughlin's fault. A mechanical issue can pop out of nowhere. Pencil one of those in a season, and then you know what you will need in the remaining 16 races. 

He can already win three races a season, and he can do it on both track disciplines. A championship might require another victory or two and a few more podium runs.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
McLaughlin is giving Newgarden a run for his money when it comes to oval form, especially on the shorter ovals. McLaughlin won at Iowa and Milwaukee. On both weekends, Newgarden struggled for speed. Insults was added to injury when Newgarden was taken out from pole position at the start of the second Milwaukee race.

If McLaughlin can clearly defeat Newgarden on ovals, it will set him up better in the championship fight. It is practical that McLaughlin could win four oval races. That would set him up nicely in the championship. Another one or two victories on road or street courses would be enough to put him over the top unless he has an absurd number of terrible finishes. 

In four full IndyCar seasons, McLaughlin has gone 14th, fourth, third and third. You cannot climb forward after every season. He has two more spots to play with. Maximizing his best can put McLaughlin that next step higher. With the competitiveness of this championship, McLaughlin can run stellar and lose a little ground. That is how tight it is at the top of IndyCar. Neither would be a disappointment. 

Will Power - #12 Verizon Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
22: Races since his most recent pole position (Iowa II 2023)

34: Races since his most recent pole position on a road/street course (Laguna Seca 2022)

68: Races since hist most recent victory from pole position (Harvest Grand Prix II 2020)

What does a championship season look like for him?
As a two-time champion, we know Power can win the title a few different ways. He can win a lot and control a championship by raising the bar on a near weekly basis. He can win once and just continue finishing third and fourth and make it frustrating to keep up. 

One area here Power must improve is his qualifying form. It sounds strange to say about Power, but a pole position or three can put him in control of a race from the start and that would set him up better for scoring points. 

Any championship season would not see Power stumbling into a few ruts and having multiple occasions where he isn't finishing in the top ten. It also means making sure the seatbelts are tight at the start of every race, especially the season finale when he has a shot at winning the title. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Anytime a driver has a winless season after the age of 40, it is concerning. Power had the proper rebound season to ease some tension last year with three victories and being alive for the championship into the season finale.

Three victories and four runner-up results is outstanding and rather surprising when that isn't enough to win a championship. I don't know if he can match that again, but we know he will have the capability to do so. 

It is likely Power will win a few pole positions. He might not be in his prime, but he has the skill to pull one or two of those out. He has what it takes to win a race or two, possible on a road course and an oval. 

The one thing that has followed Power over the last few seasons are the stumbles he has become prone to make in a season. The one year it didn't catch him, he won the championship, but what has cost him are the two-race stretches when he is 16th and 20th or 13th and 19th. They aren't the worst results, but they are enough ground lost to cost a driver a position or two in the championship. If one day happens, a second is usually not far behind. The third time is the charm, but Power cannot afford two bad races on the spin to win this championship. It is the one habit that he has trouble breaking.

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.


Tuesday, February 11, 2025

2025 IndyCar Team Preview: Juncos Hollinger Racing

We are getting into the nitty-gritty of the IndyCar offseason. It is unclear when the postseason becomes the offseason and when the offseason becomes the preseason. It feels safe to say we are in that last phase. Only 19 days remain until the first race of the season. 

Juncos Hollinger Racing will be looking for improved results, and it will be doing it with an entirely new lineup. Two drivers in, two drivers out from how the team looked on this day one year ago. From a Trans-Atlantic partnership to an All-American duo, results aren't the only change the JHR operation will be looking for. It should be a little less controversial off the track as well.

At First Glance... It looks good on the outside, but performance is what counts
In come Sting Ray Robb and Conor Daly. Daly was already there, an interim solution at the end of the 2024 season that has turned into a permanent role. Daly got the #78 Chevrolet into the Leader Circle fund over the final five races of the season. It was enough to pass the audition. Robb is moving to his third team in three years. He brings a cushion of cash to comfort the program. 

On the outside, it is a safe lineup. Daly is the mouth of IndyCar, constantly running and hard to ignore. Robb brings a smile. They are a safe combination for a team. One will continuously sing praise about IndyCar. The other will be welcoming even on the worst days. It is a small thing but a mammoth change for the JHR group. 

For two seasons, it not only had to fight on the racetrack but had to deal with raging fires off the track due to the social media conduct surrounding one of its drivers. Twice it involved a teammate. Then it involved a partner and cost JHR a beneficial cooperative. Neither Daly nor Robb should pose those problem, but it is 2025 and the world is a tinderbox. Sneezing the wrong way could set the place ablaze. 

JHR will win over fanfare from its drivers for their personalities, but what determines how successful you are as a team is what is done on the racetrack. You can sign all the autographs and take all the photographs in the world but that doesn't really pays the bills in motorsports. At some point, you must succeed to warrant the interest from sponsors and investors. In its first three seasons as a full-time IndyCar team, success has been rare for this team. 

There have been glorious moments that show how competitive IndyCar can be where JHR has a car fighting in the final round of qualifying for pole position or finds itself in the top five late in a race. The problem is that is one or twice in a 17-race season. Most of the time, JHR goes unnoticed, and that isn't mentioning the two or three times it is noticed for a bad thing. 

It is year four and JHR has an experienced lineup. Though he hasn't been full-time even majority of the time, Daly has been in IndyCar for over a decade and has worked with a multitude of teams. He has gotten good results with less than perfect equipment. He has been in far worse situations. It is time to see a little more. 

We saw a little more in 2024, but not really enough. We must see even more than that in 2025. It isn't going to be consistent race victories and podium finishes, but JHR must make a step further into the middle. It has been living on the edge of the bottom third, which isn't the bottom but not a great place to be. It must put more daylight between it and last. This is the time to make up some ground. 

2024 Juncos Hollinger Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Milwaukee I)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 5th (St. Petersburg, Toronto)
Championship Finishes: 17th (Romain Grosjean), 26th (Conor Daly), 27th (Agustín Canapino)


Sting Ray Robb - #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
22.176: Average finish in 2023

19.176: Average finish in 2024

17.235: Average finish of Juncos Hollinger Racing entries over the last two seasons

What does a championship season look like for him?
Do you remember what I wrote for Devlin DeFrancesco

That! All that! 

Except Robb has improved and Juncos Hollinger Racing has made strides to take it ahead of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Chevrolet power proves to give Robb an advantage and plays a crucial role in deciding the oval races. With Robb finishing best in five of those six events, he can get away with another three victories in the road and street course events to eek out a championship that most ignore.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Considering that entering the 2025 season moving from A.J. Foyt Racing to Juncos Hollinger Racing would be considered a slight step down, it is hard to imagine how Robb will do better than last year, but then again, JHR's team average finish over the last two seasons is almost 3.5 positions better than Robb's career average finish, this isn't a massive leap back for the Idahoan. 

We have seen glimpses of speed with Juncos Hollinger Racing since it became a full-time IndyCar operation in 2022, but those glimpses have been rare, and they have come at the hands of some pretty skilled driver. Robb is not associated in the same class of drivers as Callum Ilott, Romain Grosjean and Conor Daly, and Daly is barely in the same class as the first two. 

JHR has been good, and Robb showed on the Road to Indy he improves with time. Every season he spent in the junior system was better than the previous one. That trend has stuck through his first two IndyCar seasons. Eventually, all things end. 

Robb might have been 20th in the drivers' championship, but the #41 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet was 24th and did not finish inside the Leader Circle positions. A few drivers benefitted in the standings last season due to the number of cars that rotated entries midseason. Robb did pick up his first career top ten, but he still had seven finishes outside the top twenty and 14 finishes outside the top fifteen. 

The big change from 2023 to 2024 was Robb didn't have any finishes outside the top 25 last year after having four in 2023, including a 31st in Indianapolis, and he went from one top fifteen finish to three. Those incremental gains show up in an average finish improving three positions, but it is in average finish going from outside the top twenty to barely inside the top twenty. 

Those incremental gains could continue at JHR for Robb, or he will plateau. The latter is highly likely.

Conor Daly - #78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
11: Teams in his IndyCar career

8: Daly has finished in the top ten for eight of those 11 teams

4: Of those teams he has finished in the top five with

What does a championship season look like for him?
Juncos Hollinger Racing being at its best at every round. 

It is producing a car that can make it out of the first round of qualifying on road and street courses in every race and pushing to make it to the final round majority of the time. With those advantageous starting positions, Daly is able to run regularly in the top ten. 

In that spot, when the JHR crew is on it, Daly is able to go forward, taking an eighth spot in the grid and turn it into a top five finish. Or taking a fifth grid spot and turning it into a podium run. With those kind of runs, Daly is further up the championship order than anyone would imagine from the start. 

Ovals are where Daly makes his money. On those days, Daly is a contender. He isn't working his way to get to the font, he is at the front and engaging in the chess game from the very beginning to maintain track position until the final stint. Based on his ability, Daly is able to over maneuver the competition and take victories. It all starts at Indianapolis. 

Daly's oval form is what carries him and complements his exceptional road and street course performances. Days where he is off and slips to ninth or out of the top ten are made up for with podium finishes on the ovals. Avoiding all trouble, Daly is able to put together the most unlikely of championship finishes.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Daly is a driver who has never finished better than 17th in the championship when he has competed full-time joining a team who has had an average finish of slightly worse than 17th over the last two seasons. 

They are perfect for one another! Oh, and let's not forget to mention JHR finished 17th in the championship last year with Romain Grosjean. Again, perfect. 

It can be better. Daly has done a good job getting more out of bad equipment, except at Ed Carpenter Racing. Results will require a little help from the strategist, something we have not seen JHR excel at. If Daly can get the car into a good position and the crew can formulate a strategy that can get that little extra, both Daly and JHR could improve. 

JHR had eight top ten finishes last season. Daly was responsible for two of them. The team can get some results. The problem is Daly has never had more than five top ten finishes in the season, and that was his rookie year. 

The team had a top ten finish in four of the final five oval races last year, which bodes well for Daly. It doesn't mean the batting average will be exactly where he wants it, but he should have some good results, and that will be the start. Three or four top ten finishes on ovals will set up well. If the road and street course form can come close to matching, Daly could be on the verge of breaking into the top fifteen.

Grosjean had six top ten finishes, one of which was a fourth at Laguna Seca, and he was still 37 points outside the top fifteen. Daly will need least two or three top five finishes and eight to ten top ten finishes on his own. That is a big ask. It will not be without a lack of effort.

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.


Monday, February 10, 2025

Musings From the Weekend: I Got Nothing

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

The Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions. Supercross saw a number of injuries. Jett Lawrence is out after tearing his ACL in Arizona. Eli Tomac is banged up. Hunter Lawrence was injured in his heat race from Tampa. Jorge Martín suffered a few fractures after a hair-raising accident testing in Sepang. NASCAR had a Hall of Fame ceremony. Dubai hosted a pair of races while the Asian Le Mans Series announced a return to Buriram for next season. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

I Got Nothing
It is the evening of Super Bowl Sunday, and I got nothing. 

I got some things. Bits of some things actually. It is really nothing though. 

Looking at this weekend for the last month or so, I didn't have anything on my mind. There were a few ideas that had been floating around surrounding the opening of 2025 and news broke that drew a response. There are a few things in the next few weeks that will come up and require a write up or at least take up some brain space. This weekend was one where I had nothing pinned down. There was no grand topic I wanted to touch, nor did anything stand out that was going to happen. 

Do I want to talk about promos? That can wait.

Do I want to talk about Mike Wallace? NASCAR's decision could warrant a response, but it is a singular issue and it will likely be forgotten soon. 

Do I want to talk about the Daytona 500? Eh. A preview is coming during the week. There is excitement for it. Controlled excitement as there will notable names fighting to make the race, but with this format it is not the most exciting. It is limited when 36 of 40 spots are locked up before a qualifying lap is run. 

I already spoke about the major NASCAR rule changes. Do I want to talk about the unnecessary point that will be awarded for fastest lap in each race? I think calling it unnecessary says enough. Who cares? When has fastest lap ever meant anything? Are drivers going to chase it? Unless a driver is three laps down in 28th, teams aren't going to be chasing it. If they are, who cares? They are running 28th and three laps down. 

Do I want to talk about all the money the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum made last week in auctions? 

A little bit. 

I get it. It made nearly $88 million selling two cars, a Mercedes-Benz W196R that Juan Manuel Fangio drove to a victory in a non-championship Buenos Aires Grand Prix and Stirling Moss used in the 1954 Italian Grand Prix, and the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans winning Ferrari 250 LM. But boy, how do you sell those gems?

Apparently, both cars spent most of their time in storage. If you are upset about these being sold to private collectors and likely never seeing them again, well, they were already in a private collection and not on display for the general public. Nothing has changed in that sense other than someone else wanted it and paid the price for it. If you have $88 million in your basement, why is it in your basement? But, remember, you are not going to get possession of those cars again. 

The Mercedes was a gift from the manufacturer in 1965, in honor of the Speedway's contribution to motorsports and in honor of Mercedes' only Indianapolis 500 victory with Ralph DePalma 50 years earlier.

The Ferrari was purchased from Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team after its final race in 1970. 

I guess there was going to be a time to cash in. It doesn't mean it wasn't going to be difficult to decide. 

The museum, which re-opens this spring after being closed for over a year for renovations, has said it is re-focusing its collection on cars that competed in the Indianapolis 500 and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I understand focusing the collection, but it isn't a bad thing to have gems like this. Gems like this aren't going to be coming around again, whether it be something historic or a modern car that will soon become a piece of legend. Manufacturers aren't gifting these type of vehicles away. Audi isn't giving up R8s, R10s or R15s. Red Bull isn't going to be leaving a present on the doorstep at 16th and Georgetown. There is a point of cherishing what you have and think twice before you give up something special. 

I don't know if the museum could have found a different way to make $52 million on the Mercedes and nearly $36 million on the Ferrari while retaining possession. With cars like that, you should find a way to get those on the floor permanently. Those aren't irrelevant race cars. That isn't the 21st-place finisher in the 1983 Indianapolis 500. These are cars of consequence, pieces of art compared to most of the products of the 2020s, not mass-produced spec chassis. They might not have raced at Indianapolis, but their importance far exceeds this place and it is good to show that to everyone who passes through those doors. 

These aren't the only cars the IMS museum is selling. At the end of the month, in Miami, it is selling a Ford GT40 Mk II, a Benetton B191 that Michael Schumacher drove in the 1992 South Africa Grand Prix and the Spirit of America Sonic I, which set the land speed record of 600.601 mph at Bonneville in 1965, among a number of other vehicles. 

Again, it is hard to turn down $88 million. The Speedway is likely going to add another $30 million for selling the rest of these cars in Miami. Considering the museum has been closed since November 2023, forgoing whatever revenue it draws from 363 days of tickets at $15, and the renovation cost $89 million, making over $110 million clearing the basement is a no-brainer, but just consider what is being sold and that you will never get it again.

I guess I had something on my mind after all. Something from nothing I guess. I will do better next week.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about the Super Bowl, but did you know...

The #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca of Malthe Jakobsen, Michael Jensen and Valerio Rinicella won the first 4 Hours of Dubai. The #26 Bretton Racing Ligier of Jens Reno Møller, Theodor Jensen and Griffin Peebles won in LMP3. The #96 2 Seas Motorsport Ben Barnicoat, Anthony McIntosh and Parker Thompson won in GT.

The #20 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca of Olli Caldwell, Kriton Lendoudis and Alex Quinn won the second 4 Hours of Dubai. The #15 RLR Sport Ligier of Nick Adcock, Ian Aguilera and Chris Short won in LMP3. The #99 Herberth Motorsport Porsche of Ralf Bohn, Alfred Renauer and Robert Renauer won in GT.

Malcolm Stewart won the Supercross race from Tampa, his first career victory in his 109th career start. Max Anstie won the 250cc class.

Coming Up This Weekend
The 67th Daytona 500
Formula E is back for its third round, its first doubleheader of the season, in Jeddah.
Asian Le Mans Series ends its 2024-25 season with a doubleheader at Yas Marina.
The World Rally Championship plays in the snows of Sweden.
Supercross heads to Detroit. 


Friday, February 7, 2025

2025 IndyCar Team Preview: Andretti Global

Twenty-three days are all that remains until IndyCar begins its 2025 season in St. Petersburg, and one team that has a good track record at St. Petersburg is the Andretti Global organization. Ranking second all-time in St. Petersburg victories, a great start in Florida could put the three-car operation in a stellar spot as it looks to get back on top of the series as a whole.

The driver lineup has been retained from 2024, a year where Andretti improved from the previous few seasons. With multiple victories and a driver that finished second in the championship, the promised land appears to be close. There are a few areas where the team can still improve, and if it does, a championship is reasonable, but that last bit is the toughest to get.

At First Glance... Andretti always feels like it is about to make that next step but falls short
Thirteen years flew by. That is how long it has been since the Andretti organization has won a championship. During that interim, the team has swung through the highs and the lows. It was lost in the early days of the manufacturer-specific aero kits but rallied in the early days of the universal aero kit. 

Things started well when the aeroscreen was introduced, but then the team took a two-year dive. In 2024, Andretti climbed up the order, and the introduction of the hybrid did not shock the system. Andretti ended last year on a high note and was respectable across the board. 

Last year wasn't a case where Andretti was only good on street courses but lost on ovals. It won on both. It had a podium finish at Laguna Seca and top five finishes at Mid-Ohio and Portland. Andretti was competitive across the board. There is room to improve, but the team is starting 2025 in a good spot. 

However, good spots have been wasted before. 

The title should have gone to the team in 2018 with Alexander Rossi. One caution in Portland swung everything out of Rossi and Andretti's control and into Scott Dixon's. It was a close call and hopes were high. However, Rossi and Andretti could not re-create that championship push. 

Colton Herta has been the future of IndyCar since 2019. That was only accelerated when he won in his third career start weeks prior to his 19th birthday. Herta went through the rookie hardships, but he worked through those growing pains and ended up third in the championship in his sophomore year. The 2021 season saw a few more growing pains, but he ended that year with two consecutive victories, and it felt like 2022 was due to be Herta and Andretti's year. 

Instead, Herta only won once in the next 45 races, and he could not finish better than tenth in the championship. 

We have been here before. Andretti has made a step, a notable one, it is on the door step, but recent history suggests we are about to enter the stage where Andretti trips. There are no signs it is about to go wrong, but that was the case entering 2015, 2019 and 2022 as well. For years we have been expecting Andretti to return to its former glory and fulfill the "Big Three" narrative in an IndyCar championship that pits it against Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing for 17 races. That hasn't come close to being consistent for most of the last decade.

It is understandable to think this time will be different. Andretti Global has done all the right things. It is entering 2025 with a proven lineup, and there are not question marks. These are three capable drivers, all past winners who could likely do it again, and we saw these three combine to turn Andretti around in 2024. Now, these three must take the team that next step forward, a tricky task to complete. 

2024 Andretti Global Review
Wins: 2 (Toronto, Nashville)
Poles: 4 (Detroit, Iowa, Toronto, Nashville)
Championship Finishes: 2nd (Colton Herta), 7th (Kyle Kirkwood), 15th (Marcus Ericsson), 43rd (Marco Andretti)

Colton Herta - #26 Gainbridge Honda
Numbers to Remember:
305 - Laps led last season, the third-most in IndyCar

11 - Races led last season, the most in IndyCar

10 - Top five finishes last season, Herta's most in a season

What does a championship season look like for him?
Everything that went right in 2024 to go right again in 2025, and those few things that went wrong to be turned around. That goes for the driver and the team.

Herta was 32 points off a championship in 2024. Those 32 points can be found in not spinning out of the Indianapolis 500 while running second. Instead of finishing 23rd, Indianapolis could have been a second-place finish or a sixth-place finish. That is a 21-33 point swing right there.

Instead of finishing 19th at Detroit after being shuffled back in a pit cycle due to a caution and running into the barrier, Herta could be on the right side of that caution or at least be more patient and work his way to seventh or eighth, not as great as it could have been, but not terrible either, and netting him at least 15 more points. 

Instead of finishing 22nd at Milwaukee because the left front tire was not secured on a pit stop, Herta's team could make sure the tire is on and he could finish fifth and pick up 22 more points. 

In three races, Herta left about 58-70 points on the table, more than enough to swing a championship. Minimizing these days where a dozen points or more slip through his fingers can be the deciding factor.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
A championship is realistic. Herta ended up second in the championship last year in a season where I think most would have considered him the fifth-best driver, but his results were unappreciated. 

Herta won twice, both in convincing fashion. He dominated Toronto and his Nashville victory after driving down Patricio O'Ward was stuff of legend. Herta stood on the podium after three of the four street races, and he probably should have won the fourth if it wasn't for the disjoined nature of the Detroit race. His oval form made a big leap and two of his three non-top ten finishes on ovals come down to things out of his control as a driver. Other than maybe finding a little more speed on the natural-terrain road courses, Herta does not need to do much more.

It is highly realistic Herta can win four races, pick up nine podium finishes and have 12 top five finishes with only two results outside the top ten and both those still be top fifteen results. That is more than enough to win a championship in 2025. 

But as we have seen with Herta and the Andretti organization, as plausible it is for him to come out on top, we must remember there is a season where he only finishes on the podium twice, gets six or seven top five finishes, but has four results of 20th or worse, and that drops him down to ninth.

Kyle Kirkwood - #27 Chili's Honda
Numbers to Remember:
8.7059: Average finish last season, the fourth-best in IndyCar

13: Top ten finishes last season, tied for the most with Álex Palou

8: Top ten finishes in Kirkwood's career entering the 2024 season

What does a championship season look like for him?
Being a little bit better than how Kirkwood was in 2024, which was pretty good. Through the first ten races, his worse finish was 11th. He had three top five finishes, but he had no podium results. That is good, but nobody would consider that great. 

It starts with turning some of those fourth and fifth-place finishes into podium results, and likely a victory or two. it is turning those finishes of seventh and tenth into finishes of fourth and sixth.

To start the season, instead of having three consecutive top ten finishes, he has three consecutive top five finishes with one of those being a victory. Another start of nine top ten finishes in the first ten races sees at least two of those results be victories and half of those results be podium finishes. 

Kirkwood's oval form also takes a leap forward. He has the speed to run in the top five and he pulls out at least a victory or two on that disciple as well. Four victories across the spectrum of track disciplines and eight podium results with a dozen top five finishes puts Kirkwood in championship territory. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?
A championship is not an absurd notion for Kirkwood, but it requires a little more convincing than Herta’s case. In 2023, we saw what he can do when the speed is there and he is at the front. He can win races, but on off days, he struggled to breakthrough. In 2024, we saw Kirkwood find better consistency and remain in the top third of the field more, though we did not see him breakthrough for another victory. 

If he can combine 2023 and 2024 in 2025, he has an outside shot at the championship. 

He has already won twice in a single season. Getting another victory would not be a surprise at this point, and it would likely come on a street course, though there are a few road courses that suit him well. His oval form got better last year, and it could take a step this year. It will be the toughest place for him to defeat the competition, but it is an area where he could get more top five results.

As excited as we should be that Andretti Global could have two drivers finish in the top five in the championship, that is something this team has done once since reunification. It is realistic to think Herta and Kirkwood can both pick up at least one victory, both could be on the podium five times and have at least eight top five finishes. It is difficult to believe that is how it will really play out. 

Marcus Ericsson - #28 Bryant Honda
Numbers to Remember:
20.857: Average finish on ovals last season and this is with two top ten finishes on ovals

15.176: Average finish over the entire 2024 season, Ericsson's worst average finish in an IndyCar season

13.294: Average starting position last season, his worst since his rookie season in 2019

What does a championship season look like for him?
It starts with six glorious oval races. Six races where Ericsson is not scoring single-digit point totals and that is the spine of his season. He is in the top ten of all of those races, in the top five in at least two or three and he wins one. The mechanical issues do not bite him either, especially when he is on a top ten run. 

In his first six seasons in IndyCar, we know Ericsson's best is when he is consistent and pick up points when others are throwing them away. He is not the type of driver that is going to win five to six races in a season and go on a tear. It is a methodical accumulation of points, constantly finishing fifth or sixth with those few races where he jumps up the order and steals a handful more. 

To be champion though, those great days must be more than once or twice. 

For Ericsson to be champion, he must find a way to win at least three races. He must be on the podium at least six or seven times. He can still finish fifth or sixth in six or seven races, but however many races he finishes in the middle of the top ten, he must at least match in podium results. 

Any Marcus Ericsson championship season ends with us in awe of his consistency that doesn't look stunning but is rather calculated and it is difficult to beat.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Better than last year that is for sure.

Some drivers get these snakebitten seasons where a half-dozen races go against them in the same way and it only happens to one driver. Ericsson is not going to have five oval races where he finishes 23rd or worse happen again. He is not going to have a handful of races where he is in an incident early. If you make those five races finishes of 13th, Ericsson scores about 45 more points and he is 11th in the championship. That is just by being squarely in the middle of the field on ovals. Ericsson will be better than that. 

Year two with the Andretti organization will see Ericsson find his legs. Things will click, and the results will get there. The team's pace is where all Ericsson needs is it for to click for him to be competitive. He can find himself in a position to win a race or two and be a regular top ten finisher. 

Andretti Global is setup to have three drivers that finish in the top ten of the championship. All three of these drivers could win a race. It doesn't normally work out that way, but it is realistic. Of the three drivers, Ericsson is the least confident I feel about winning a race, mostly because he has yet to dominate an IndyCar race in his first six seasons. He has four career victories, but he has never led the most laps in a race and only once has he led more than a quarter of the laps in a race. 

Two of Ericsson's victories have come when he has led five laps or fewer and on both occasions the leader had a mechanical issue while Ericsson was in second. 

We know Ericsson can win, but mostly because he has put himself in a position to capitalize on misfortune, not because he has taken control. At some point, he must have a race where it is his and no one can take it away from him. If that doesn’t happen soon, it is fair to wonder if he has that ability to definitively be the man to beat.

Even if he doesn't win, the table is set for him to get four or five top five finishes and a dozen top ten finishes, which should be enough to crack the championship top ten.

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.



Wednesday, February 5, 2025

2025 IndyCar Team Preview: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

February is here and there will be an official IndyCar practice session this month. That practice session is 23 days away, and the first race from St. Petersburg is 25 days down the road. We hit the halfway point of our IndyCar team previews with a team stuck in the middle.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing was winning races and looked liked an outside championship threat not long ago. Entering 2025, RLLR has been on a back slide, and it is coming off a disappointing 2024 that ended with its once prized driver leave for a rival outfit. The lineup did not strengthen heading into the new season, but all it can do is hope some changes can lead to better outcomes.

At First Glance... It is difficult to be confident in strong results
This is not a murder's row Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is bringing to the track.

Its lead driver is Graham Rahal, entering year 19 in IndyCar, but coming off an 18th-place championship finish, his worst since 2014. It was the fourth consecutive season Rahal has finished worse in the championship than the year before. He had no top five finishes in a season for the first time ever, and it has been over seven-and-a-half years since he has won a race. 

The second driver is Louis Foster, the reigning Indy Lights champion after a dominating season where he won eight races and didn't finish worse than second over the final 11 races. A good track record but Indy Lights champions don't have a great track record in IndyCar. Only three of the previous 11 champions are presently full-time in IndyCar. 

Driver #3 is Devlin DeFrancesco, who sat out the entire 2024 season except for the five IMSA Endurance Cup rounds in a pro-am GTD Lamborghini. In his two IndyCar seasons, DeFrancesco did not register a top ten finish and he enters this season tied for the third-most starts in IndyCar history without a top ten finish.

Why should we feel confident this team will improve after it lost Christian Lundgaard, who finished eighth and 11th in the championship the previous two seasons and pulled out a victory in Toronto in 2023? 

Foster is the one bright spot, but it will take more than his talent to be respectable. The team must be behind him and supply cars good enough for him to maximize his ability. RLLR has had good runs and it had something with Lundgaard, but that top form on a consistent basis was tougher to come by in the later stages of last season, and it was only Lundgaard reaching that level. 

It hasn't even been five years since RLLR won the Indianapolis 500, but the team's oval form has been woeful to say the least. Those six races look like six blackholes where RLLR will be nowhere to be seen. Indianapolis is still a danger zone. It has had at least one car start on the 11th and final row in three consecutive years. The team made strides last year, but not big ones and Graham Rahal was in danger of being bumped for a consecutive year.

Rahal has turned it around before. After being 19th in the 2014 season and then losing National Guard sponsorship, Rahal rebounded to be a championship-contender in 2015, only for two accidents in the final two races to end his dream season and knock him down to fourth in the final championship results despite being at least the second-best driver the entire year. 

But that was ten years ago and unless that spark is found a decade later, we are not going to see something magically all over again.

The team couldn't break the top ten in the championship last year, and it is not better situated heading into 2025. This is set to be a long season, and an eye-opener but one that will not surprise anyone.

2024 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Grand Prix of Indianapolis)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 2nd (Grand Prix of Indianapolis)
Championship Finishes: 11th (Christian Lundgaard), Graham Rahal (18th), Devlin DeFrancesco (19th), Takuma Sato (37th), Jüri Vips (39th)

Graham Rahal - #15 Fifth Third Bank/United Rentals Honda
Numbers to Remember:
20: Consecutive races without a top five finish entering this season

124: Consecutive races without a victory entering this season, currently tied for the longest streak for most race between victories, which Rahal holds between his first career victory at St. Petersburg in 2008 and Fontana in 2015

16.142: Average finish in seven oval races last season with four finishes of 20th or worse

What does a championship season look like for him?
IndyCar making a drastic change to the calendar with 14 races being moved to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the one track RLLR has been consistently good at over the last few seasons. Adding those 14 races to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis means 15 races would happen on the same circuit. The other two races that would be untouched are the Indianapolis 500 and Mid-Ohio, RLLR's home race just to give them something to shoot for. 

With 15 races on the IMS road course, Rahal has many opportunities to pull off victories after a staggering number of close calls and mostly losing to Scott Dixon. With 15 IMS road course races, Rahal wins four of them, finishes on the podium nine times and he has 12 top five finishes. He has a good day at Mid-Ohio and his Indianapolis 500 is not great, but better than it has been and somehow Rahal wins what is actually a nightmare of a championship scenario for IndyCar.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Rahal should be better than 18th as he was in 2024. Marginally better results will only see marginal gains in the championship, but it is something. A top five result could happen, but great likelihood is Rahal turns some of those 11th and 15th-place finishes in something a little bit better. There is also the case where oval results are not great but better than they were, and that would boost his championship points total.

A year with one top five finish or possibly no top five finishes but eight or nine top ten finishes will feel a little better. It will not show for much, as it might get him back to 13th or 14th in the championship. 

Devlin DeFrancesco - #30 EV Tec Honda
Numbers to Remember:
43: Most starts without a top ten finish in IndyCar history (Milka Duno)

42: Most starts before a first career top ten finish in IndyCar history (Marco Greco)

14: Finishes outside the top twenty in 34 career starts.

What does a championship season look like for him?
A meteor wiping out 90% of the IndyCar grid but a championship still taking place despite all that remains are DeFrancesco, Kyffin Simpson and Sting Ray Robb. This three-car championship comes down to which father can spend more. 

It is actually a very close race and the ebbs and flows are startling. Each driver would make big leaps out of nowhere during the season and end up on top. However, when it comes down to raw ability, DeFrancesco has an edge over Simpson and Robb and he is able to win majority of the races and become champion.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
DeFrancesco had some good runs with Andretti Autosport, especially in his second season. The strange thing is DeFrancesco finished a position better in the championship in his second year but scored 29 fewer points. 

A top ten finish will be tough, but crazier things have happened in IndyCar. The stars can align to allow DeFrancesco to finish ninth or tenth on a hectic day where he keeps his nose clean and many do not. It would not be on a regular basis, there is a good chance it would not happen more than once, but it is possible. 

One top ten finish will not account for much, and considering what Pietro Fittipaldi could get out of this entry, top twenty in the championship feels like the limit for DeFrancesco. Fittipaldi was 19th because four entries had multiple drivers rotate through. The #30 Honda was 23rd in the entrants' championship. If DeFrancesco cracks the top twenty, it was a good year. If he is 22nd or 23rd, he at least didn't take a step back from his predecessor.

Louis Foster - #45 Mi-Jack Honda
Numbers to Remember:
13: Christian Lundgaard's average finish in the #45 Honda last season

7: Top five finishes for Christian Lundgaard in 52 starts with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

4: Of those top five finishes were at the IMS road course

What does a championship season look like for him?
Foster picking up where he left off in Indy Lights. St. Petersburg is a top five finish almost out of nowhere and he follows it up with a tenth in Thermal and a ninth in Long Beach. Barber Motorsports Park is not a great race as he finishes 14th, but at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Foster gets his first career podium finish in third.

The Indianapolis 500 is a struggle, and it is the same old, same old for RLLR, but through smart driving, Foster finishes 15th. Detroit is a standout performance and he qualifies in the Fast Six. He spends the entire race in the top five and he finishes on the podium again. Though there are some concerns about Gateway, Foster has a good drive to ninth that does not look like much at the time. 

The summer is where Foster comes alive. Road America is the location of his first career victory, a stunner of sorts as he starts third and spends the entire race in third before essentially replicating Will Power's drive in 2024 and jumps ahead of the top two in the final pit cycle. The dream continues into Mid-Ohio. Foster puts RLLR on the front row for its home race and he pulls off a second victory again through leaping ahead of the leader during the final pit cycle.

Iowa is a rough patch. Foster finishes 14th and 11th over those two races, but RLLR has another stellar weekend in Toronto. Foster scores his first career pole position and he wins. At Laguna Seca, Foster qualifies on pole position and he wins. At Portland, Foster qualifies fifth and finishes third. 

Heading into the final two races, both on ovals, Foster has four victories, seven podium finishes and eight top five finishes. With hopes low, RLLR has its best two oval weekends in quite some time. Foster is able to qualify in the top ten at both Milwaukee and Nashville, and he is able to climb his way forward in each race, finishing fourth at Milwaukee and sixth at Nashville, enough to squeak out a championship.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
As we saw with Lundgaard, RLLR can have good days. That wasn't all because of Lundgaard. He likely had some better results than if you put the most average driver in the seat, but some of it was because the car was decent and he could get the most of it. 

Foster is not Lundgaard and he will not be challenging for victories. Foster could match or beat his senior teammate Rahal. It could be a regular thing where those two are right next to each other on track and some weekends Foster is quicker and other weeks Rahal is better. It does feel like Foster could be the one who gets the edge more than not. 

With fresh eyes, Foster could get more out of a car where it has been difficult to find a solution. Without being beaten down over the previous two seasons, Foster can work through the hard times a little better and get more positive results out of them. 

RLLR is set up to be a team where one car finishes between 12th and 15th in the championship, the second car is going to finish between 16th and 20th, and DeFrancesco ends up between 20th and 27th. It all comes down to whether or not Foster is comfortable enough in a new car to beat Rahal and get the edge, or if Rahal's experience will be the deciding factor and he will lead the team, but Foster will not be far off. 

Five to seven top ten finishes is the target Foster should be looking for. 

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.


Monday, February 3, 2025

Musings From the Weekend: How Should IndyCar Handle Qualifying if More Than 27 Cars Show Up?

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

The 24 Hours of Daytona results changed after race day. Ford announced its LMDh program set for a 2027 debut, but it specifically focused on returning to Le Mans. Speaking of sports car news, there was a race in Australia, and BMW went 1-2 with the #32 Team WRT BMW of Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde and Augusto Farfus took victory. NASCAR announced it would not make any tweaks to the playoff format. It also ran at a quarter-mile in a much smaller football stadium. Lewis Hamilton crashed in testing. Some IndyCars tested in Thermal, including Prema making its first laps, which brings us to what has crossed my mind.

How Should IndyCar Handle Qualifying if More Than 27 Cars Show Up?
We are less than a month until the IndyCar season opener from St. Petersburg, and there are still unanswered questions. 

Normally, entry list size only mattered when the number was on the low side. Two cars can swing the mood greatly. Twenty-four feels a lot better than 22. The higher the better was the view. If there was 25 and word of a 26th being organized, we were pulling for that 26th car to make it. A good grid is a full grid. 

Entry list size is considered a little differently as IndyCar begins its 2025 season, the first year with the charter system. Twenty-five teams are charter holders and are guaranteed a place in every race outside that one at the end of May. The grid is open to other entries that do not hold charters to participate, but there is a limit, two to be specific. 

Only two non-chartered or "open" entries will be permitted into every race outside that one that has 33 at the end of May. That means at most 27 cars can start a non-500-mile IndyCar race in 2025. That is important to know because, as of this moment, there are 27 cars entered for St. Petersburg and we will likely see at least 27 cars entered for every IndyCar race that isn't held on Memorial Day weekend. 

The grid is at capacity and we haven't even showed up to the first race weekend. With the 27-car limit set, you would think a structure would be in place for if a 28th car arrives. Less than a month from the first qualifying session of the season, that is not the case.

This would be of particular interest to Prema, which will field two cars and those are the only two open cars planning on running the full season. One additional entry at any round puts Prema's place on the grid in question. Two additional entries could see the entire team miss a race.. 

A 27-car limit poses a problem for IndyCar when it comes to qualifying. How will it handle it?

Ovals are one thing. Single-car runs are what take place with a two-lap average determining a place on the grid. Cars go out in reverse order of the entrants' standings. That is simple and can continue onward whether there are only 27 entries or more. It could be a problem for the open entries that are not full-time as they will be stuck going out first when the track is less rubbered in and not in the most ideal conditions, but that is not as big of a headache as road and street course qualifying. 

Contemporary IndyCar has never faced the proposition of a car forced to qualify for a road or street course event. The three-round, knockout format has determined rows seven on down in the first round with rows four through six set in round two before the final three races are settled in the final round. At no point has this structure had to determine if a team starts a race, and it is a format that does not quite work if it is determining if a car goes home. 

The first round is split into two groups to lessen traffic for the field. Instead of 27 cars going out at once, it would be a 14-13 split, still crowded but not as bad as it could be. Due to the two groups and the second group hitting the track with more rubber laid down than the first group, qualifying times tend to be quicker for the second group. In response to this, the spots for 13th on down are set by position in your qualifying group. 

Seventh in group one takes 13th, the inside of row seven. Seventh in group two takes 14th, the outside of row seven. This continues until the spots are filled that way the group one runners are not all placed behind the eliminated cars from group two who had the better track conditions. 

This system doesn't quite work to determine if a car should make the field or not. There should be a level playing field when determining what car will race over another. Even if you based it off of final position in round one group, the track conditions change so rapidly that having to qualify in the first group doesn't even give you a chance to respond if another open entry was in the second group. The time is likely not going to be good enough, but it should to come down to whether or not a car ends up seventh or eighth or ninth in an entirely different set of cars.

We have seen odd qualifying groups that are top heavy on entries. While the third practice results determine the qualifying groups with odd-positioned cars being place in one and even-positioned cars placed in another, third practice results can be fluky and we could have a qualifying group that has three Penske cars, three Ganassi cars, two Andretti cars and a McLaren. That is nine of 13 or 14 cars. If an open car could break into seventh or eighth, that would be incredible, but the other group likely has a friendlier set of competitors for the other open entries. 

In that gauntlet group where ending up tenth would be rather respectable, it could cost a team a spot in the race due to the competitive imbalance. The other two open entries would just have to end up ninth or better against weaker competition and that is more favorable. I am also just realizing, what happens if the final two open entries end up in the same position in their respective qualifying groups? How is that tie broken? As we mentioned before, lap time cannot be a fair tiebreaker. 

IndyCar is in a hairy spot with the 27-car grid limit. Even if you are thinking, "Just put all the open cars in the same qualifying group. That solves it." It doesn't, or at least it sets up another uncomfortable scenario where third in a qualifying group could end up missing the race. 

Let's say there is a 28th entrant, an additional Andretti Global car, for a race, and it is put in the same first round group as the two Prema cars. That would be fair. That would be the best way to decide who makes the field and who doesn't, but it opens the door for the top three in that group to be Prema, additional Andretti entry and Prema, and that second Prema car, which could have run the third-fastest lap in the first round of qualifying will go home. 

That is the nature of the beast, but that is also a bad optic. It doesn't look good when the third-fastest car is missing the race. 

What is the solution? It is going to be extra, but it could fit into the procedure...

Pre-qualifying.

Like Formula One of the 1980s and 1990s, have a separate session to determine who will have the chance to qualify for the field. If more than 27 cars are entered for a race, take the open cars and have them participate in their own session to determine who will advance to qualifying with qualifying only setting the grid and pre-qualifying be what decides who makes the race. 

It avoids any potential competitive imbalance in track conditions for the open entries while also preventing the third-fastest in a qualifying group from being the car that misses the race.

Even the best solution has its flaws. For starters, the open teams would have to do an extra session, which means running more laps, which means using more tires, and they aren't going to get an extra set for pre-qualifying. It also means we need more time to run another session. Those could all be easily solved. 

One, in pre-qualifying, teams are only allowed to use one set of primary tires. This prevents divergent tire strategies and diving into the pit lane in hopes to change to alternate set while a car's competitors are on track.

Two, if IndyCar can run the final round of qualifying as a six-minute group for six cars, it can put five minutes aside for pre-qualifying at the start of the qualifying period. At the moment, pre-qualifying would likely only involve three cars, maybe four. We aren't going to see ten cars need to participate in pre-qualifying anytime soon. This can be a minor addition to the format already in place, and the round one qualifying groups can be set with two spots open in the second group to allow the open cars that make the race to cool off before actually running to set their starting position. 

Hopefully, IndyCar has a plan in place, but we are a month away from the season opener and at no point in the six-month offseason have we heard IndyCar lay out what the plan is in case 28 cars enter a race, especially on a road or street course. Status quo is not acceptable under these circumstances. With a change in how many cars can start a race and protection in place for 25 members of the grid, something new must be done for the sake of competitive fairness for those few teams that must qualify. 

With no plan out there, this pre-qualifying idea is likely the best one IndyCar could come up with. It is better than making no changes whatsoever and wondering why everyone is angry when they have egg all over their face. 

Winners From the Weekend
You know about the Bathurst 12 Hour, but did you know...
 
Chase Elliott won NASCAR's Clash from Bowman Gray Stadium.

Chase Sexton won the Supercross Triple Crown round from Glendale with finishes of third, third and second. Cooper Webb, Ken Roczn and Eli Tomac split the three races and finished second, third and fourth respectively over the weekend. Jordan Smith won in the 250cc class after finishes of second, third and first. Cole Davies won the first two races but finished eighth in the final race, placing him third overall behind Haiden Deegan in second (3-2-4).

Coming Up This Weekend
Asian Le Mans Series has a doubleheader in Dubai.
Supercross is on the east coast with a round in Tampa, Florida.


Friday, January 31, 2025

Best of the Month: January 2025

One month down! The year 2025 is flying by. It will be over before you know it. January is a strange month. A fair amount happened, not too much, but far more than nothing, yet there is so much ahead of us. If you are already exhausted, it is going to be a long year. It is a good high-intensity start to the year, getting your heart rate going before the long run of the year begins.

For the motorsports world, January is mainly notable events. There aren't many mid-level competitions taking place. They all carry some history and give you a reason to watch. The biggest of them all is the 24 Hours of Daytona, and such a famed race needs a little more time to digest. We are nearly a week removed from when the checkered flag waved, but there is plenty remaining to be said.

Putting a Bow on Daytona
History always happens at Daytona, especially in the 24 Hours. It is inescapable. You are going to stumble upon something even if on accident. There are a few places to begin, but let's start with the rain I hinted at on Monday.

A Grand Sham
With the #7 Porsche winning overall, Nick Tandy accomplished something no other driver has done in motorsports history. Tandy became the first driver with overall victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Daytona, Nürburging 24 Hours and the Spa 24 Hours. 

It was labeled as Tandy completing the "Grand Slam" in 24-hour races...

Except the "Grand Slam" is made up. 

Prior to January 1 of this year, no one had ever spoke about there being a grand slam of 24-hour races. It didn't exist. It wasn't a thing. Somewhere in the lead up to this year's race at Daytona, it was noted that Tandy and Earl Bamber could become the first drivers with overall victories in all four events, and then the name was given. 

But calling it a grand slam doesn't mean anything, the same way the Triple Crown of Motorsports doesn't really mean anything. 

For starters, these events have had vastly different histories. Up until the 21st century, the Spa 24 Hours was a touring car race. The top drivers in sports car racing didn't run the Spa 24 Hours. The manufacturer interest was not the same. Though first run in 1924, the Spa 24 Hours wasn't run for a decade from 1954 through 1963 and it only ran once from 1950 to 1963. 

Nürburgring, which only first ran a 24-hour race in 1970, mirrored Spa for the first part of its history as a touring car race mostly for amateur lineups. It wasn't until the start of the 21st century that GT racing took over.

Le Mans and Daytona have been the staples for multi-class 24-hour races and have featured top end prototypes and GT cars from the beginning. At no point in the 1980s was any driver considering going for the "Grand Slam" of 24-hour races because while they were all 24-hour competitions, they were vastly different regulations. 

In the 21st century, Spa and Nürburgring grew when they took on GT cars as the lead class, first in the GT1 era and then in the GT3. These classifications spread worldwide and garnered significant manufacturer support. In turn, these races grew in stature. They are still different. Le Mans and Daytona remain prototype races while Spa and Nürburgring remain GT, but bigger than they ever were. However, the four remain unconnected. 

It is arbitrary to call this the grand slam. Why these four races? Why isn't the Dubai 24 Hour considered? They are all endurance races, but are no more connected than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

This is nothing against Tandy, who is an incredible driver and his success in all of those events across LMP1, GTP and GT3 regulations validate his greatness, but this isn't an accomplishment that drivers were striving to achieve. This wasn't a long-awaited glass ceiling to be broken. As the motorsports world has become more homogenous, these races become closer related when for generations they stood on their own at different levels. 

There is a reason why Derek Bell, Hurley Haywood, Henri Pescarolo, Olivier Gendebien, Tom Kristensen and Scott Pruett never came close to completing the "Grand Slam." Manufacturers dedicated to top tier prototype racing were not interested in a touring car-based endurance race. We didn't see prototype drivers crossing over into GT racing on a whim. 

Tandy achieved this but others weren't trying. It wasn't a thought. 

It is a product of a different era. Tandy came up the GT ranks with Porsche and that has led to prototype opportunities and he has fully taken advantage of it. As Spa and Nürburgring became GT-focused events, the manufacturer interest increased, and the likes of Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-AMG, Ferrari, Aston Martin and so on have brought out their top drivers. That wasn't the way for the longest time. 

We can recognize Tandy's achievement and acknowledge how brilliant his career has been (the man won Petit Le Mans overall in a GT car!), but also remember how different the motorsports world is in 2025 compared to previous decades.

Dandy Tandy
Shifting moods to something positive, with Tandy's victory overall, he became the 142nd driver with multiple class victories at the 24 Hours of Daytona. In 2014, Tandy was a member of the GTLM winning team alongside Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet in the #911 Porsche. It was 11 years between Daytona victories for Tandy.

How many other drivers have gone a decade between victories at Daytona? 

Tandy made it lucky #13. The 12 prior to him were...

Rolf Stommelen (Overall in 1968 and overall in 1978)
John Paul, Jr. (Overall in 1982 and overall in 1997)
John Schneider (Lights in 1986 and overall in 1997)
David Brabham (GTP in 1992 and DP in 2003)
Christian Fittipaldi (Overall in 2004 and overall in 2014)
Dominik Farnbacher (GT in 2005 and GTD in 2015)
Scott Sharp (Overall in 1996 and overall in 2016)
Max Angelelli (Overall in 2005 and overall in 2017)
Dirk Müller (GT1 in 1998 and GTLM in 2017)
Carlos de Quesada (GT in 2007 and GTD in 2017)
Ryan Dalziel (Overall in 2010 and LMP2 in 2021)
Alessandro Pier Guidi (GTD in 2014 and GTD Pro in 2024)

That is a pretty good group of drivers to be included with. 

Three-Timers Club
While Tandy picked up his second Daytona victory, Felipe Nasr picked up his third. Nasr won in GTD Pro in 2022 before his consecutive overall victories. 

Nasr became the 49th driver respectively with at least three Daytona class victories. We nearly had a 50th three-time Daytona winner, but the #8 Tower Motorsport Oreca was disqualified for excessive wear to its skid block costing Sébastien Bourdais a third victory.

Acknowledging the LMP2 Winners
With Tower being disqualified, the #22 United Autosports Oreca inherited the LMP2 class victory for the 24 Hours of Daytona. It is United Autosports' first Daytona victory and it was the first IMSA victory for three of its four drivers.

The fourth driver, James Allen, became a two-time Daytona class winner. Two years ago, Allen won in a photo finish for Proton Competition over the Crowdstrike Racing by APR group. Allen is the 143rd driver with multiple class victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona. 

For Paul di Resta, Rasmus Lindh and Dan Goldburg, their first IMSA victories were all in the 24 Hours of Daytona. 

The Consecutive Victories Era
We are living in the consecutive victories era of the 24 Hours of Daytona.

2019-2021: Wayne Taylor Racing
2022-2023: Meyer Shank Racing
2024-2025: Porsche Penske Motorsport

During this period, Renger van der Zande, Kamui Kobayashi, Hélio Castroneves, Tom Blomqvist, Simon Pagenaud and now Nasr have won consecutive races as drivers with Castroneves winning three consecutive. 

We haven't even mentioned that Cadillac won in 2019 and 2020 before Acura bridged the WTR-MSR years with victories from 2021 to 2023 and now Porsche has won in consecutive years. 

Either Porsche makes it a three consecutive triumph in 2026 or BMW wins and begins its own little run. 

Giving Some Love to Laurens
We have spotlighted Tandy and Nasr, but the third driver in the #7 Porsche deserves some love.

Laurens Vanthoor has been on a hot streak and it should be recognized. 

Last season, Vanthoor won the World Endurance Drivers' Champion with two victories in FIA World Endurance Championship competition. He also won the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2024. Now he has won the 24 Hours of Daytona, which goes along with his 2014 and 2020 Spa 24 Hours victories and he won the 2015 Nürburgring 24 Hour, meaning he is now one victory away from completing the "Grand Slam," but Vanthoor has already won the Dubai 24 Hour and he has even won the 24 Hours of Zolder... 

So in a way Vanthoor has already done something greater than the "Grand Slam." 

Well... They Were There
We did this last year, and it is worth bringing it back.

There might have been 234 drivers entered for the 24 Hours of Daytona, but unfortunately, not all of them got to participate in the 24 Hours of Daytona. Just because the car makes it to the grid does not mean you will get a shot behind the wheel. With four-driver lineups, a driver could go seven or eight hours before their first stint, plenty of time for things to go wrong and keep them out of the race. The box score will say they were there, but they never turned a lap.

Last year, nine drivers did not complete a lap in this race.

It is easiest to start with the car that finished last, and for the #63 Lamborghini, you are forgiven if didn't notice it was missing. Mirko Bortolotti did 34 laps in two stints before the engine expired. That means Edoardo Mortara, Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean never got to complete a lap in the race, but it gets better. 

Grosjean apparently left the track within minutes of the car pulling into the garage. Mortara was making his first Daytona appearance since 2013 when he won in GT with Alex Job Racing. That means though he will be counted as a participant in 2024, Mortara has not completed a lap in the 24 Hours of Daytona in over 12 years! And then there is Kvyat, who was making his Daytona debut! Which sounds bad, but there is good news that there is life after an inactive debut, and we will touch upon that shortly.

Somehow, all four drivers in the #75 Mercedes-AMG completed a lap despite finishing 60th out of 61 cars. Good for them. 

Not so good for the car in 59th. The #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin was out about a half-hour after the #75 Mercedes-AMG’s race ended. Nicki Thiim did not get in the car. Andy Lally had only done 14 minutes and 40 seconds when the car broke down. Better than nothing but hardly any good, especially since this was announced as Lally final Daytona start. 

Incredibly, the #007 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin and #9 Pfaff Lamborghini got all of their drivers in when the two cars collided and ultimately ended each other’s races. Roman De Angelis only ran for 16 minutes and 20 seconds, but at least he got to run.

Ben Hanley did not. With the #2 United Autosports Oreca caught in that restart accident, Hanley was the only driver yet to have done a stint in that entry. 

The incredible thing is that is it. Five drivers did not complete a lap in this year's race. Of the 61 entires in this year's event, 54 of them ran for over 12 hours. Hanley's car did just over seven and a half hours. It is kind of unfortunate he did not get into the seat. Once you get past six hours, in all likelihood everyone will have been in the car at that point.

It hurts less that these five drivers are all professionals who have had full careers. It doesn't hurt as much that they didn't get to run in this race. Grosjean and Kvyat are Formula One veterans. They are good. Mortara has won the 24 Hours of Daytona before and won in a variety of categories since then. The same is true for Hanley, who won in LMP2 at Daytona in 2020. Thiim has a class victory at Le Mans and two world championships. They are all good. It stings but they aren't asking "what if" a week later.

What about the nine from last year?
To quickly run through the nine drivers from last year, eight were entered in this year's race. The one that wasn't was Scott Huffaker. 

None of Mikkel Jensen, Charles Milesi and Hunter McElrea had a chance to run last year in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca. This year, all three returned to the #11 TDS Racing Oreca and turned laps. Last year was McElrea's Daytona debut, but he didn't turn his first race laps in the 24 Hours of Daytona until 3:40 p.m. ET on January 25, 2025.

Nicklas Nielsen and Matthieu Vaxivière each got to make laps in the #88 AF Corse Oreca after not running that car in 2024.

Paul di Resta went from not running a lap in the #22 United Autosports Oreca in 2024 to driving the car under the checkered flag to finish second on track in LMP2 in 2025, which was then promoted to first after post-race inspection!

Felix Rosenqvist also did not run a lap in the #22 United Autosports Oreca in 2024, but Rosenqvist got to drive for four hours and five minutes in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura as it finished second overall in 2025. 

Finally, Jules Gounon was unfortunate not to run a lap in the #75 Mercedes-AMG in 2024. In 2025, Gounon was unfortunate to be the one behind the wheel when the #75 Mercedes-AMG broke down during the race after Gounon had driven for just over 50 minutes. 

What I Actually Wanted to Write About!
After doing all that writing above and reading over it, I realized that what I wanted to mention in the first place was nearly omitted though it has been on my mind for the better part of two weeks! 

The 24 Hours of Daytona might the last endurance race with wild combinations of drivers that feel more like fantasy lineups than reality. This was mostly seen in the LMP2 class this year. 

The CrowdStrike Racing entry brought together Colton Herta, one of the best in IndyCar, Malthe Jakobsen, an up-and-coming LMP2 driver who is a race winner in the European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series, and Toby Sowery, an Indy Lights winner who is on the fringe of an IndyCar ride and has been impressive in sports cars.

Tower Motorsport had a four-time IndyCar champion (Bourdais) with one of the most consistent drivers at the LMP2 level (Job van Uitert) and a 22-year-old with limited Formula 4 success but who has done well in his early years in sports car racing (Sebastián Álvarez). 

Inter Europol Competition brought together the defending IMSA LMP2 champion (Tom Dillmann), a Formula E champion and current Formula E championship leader (António Félix da Costa), last year's winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMP2, which was his Le Mans debut (Bijoy Garg) and a man who had not raced since 2011 (Jon Field). 

And that is only three of the entries. 

There was once a time rather random driver lineups were all over the place at Daytona, especially in the top class. As manufacturer support has increased and the privateer side has been contained to the pro-am nature of LMP2, we see these fantasy lineups come together in the secondary class, and it is still fun to watch. 

It is the wild card every year at Daytona, and it isn't going away. GTP participation is going to be strictly limited. Top talent isn't getting the opportunities that once were available, but that hasn't stopped the likes of Herta, Bourdais, da Costa, Callum Ilott and Felipe Massa from showing up at Daytona each January. We are better off for their openness to compete in what is not the top class but a ruthlessly competitive class at that. 

February Preview
From Daytona to Bathurst, a 12-hour race awaits us this weekend. Twenty-two drivers have made the trek from the Atlantic Coast of Florida to the oldest inland settlement in Australia.

Of those 22 Daytona drivers, they are spread among 11 of the 18 entries in the top class, Class A, meant for GT3 cars. Three entries are entirely made up of Daytona participants. 

The #32 Team WRT BMW has the van der Linde brothers, Kelvin and Sheldon, paired with Augusto Farfus. The 75 Express group has kept Jules Gounon and Kenny Habul in the car while Lucas Stolz joins them after being a competitor last week. Gounon has the chance to become the first driver with four Bathurst 12 Hour victories. Habul and Stolz could each get their third. Meanwhile, Maro Engel and Mikaël Grenier go from 75 Express co-drivers to 75 Express competitors as Engel and Grenier will drive the #888 Mercedes-AMG Team GMR entry with Maxime Martin, who was a co-driver with Stolz last week in Daytona. 

International flavor aside, the domestic talent is rather strong and it has a chance to defend its home turf.

Supercars champion Will Brown will be in the field in the #26 Arise Racing GT Ferrari. One of Brown's co-drivers will be the man who finished third in the Supercars championship, Chaz Mostert, with Ferrari driver Daniel Serra arriving from Daytona to fill out that lineup. 

The top five from the 2024 Supercars championship will be competing at Mount Panorama this weekend. 

Brown's Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Broc Feeney will be there, but Feeney isn't a teammate this weekend. Feeney isn't even driving for the same manufacturer. Feeney will be in the #183 James Racing Audi with Ricardo Feller and Liam Talbot.

Cam Waters and Thomas Randle were fourth and fifth in Supercars last year, and they will share the #222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG with one of the best to ever driver around "The Mountain," seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner and two-time Bathurst 12 Hour winner Craig Lowndes. 

Matt Campbell and Ayhancan Güven will look to defend their victory from last year, this time with Alessio Picariello in the #911 Absolute Racing Porsche. The only other Porsche in the field will be the #91 The Bend Manthey EMA Porsche with IMSA GTD Pro champion Laurin Heinrich, Le Mans LMGT3 class winners Morris Schuring and Yasser Shahin, and Sam Shahin behind the wheel. 

Other Events of Note in February
NASCAR races at Bowman Gray Stadium this weekend before racing the Daytona 500 in two weeks.
We will have the final two weekends of the Asian Le Mans Series, which will determine the final invitations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Australia hosts the Supercars opening weekend and the World Superbike opening weekend simultaneously, though at different venues (Sydney Motorsports Park and Phillip Island respectively).
The FIA World Endurance Championship opens on the final day of the month in Qatar. 


Wednesday, January 29, 2025

2025 IndyCar Team Preview: Arrow McLaren

January is nearly over, and the 2025 IndyCar season is a smidge more than a month away. Thirty-two days are all that separate this moment from the first green flag of the season in St. Petersburg. We still have over half the grid to preview. 

We end January looking at a race-winning team who is hoping to achieve so much more. Arrow McLaren stepped up in 2024 after having a disappointing 2023 season. Patricio O'Ward showed he is still a brilliant talent and got McLaren back on the top step after a lengthy drought. O’Ward cemented himself as one of IndyCar's best personalities as well. Unfortunately, the team's woes were not completely cured. McLaren had one car working but struggled to have multiple contenders at one time. 

There has been one driver change and a part-timer will be a full-timer. However, this team is still one man.

At First Glance... It is Patricio O'Ward and friends
For all the work McLaren has done in IndyCar, no one has had more success with the team than O'Ward. Arguably, O'Ward is the only driver to have success in the McLaren era of this organization. 

Since 2020, O'Ward has finished in the top five of the championship in four of five seasons and his worst championship finish has been seventh. The Mexican driver has seven victories, 26 podium finishes and 38 top five finishes. He has done all this in 78 starts. 

Over that same time period, all the other McLaren drivers have combined for zero victories, six podium finishes and 17 top five finishes. The best championship finish for a McLaren driver not named O'Ward is eighth. 

McLaren goes as far as O'Ward goes, and that shouldn't be the case for a team that believes it should be considered one of IndyCar's "Big Four" and be a perennial championship contender. 

For all that McLaren has put into its IndyCar program, it is still too top heavy. It has not helped that the tea has not been able to find a suitable teammate to form a 1-2 punch. O'Ward has had effectively four different regular teammates in five seasons. That is not considering the likes of Callum Ilott and Théo Pourchaire, who rotated through the #6 Chevrolet last season before the team settled on Nolan Siegel, nor is it considering the Indianapolis 500 one-offs in Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Kanaan and Kyle Larson, nor is it accounting for the time Hélio Castroneves ran the Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader in place of Oliver Askew in 2020. 

You would think in five seasons McLaren would have found a solid driver to form a partnership with one of the best young talents to come out of the Road to Indy system in the last 25 years. That has remained elusive as has the greatest results. 

Enter Christian Lundgaard, a driver who once took Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to eighth in the championship and won a race when the team was not at its strongest. Lundgaard lifted RLLR to a higher level. He could not cure all the team's woes but he made them competitive. 

McLaren is a step up from RLLR, but we have seen plenty of promising drivers enter McLaren and quickly be out the door. Askew didn't get a second season despite finishing on the podium in his fifth career race. Felix Rosenqvist had three seasons, but very well could have been done after two if the Álex Palou contract fiasco had not played out. Alexander Rossi was done after two seasons and he finished in the top ten in the championship in both. 

There is a short leash, and Lundgaard is not going to get any additional slack. The Dane could be the missing piece. We have already seen him do more with less. But we thought Rosenqvist was the missing pieces and we thought Rossi was the missing piece. It is difficult to believe the third time will be the charm. 

There is no reason to believe O'Ward will be threatened within this organization. This is his team. Lundgaard must be spectacular to come close. Siegel's inclusion in this trio remains a bit of a mystery. For all the good we saw in Indy Lights, there was nothing suggesting Siegel was a can't-miss talent that required the rush to IndyCar. 

For Lundgaard, he must be on O'Ward's heels. For Siegel, he must at least look competent. No matter what, all eyes are on O'Ward to set the mark for McLaren. If he gets any support, it will be an added bonus.

2024 Arrow McLaren Review
Wins: 3 (St. Petersburg, Mid-Ohio, Milwaukee I)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 2nd (Mid-Ohio)
Championship Finishes: 5th (Patricio O'Ward), 10th (Alexander Rossi), 23rd (Nolan Siegel), 28th (Théo Pourchaire), 33rd (Callum Ilott), 36th (Kyle Larson)

Patricio O'Ward - #5 Arrow Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
6: Finishes of first or second in 2024

0: Finishes of third, fourth or fifth in 2024

178.8: Average number of laps led in a season since 2020

What does a championship season look like for him?
O'Ward doing his very best on a regular basis and the off days being non-existent. It is a season where O'Ward wins early, wins in the middle of the season, and he wins late as well. Every weekend, his name is being mentioned, but for good. 

There are next to no weekends where O'Ward is mentioned for something going wrong, whether that be an accident, a pit lane issue or a mechanical issue. A bad day would be a 12th-place finish. 

The season would start with at least a podium finish but victory would come in one of the first three races and that would put O'Ward in the championship lead early. Every race weekend, we would be checking to see if anyone could overtake O'Ward, but he keeps finishing in the top five. Some might pull some points back, but nobody would be taking big chunks out of the deficit. 

The defining moment would be an Indianapolis 500 victory. After years of close calls, this is O'Ward's year and it leads him to be the clear man to beat in the championship. He follows it up with a victory in Detroit, doing something that had not been done in 25 years, and another victory in Gateway makes the championship appear to be a forgone conclusion. 

O'Ward settles down over summer, but is never far off the front. He wins another pair of races before we get to Nashville and the championship trophy is either already his or firmly in his grasp. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?
The dream season is realistic for O'Ward. It only requires something we have yet to see from him and the organization. Until the two parties can put together a full 17-race season, it is hard to imagine how they can clinically take a championship and make the rest of the competition look amateur. 

You can pencil in a victory or two or maybe even three, but when it comes to O'Ward, there are at least two or three results outside the top 18 that are not too far away. Some are his fault, others are inexplicable. They aren't going away overnight. 

It could work out where O'Ward can pull off four victories, eight podium finishes and 14 top ten finishes and those cancel out those two or three bad days while the rest of the competition take victories and podiums off one another and it allows to O'Ward to sneak through as champion. That is unlikely to happen. 

He is going to win a race. He is going to be at the front. He will be in the top five of the championship. If O'Ward is at his very best, he can achieve greatness. If is slightly off, it will be another good but unfulfilled season.

Nolan Siegel - #6 Arrow Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
4: Lead lap finishes in 12 starts last season

0: Lead laps finishes in his final six starts

4: Times finishing as the top rookie in a race 

What does a championship season look like for him?
McLaren being the best team in IndyCar and all three cars are at the front. If Siegel is champion, the entire McLaren team is at the front, and he is likely ahead of O'Ward because O'Ward missed some races. Filling the vacuum is the American few believe in, but after opening the season as the third of the three McLaren drivers, when O'Ward goes down, Siegel raises his game. 

An unthinkable victory comes in the first race sans O'Ward. Siegel keeps it up with another podium finish and then another top five. A second victory makes it four consecutive top five results. Each race, Siegel is moving up the championship. He wins a pair of races in July, including at his home race of Laguna Seca, and he is on the edge of the playoff picture entering August. 

Siegel ends his season with finishes of second, first and first and takes an improbable championship with O'Ward running at wingman down the stretch to clinch the Astor Cup for the organization.

What does a realistic season look like for him?
Unfortunately for McLaren drivers, underwhelming results are common place in the organization. 

In his 12 starts last season across three different organizations, Siegel's average points per start was 12.833. Extrapolated over 17 races and he was on pace for 218 points, good enough for only 19th in the championship and more than 30 points off 18th. 

With more time in the car and with the team, Siegel should do better than that, but expectations will not be for him living in O'Ward or Lundgaard's shadow. There will be daylight between those two and Siegel. His average finish in ten races with McLaren was 16.4. That should improve, but being somewhere between 12th and 15th isn't what McLaren is aiming for. 

He will get his top ten finishes. If things fall right, Siegel could get a top five result, but for most of 2025 Siegel will be somewhere in the middle of the pack and have us wondering if he is really in the plans for 2026.

Christian Lundgaard - #7 Arrow Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
4: Finishes outside the top twenty in 52 career starts

16.882: Average finish in 17 career oval starts

9.9714: Average finish in 35 road/street course starts

What does a championship season look like for him?
Lundgaard transitioning to McLaren and it being the change that complements his driving style and pace. He is in lockstep with O'Ward from the start of the season. They are constantly within a position of one another in qualifying and the races. Everyone is impressed but they aren't taking Lundgaard too seriously as a threat. 

Then he wins Long Beach and catches everyone’s attention. Lundgaard goes on a run where he is the best McLaren driver over the next two races leading into the Indianapolis 500. O'Ward wins the “500” and gets all the glory, but Lundgaard quietly finishes seventh, a respectable showing considering his past "500" runs. While O'Ward is hungover, Lundgaard wins in Detroit, finishes in the top five in Gateway and wins at Road America, putting him in the championship lead. 

Another podium finish follows at Mid-Ohio, but O'Ward sweeps the Iowa weekend while Lundgaard has his roughest days of the season. In Toronto, Lundgaard is back on the podium and then he wins at Laguna Seca. A top five follows at Portland and he goes into the final two oval races in control but knowing he must be on point. 

A podium in Milwaukee sets Lundgaard up to only need a the top fourteen finish in the finale to clinch the title. He has a car good enough for eighth at Nashville and he keeps it planted there for the entire race to seal the deal. 

What does a realistic season look like for him?
If Lundgaard can finish eighth in the championship with RLLR, he can finish eighth in the championship with McLaren. He could also finish a little better than that. 

We have seen at enough road and street course events that when the setup is dialed in Lundgaard can run for victories, and one victory is not a crazy thought in 2025, though no other McLaren driver has been able to win other than O'Ward. Lundgaard should provide a greater challenge on road and street courses. There should be a few weekends where Lundgaard is clearly the fastest McLaren driver. 

Ovals will still be acstruggle, but not to the extent we saw at RLLR. Speed was completely absent at RLLR and Lundgaard couldn't crack the top twenty even with everything in his favor. Faster cars will put him further toward the front, but with a lack of experience battling for those competitive positions, he will have a few results not go his way. 

A victory with four podium finishes, six top five results and 11 top ten finishes should be enough to earn him the best season of his career. 

The 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 2 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage of the season opener will begin at noon Eastern Time.