This exercise took much longer than I expected.
Ahead of the IndyCar weekend from Barber Motorsports Park, when wondering how often the championship lead had changed after each of the first four races with four different drivers, I started wondering more about championship leaders, and who has led the championship the most. Álex Palou also had something to do with that. For a driver who has led the championship for HALF OF HIS CAREER BEFORE REACHING 100 STARTS... Palou must be in a special spot in IndyCar history already.
One problem with IndyCar is despite its long history and all the data we have is, there are some glaring unanswered questions or unknown facts that should not be that hard to know.
When doing the research ahead of Barber Motorsports Park, the post-race standings are readily available on Racing-Reference through the 1974 USAC Championship Car season. That is a fair amount of information, but there are nearly 30 seasons post-World War II where the race-by-race championship standings are not tracked. We know the results, we know the points awarded for those races, it is now just a matter of compiling the information.
That was the long part. Combined with other things going on in life, it took a little longer than I thought going through all those years, entering the information and then breaking it down race-by-race.
For this exercise, I drew the line at 1946. It is a year already used as a cutoff for a number of statistical categories in IndyCar. Pre-World War II is a little messy as there were seasons where no championship was actually tracked but then standings were retroactively applied. Perhaps someday, I will expanded back to the first recognized IndyCar season in 1909. For this case, we are only looking at 1946 onward. Thanks to Racing-Reference, ChampCarStats and The Third Turn, these three databases were used to gather the results and cross-reference in case there were any discrepancies in the records.
You are probably thinking you already know the answer or have an idea what the answer is, and you are probably right. It is going to be no surprise the best drivers and drivers that have been the most successful are going to be toward the top among drivers who led the championship the most. That is natural. It is good to put it into context and give it a hard number.
There is also so much more there because I think leading the championship is a minor thing that gets overlooked. It is hard for anyone to lead the championship. Few get lucky in leading the championship. If a driver won the first race of the season and took the championship lead by default that driver still had to win a race to get the championship lead. After a few races, it requires consistent success to be the leader, and I think it is a shame the number of times leading the championship is not tracked.
Doing this research, it was enlightening to find a few forgotten championship leaders, and it might have been only for a race or two, but it is a highlight for that driver and team. It is a brief moment in the sun.
While using the last two weeks to find an answer, over the next upcoming extended IndyCar break, the plan is to go over some notable things from past championship leaders and answer questions you likely have and answer questions you likely didn't even think about.
On this occasion, let's start with the basics, who has led the IndyCar championship the most?
Since 1946, in around 1,400 races, a total of 107 drivers have led the championship at some point.
1. A.J. Foyt - 81 Races
2. Mario Andretti - 71
3. Scott Dixon - 63
4. Will Power - 57
5. Álex Palou - 55
That is the top five, and there are no surprises there. The top four drivers in victories are the top four in times leading the championship, though not in the same order. Are we surprised A.J. Foyt is first? No. I wouldn't even say it is that surprising that Andretti is still ahead of Dixon. Consider that the 1969 season was 24 races long and Andretti led the championship for the final 21 races. Dixon has never even competed in a season that was 21 races in length!
Ok, maybe there is one surprise in Álex Palou. If we need any greater indication of how dominant Palou has been in his first six-plus IndyCar seasons, he is fifth all-time in times leading the championship. He isn't getting lucky with these championship.
6. Sébastien Bourdais - 50
7. Al Unser - 49
8. Bobby Rahal - 43
9. Hélio Castroneves - 41
10. Bobby Unser - 39
Four of these five drivers are ranked in the top 11 all-time in victories, and then there is Bobby Rahal, one of 13 drivers all-time to win at least three championship.
As you can guess, Castroneves led the championship the most without winning a championship... and it is a while until you get to the next closest driver without a championship.
T-11. Rick Mears - 35
T-11. Al Unser, Jr. - 35
13. Rodger Ward - 34
14. Dario Franchitti - 32
15. Paul Tracy - 31
16. Juan Pablo Montoya - 30
This is it among the drivers who led the championship at least 30 times. Quick reminder that Montoya didn't even make 100 starts in his career, and he led the championship after 30 races.
T-17. Johnny Rutherford - 28
T-17. Tom Sneva - 28
19. Sam Hornish, Jr. - 27
20. Josef Newgarden - 26
T-21. Michael Andretti - 23
T-21. Tony Kanaan - 23
23. Dan Wheldon - 22
T-24. Alex Zanardi - 20
T-24. Cristiana da Matta - 20
And these are the remaining drivers who led the championship at least 20 times in their careers. We start to see some of the effects from the spit here. Hornish, Jr. only ever raced in the Indy Racing League. Zanardi and da Matta only ever raced in Champ Car. None raced in a unified IndyCar.
26. Simon Pagenaud - 19
T-27. Johnnie Parsons - 17
T-27. Jimmy Bryan - 17
T-29. Tony Bettenhausen - 15
T-29. Jimmy Vasser - 15
This is where we see the limit of the AAA and USAC eras of IndyCar. The likes of Parsons, Bryan and Bettenhausen all ran at a time when the championship was about a dozen races in length. There weren't many opportunities to lead the championship, and at a time when the Indianapolis 500 winner got 1,000 points while most of the schedule only paid 200 points, it was tougher to get to the championship lead.
This is a quick detour, but take the 1953 season. Bill Vukovich won the Indianapolis 500, the first race of the season, and he did not race again that season. Vukovich led the championship for the first five races, and he finished this in the championship with only one race started.
T-31. Nigel Mansell - 14
T-31. Emerson Fittipaldi - 14
T-31. Kenny Bräck - 14
34. Roger McCluskey - 13
T-35. Ted Horn - 12
T-35. Jacques Villeneuve - 12
T-35. Gil de Ferran - 12
Mansell led after 14 of 16 races in his 1993 championship season. That was it. Fittipaldi led the championship 11 times during his 1989 championship season. He only led the championship after three more races for the remainder of his career.
Eleven of the times Bräck led the championship were in the 2001 CART season, a year he famously lost the title late in the season to de Ferran. De Ferran only led five races in each of his two championship seasons. He led after the final five races in 2000 and five of the final seven races in 2001.
McCluskey only led the championship during his 1973 championship season. He took the lead with a runner-up finish at Milwaukee in June, his points total already boosted due to a third-place finish in the Indianapolis 500, earning him 700 points. McCluskey's championship efforts were fortified with great finishes in the 500-mile races, a second at Pocono (800 points) and a fourth at Ontario (600 points). Despite winning only one race, McCluskey clinched the title with three races to spare.
Horn won the first three championship after World War II. He took the 1946 championship in the final race of the season from the deceased George Robson, who lost his life in the third race of the season at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta. However, Robson's Indianapolis 500 victory kept him in the championship lead entering the final race. Horn was 20 points behind Robson going to the finale in Goshen, New York. A second-place result earned Horn 160 points. Horn won win the 1947 championship having led after only the final two races, but in 1948, he took the title having led after nine of the 12 races, including after the final eight races.
Villeneuve was only in IndyCar for two seasons. In 1995, he led the championship after 12 of 17 races.
T-38. Troy Ruttman - 11
T-38. Bob Sweikert - 11
T-38. Gordon Johncock - 11
T-41. Sam Hanks - 10
T-41. Joe Leonard - 10
Ruttman won the 1952 Indianapolis 500, the season opener, and 1,000 points gave him the championship lead. He did run the following week at Milwaukee, but he won the third race, a 200-miler, in Raleigh, North Carolina, increasing his points total to 1,400. An engine vibration caused him to finish 12th at Springfield, netting him ten more points, but that was his final start of the season. A sprint car crash in August ended his season.
Ruttman held the championship lead into the final race of the season in Phoenix. He was up 40 points on Chuck Stevenson. All Ruttman needed was Stevenson to finish tenth or worse to win the title. Stevenson finished sixth and won the title by 30 points. Ruttman never led the championship again and never won a championship.
Besides Hélio Castroneves, the only other driver to lead the championship after at least ten races in a career and never win a championship is Troy Ruttman.
Sweikert led after all 11 races in the 1955 season, thanks to this Indianapolis 500 victory in the opener. Sweikert did run ten of 11 races, skipping on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, as was normal for championship regulars to do.
Johncock led the championship after 11 races in his career, but he led the championship in eight different seasons spread from 1966 to 1983. He never led after more than three races in a single-season, and the year he led after three races was his 1976 championship season, a title he won overcoming a 220-point deficit to Johnny Rutherford in the Phoenix finale. Rutherford retired after 111 laps. Johncock had to finish second or better to win the title. He was second and won the title by 20 points.
Hanks led the championship for the final four races in 1953, his championship season, and for the first six races in 1957. However, Hanks was retired for five of those six races as after he won the Indianapolis 500, he retired in victory lane.
Leonard led the championship in the final three races of 1971 and after seven of ten races of 1972, including leading after the final six races.
Only 42 drivers have led the IndyCar championship after at least ten races in their careers.
And I am going to stop there. That will be a tease for the rest to come because you are probably thinking about the names you have not seen and you might be thinking of questions you do not have the answer to, and possibly those will come. Let's take a pause and we can continue tracking in the near future.
