indycar mid season review
Here we are, just past halfway through the season and with a lot to cover. An heir apparent to the 2023 title has emerged, we’ve seen a popular first-time winner at the 107th Indy 500, a new(ish) race came and went, Indycar’s first documentary series happened, and there has been no shortage of surprises all the way through the field.
100 Days to Indy’s six-episode run on The CW did arguably more to showcase the off-track lives of Indycar’s stars than any piece of marketing in the last decade. The aim of the series was to put its drivers and story in front of a new and younger audience, and while exact streaming numbers by demographic aren’t available a noticeable uptick in social media followers and viewership of race broadcasts indicate positive results. Its long-term impact remains to be seen but with a second season expected Penske Entertainment are clearly happy with the result.
Palou waving goodbye to everyone else in the point standings
With nine of 17 rounds completed, the biggest surprise this season might still be Alex Palou. Not necessarily that the Spaniard is well on his way to his second title, but rather in the way he’s going about it. Rarely in modern Indycar do we see any one driver dominate to this degree, even rarer is when that driver is on their way out of their car and team at the end of the season. Chip Ganassi has long been at the top of the heap, but despite at least one Indycar title and Indy 500 victory within the last three seasons the only constant beyond wins for the Indiana-based outfit seems to be change; both Palou and 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson appear to be headed elsewhere following the season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in September.
Scott Dixon and the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda continue to be a strong anchor for the team – currently sitting second in the points race despite an uncharacteristic absence from the top step of the podium. Marcus Armstrong has put in some strong performances this year and, assuming the budget can be found, securing the Formula 2 refugee in a full-time ride for next year would be a smart play. Armstrong brings youth, speed, and continuity – all things that the 2024 Chip Ganassi team needs. Backfilling talent the caliber of Palou and Ericsson will be no mean feat – and it’s possible that the team will need to downsize their number of full-time cars or take on another pay driver if they want to maintain the four entries currently housed in the Ganassi paddock. Among the known quantities looking for a new home next year David Malukas jumps out as a driver who can bring speed and possibly funding. It’s also possible Ganassi has an eye on bringing development driver Kyffin Simpson up from Indy NXT, or whoever claims this year’s NXT championship and subsequent scholarship. In any case, this is could be the strongest Chip Ganassi racing looks as a team for the next few seasons.
On the subject of consistency, recent Arrow McLaren acquisition Alexander Rossi has shown an impressive run of top ten finishes and podiums so far this season. Despite looking like he hasn’t fully unlocked the speed of the No. 7 Chevy, Rossi has looked immediately comfortable within the team. Rossi’s biggest issue during his later years at Andretti appeared to be the team’s inability to deliver a solid car at every race. Thankfully this doesn’t seem to be the case at Arrow McLaren. So far Rossi has been able to reward that reliability with eighth in the points standings – just ahead of former teammate Colton Herta. While it’s unlikely that anybody can catch Palou in the remaining eight races, if Alex Rossi and engineering legend Craig Hampson can continue to mesh the No. 7 might be the biggest points mover by the time the dust settles in California.
Pato O’Ward might be the biggest mystery of the latter half of 2023. After a tremendous opening to the season that looked like it would translate into a serious title threat, O’Ward is struggling to stay in the top five. Between mechanical failures and a few costly driving mistakes, it’s hard not to think that the No. 5 driver is desperate for a return to his early-season form. If Mid Ohio was any indication, raw speed isn’t the problem and if the team can knock out a few clean weekends they might be headed back toward the sharp end of the standings – but they’re quickly running out of time.
Andretti Autosport has shown an unfortunate continuation of their feast-or-famine 2022 season. It isn’t that the team looks lost on the track, but flashes of speed aren’t enough to overcome the weekends of missed setups and bad luck that still plague the organization. The team still has all the right pieces but is struggling to put them in the right order. Though it might be cliché at this point, here’s hoping for one of those famous late-season Andretti charges and better fortunes next season.
The turnaround of the 2023 season might just go to Graham Rahal and the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing organization. Several underwhelming and frustrating seasons have made the strong qualifying and racing results Rahal and Christian Lundgaard own this year on road courses look like the third act of an epic underdog story, but ask anyone at the team and they’ll tell you those results are just the opening chapter. If the team can make some gains on its oval and street course cars RLL will be right back in the mid-field fight.
Sitting in third place in the championship, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden is the tip of a very strong spear. However, barring an unprecedented string of bad luck for Chip Ganassi Racing, 2019 series champ and 2023 Indy 500 winner Newgarden is looking at runner-up as the best-case scenario for his 2023 season – keeping Dario Franchitti’s 2010 record as the last driver to win both the Borg-Warner Trophy and series championship in the same season intact. Scott McLaughlin continues to impress and looks set to become a perennial title contender, while Will Power seems to have slid back into the inconsistency that was his hallmark prior to the rock-solid 2022 championship performance we saw last season. Though team orders aren’t officially a thing in Indycar, don’t be surprised if McLaughlin and Power play more of a supporting role for Newgarden’s title hunt as the season winds down.
Further down the standings, Dale Coyne Racing, AJ Foyt Enterprises, Meyer Shank Raying, Juncos Hollinger Racing, and Ed Carpenter Racing are all hoping for the same thing – some late-season magic to carry a little momentum and a boost of morale into a painfully long off season. Here’s also hoping that Simon Pagenaud is able to return to the cockpit soon and put his frightening barrel-roll at Mid Ohio behind him.
The Detroit GP’s return to downtown – albeit on a different circuit – was something that made quite a few people in the paddock nervous. Between the split pit lane, narrow and bumpy track layout, and sheer number of cars on the grid, the word “carnage” was worn out before the haulers even unloaded. What we saw however was a track that exemplified Indycar street course racing; it brutally punished anything less than inch-perfect, saw a masterclass in car control from several drivers, and put on an overall great race that had a little bit of everything. As an event the downtown Detroit GP definitely has room to improve, but for a first-year effort it has to be applauded.
As we kick off the second half of the season north of the border in Toronto, there are several questions yet to be answered: does anyone have anything for Alex Palou? How will Nashville’s expected chaos affect the points race? Could turn one at Portland throw a wrench in someone’s season? What will the repave of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca do to that race? How will the primary/alternate tire rules shake up World Wide Technology Raceway? How many more TikTok dances does the Firehawk know? All will be answered by the time the checkered flag flies in Monterey.
