Content Warning: Racism, Sexism and Transphobia in the opening segment. If you don’t want to read it, skip to the ECR Banner. Look after yourselves – Dre x
Hey folks. Part 2 of my 2025 IndyCar Series Review will feature reviews of ECR, AJ Foyt, Meyer Shank and Team Penske. But before that, with the recent events of Charlie Kirk’s murder and some of IndyCar drivers’ response to it, I feel compelled to say something. Because here at Motorsport101, I don’t shy away from difficult conversations.
Let me make one thing, absolutely clear – Charlie Kirk was a disgusting human being. A far-right influencer who used “debate” to pedal his abhorrent views. He believed the Civil Rights Act in the US was a mistake and that it bred a “DEI culture” in the US. He believed the LGBTQ+ community was a “social construct”, he said he’d step off a plane if he saw a black pilot because he’d assume they weren’t qualified.
He said Taylor Swift should “submit” to her future husband, Travis Kelce. He said Palestine doesn’t exist, and that transgender people were an abomination to God. He said that a few children dying at the hands of shooters was worth it to protect the Second Amendment, and that empathy was a made-up new age term that does damage to people.
Kirk would often say “debate me and prove me wrong” as a way of justifying his shitty opinions. But debate implies having a conversation in good faith. When your opening gambit is to discriminate against a large sub-section of humanity, that isn’t in good faith. It’s not Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless changing into characters when the camera starts rolling. It’s orchestrated bigotry in a suit.
As much as in a perfect world I don’t believe in political violence, Kirk is not someone who deserves my pity. He was a symptom of the America he wanted to see. If someone is still quoting Eugenics-based bullshit in 2025, and believes I don’t deserve human rights based on the colour of my skin, that does not deserve my empathy. Which ironically, he’d hate for me to give. And for anyone citing his young wife and children, lemme ask – How do you think he was going to raise those kids?
It’s what made the reactions of so many people within IndyCar so disappointing. Some were expected. It’s been an open secret Alexander Rossi is a Trump supporter from his likes on Twitter as far back as 2016. He didn’t exactly cover himself in glory on his own Podcast when Election Day came and went and it was co-host Tim who had to explain why in basic 20th Century US history “Why can’t we just get along?” isn’t really an option anymore.
Graham Rahal’s had suspect interactions in the series with people outside of the US like Romain Grosjean. Some were downright baffling, like Canada’s Devlin DeFrancesco, Christian Lundgaard, or the big one – His teammate Pato O’Ward, who posted a prayer for him on his Instagram before deleting it and replacing it with a more generic “gun violence is bad” post.
Pato’s explained himself on Twitter since then, but I’ll be clear – You can always say nothing. Even if you agreed with the man, I don’t have to know any better. Instead the man showed his whole ass. Which given he’s Mexican and if Charlie had his way, he wouldn’t be letting any person of colour over the border, is incredibly frustrating. It took people understandably being upset with Pato’s sympathies for him to comment on a social issue and say he’s against all violence and murder while beating his chest about who he is, yet he’s been silent on Ukraine, Gaza, and only very lightly batted away America’s Immigration and Customs’ Enforcement using his car as propaganda to round up and deport his own countrymen. But praying for Kirk needed you to step in on social media to take a stand?
Now again, being clear – I don’t think these drivers are far-right lunatics. Some are probably just uneducated, thinking that taking what they think is a neutral “No-one should be shot, RIP” stance is a better look for their outward facing profiles, taking away the nuances as to why giving a Neo-Nazi empathy might be a problem. Something we don’t think about when pilots in Motorsport climb the ladder is that a lot of the time, their education is often compromised in order for them to chase that dream.
I’ve seen bike racers be pulled out of school as teenagers. Lando Norris has been candid about not having any GCSE’s. Kimi Antonelli is juggling school while being an active F1 driver doing 24 race weekends a year. Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have been applauded for their activism in their late 30’s, but it took a long time of being dormant (And in Lewis’ case, a transphobic faux pas of his own in 2017 which he’s worked very hard to rectify), before they really started pushing for change.
Some things school teaches you? Politics, citizenship, history, social skills and critical thinking. And given most high-profile drivers just don’t face the “real world” as much as you and I, while we as a community get a lot braver with our keyboards in 2025, it leads to very messy situations like this because post Black Lives Matter, we demand more from our athletes in terms of altruism.
But when you combine that, with the conservative attitudes that Motorsport tends to breed, and IndyCar’s public ownership and promotion with Barstool and FOX, it’s not a nice social environment for the series if you’re left-leaning politically like me and many others.
And I’m not saying boycott the series. The real world doesn’t work like that, it’s messy, complicated, and it’d be unfair to paint everyone within IndyCar with the same brush. I’ve mentioned before that Jacob Abel was a wonderful safe space for many in the LGBTQ+ community, and many of the women I know within the series have echoed his actions. Be the positive change you want to see in your communities and champion them if you want to see a better world. Talk to people, explain why this matters. Use this as an opportunity to better ourselves.
But I leave you with a warning – Be very careful if you’re putting any driver on a social pedestal, especially if they’re white. Chances are, they just don’t see the world in the same way that you do, and you might be saving yourself the disappointment for when they inevitably let you down. Let’s talk about some race cars.
Ed Carpenter Racing
Season Highlight: First win in 4 years, potential star in Rasmussen / Season Lowlight: …For what real gain?
Ed Carpenter was clearly in a bind with his racing team at the end of 2024, and he knew it. He personally had struggled for results on ovals, Rinus Veekay was good but not going anywhere fast, and Christian Rasmussen had shown some promise but was still pretty raw as a rookie.
So Ed gambled. He stepped back from the ovals entirely and gave up the #21 in full to Rasmussen, and then released Rinus Veekay at season’s end to the shock of everyone in the sport. He also used his new charters and immediately sold half of the rights to “Splenda Daddy*” Ted Gelov to raise another $40m for the team. It was put to use straight away to sign Alexander Rossi, fresh out of McLaren. Just like that, Ed has a former top contender and 500 winner, one of the fastest LMP2 drivers in the world, and three genuine bullets for the series’ biggest race.
Did it work out? Yes and no. The big positive? Christian Rasmussen did kick on, improved massively on ovals this year and channelled his aggression into some genuinely brilliant results, including that iconic Milwaukee victory in August. Alex Rossi on the hand… spun his wheels up a little more and largely struggled to gain a foothold in his new team.
Last year, ECR cars were 13th and 22nd in points. This year, they finished 13th and 15th. So the floor’s gotten better, but the ceiling still isn’t there over a full season. More on that in a hot minute, but with the investment that they’ve made in the team and the on paper driving “upgrade”, is it fair to say that more was expected here?
It’s funny. For all the talk of change and ECR’s rebranding and Sugar money, they’ve ended up arguably the team most similar to what they were in 2024. And that’s gotta be irritating for Ed.
Christian Rasmussen – 13th in Points (313), 1 Win, 2 Podiums, 6 Top 10’s, Average Start: 17.5 Average Finish: 13.5
Road/Street Ranking: 21st / Oval Ranking: 3rd
This may be a hot take, but I spotted on IndyCar’s Subreddit that Rasmussen was the default pick for “Breakout Star of the Year”, and I’m sorry but I can’t get there. There were too many elements of his season I didn’t like. Lemme explain.
The good bits first. Exceptional on ovals this season. Until his first lap crash at Nashville on the final day, he was one of only three men in the series who had Top 10 finishes on every oval race on the calendar. It was his ruthless aggression on many of these ovals that got results. It had him on the ragged edge many times – I think he tried to hit the wall at least three times during the Indy 500 fortnight, and he looked like he was on the brink of a humiliating crash in Milwaukee when he did the hard yards for his win there, but he made it work, and finishing only behind the clear two best drivers in IndyCar in 2025 on either discipline deserves serious praise.
But look at that disparity in how those points were scored. He shares the quirky Daly stat – he’s the only other driver who scored more on Ovals (173) than Road/Street tracks (140). Forgive me, but I can’t give breakout star honours to a man who was outside the Top 20 for two thirds of the season and had 1 Top 10 finish on a Road Course all year at Laguna Seca. And his meltdown he was partly responsible for in Portland was over the top, retaliatory and shit we’d normally destroy Max Verstappen for. As his teammate said on his Podcast, we as an audience need to be careful we don’t treat both him and Santino Ferrucci, who’s often been applauded for that same shitty behaviour.
You know what Rasmussen was this season? A rich man’s Conor Daly. Someone who drove like an oval specialist, but if we judged him on the other stuff, his seat would be under question. But we love making stars of oval guys, so Rasmussen’s Milwaukee win will likely live long in the memory, as ECR’s first since Veekay at the IndyGP back in 2021 and just their second win of the last decade. There’s clearly talent here, but I like my IndyCar drivers a little more balanced and I have to wonder if CR21’s aggressive approach to racing stays sustainable in the medium-term. 6.5/10
Alexander Rossi – 15th in Points (297), 1 Fast 6, 7 Top 10’s / Average Start And Finish: 14
Road/Street Ranking: 12th / Oval Ranking: 15th
I’ve said this a lot in this series so far this year that this has been one of the most difficult seasons to evaluate talent, because there’s a LOT of inconsistency and mitigation that comes with certain drivers. Alex Rossi is another season that falls into this category.
For a good two thirds of the season, this was a grim looking year for the veteran Californian. He started out decently with three Top 10’s in the first four races with his new team and looked like he was rejuvenated. But a fire in the pit box ended his 500, he got back in the Top 10 in Detroit, then went seven races without getting another one. Again, there’s some bad luck here – A brush with the wall in Toronto turned into a race ender given he hit the gap between fences and shredded his suspension. Another mechanical ended his first race in Iowa too.
Rossi at one point sank as low as 19th in points, but three straight Top 10’s to close out the year meant he actually recovered reasonably well. If we gave Rossi every benefit of the doubt, I think he could have gotten close to the Top 10… but that begs the question, did Ed sign Alex Rossi to essentially do what he was doing at McLaren, just in blue and yellow instead? I dunno.
And there’s no escaping it, Rasmussen outscored Rossi over the year in the former’s second season. A visual metaphor for that might be having CR pass Rossi on that final stint in Milwaukee despite being on the same strategy. Ouch.
It’s the same problems I’ve been having with Rossi since 2020. The roof has blown off his house and his explosive, aggressive driving that led to wins and podiums have evaporated. We’re left with a middle of the road driver who can have good days, but is mostly unremarkable. And to be frank… isn’t that what you sacked Rinus Veekay for being? 5.5/10
AJ Foyt Racing
Season Highlight: Both Cars In The Top 5 At The 500 / Season Lowlight: Needs Better Road/Street Course Form
AJ Foyt was another team that felt like it was in a weird crossroads. Last year was a genuine breakthrough, showing good all-round pace, combined with another strong 500 and Santino Ferrucci having a really good season to spearhead the team. But with Michael Cannon leaving them at the end of 2024, there was always going to be a question mark as to how much influence he had on them. Penske claimed it was huge, Santino told them they were full of shit. Who was right?
Honestly… probably Santino. But not in the way he would have liked. Foyt is legit now. They are genuine midfielders with upside in a loaded field. Even without Cannon, they had multiple podium finishes this season and both cars in the Top 5 of the Indy 500. That’s a really strong core for a team, and honestly, after their petty bullshit in Detroit last year, I’m glad they’ve cut a lot of the ego and snark that follow them.
Newcomer David Malukas delivered an exceptional second place at the 500, backed up with more Top 10’s on the shorter ovals and put himself in line for a Penske job, beating one of their regulars in Josef Newgarden over the course of the year, and while Ferrucci did scale back a little bit compared to his busted 24’, he still had plenty of solid results.
I just think they need to be stronger on tracks that turn right. We’ve established for a little while now that they’re good on Ovals, but both their drivers were 15th and 20th on road/street tracks. If they want to get a car in the Top 10, they need to do better there, and Rinus Veekay might be the perfect antidote for that while having another 500 contender with his qualifying speed. It’s a good fit for life after Lil’ Dave. Foyt are no longer the laughing stock of the field, now they need to build on a clearly stronger foundation.
David Malukas – 11th in Points (318), 1 Podium, 5 Top 10’s, 3 Fast 6’s / Average Start: 9.9 / Average Finish: 12.8
Road/Street Ranking: 15th / Oval Ranking: 6th
Hmmm. This is an interesting one. David Malukas is the definition of what I call a “Speed Kills” kind of season. Of all the full-timers, Malukas had the 4th best average start. He made 3 Fast 6’s, and was front row back-to-back for Milwaukee and Nashville at the end of the season. It’s why when people say he’s an oval specialist, that’s not really true – Let’s not forget, he gave Kyle Kirkwood, the greatest Road to Indy prospect ever, a fair run for his money in Lights.
But the lack of consistency is a little jarring. Only 5 Top 10 finishes across the season is low and not on the same level as some of the drivers around him. But when he hit, he hit hard. Second at the Indy 500. Fourth in Iowa Race 2, came back from the gravel trap on the opening lap to finish seventh at Road America. These are chunky finishes and the IndyCar scoring system (50, 40, 35, 32, 30…), rewards those big results. I just wish there were slightly more of them to jump and down about.
15th on Road and Street courses is low for someone who’s about to inherit a seat in a Championship-level team and it’s fair to ask for more in that department. He was clumsy there too at times this year, putting Alex Palou into the wall in Detroit and trying a really reckless move at Road America on Christian Lundgaard that could have ended his day. Lil’Dave has nearly 50 starts now, there isn’t an excuse.
But we all know what Malukas is about to be. He’s the inheritor of the #12 Penske with Will Power now at Andretti. I still think it’s a year early for a move like this, but Penske had no choice. It’s going to be a huge test to live up to what Will Power did in that seat, and as said, I’m not sure he’s ready. It’s going to be fascinating though to see if he can pull it off. A good season from Malukas, just not fully convinced it’s a great one. 7/10
Santino Ferrucci – 16th in Points (293) – 2 Podiums, 6 Top 10’s / Average Start: 18 / Average Finish: 13.8
Road/Street Ranking: 20th / Oval Ranking: 8th
Turns out all that glaze from his agent Townsend Bell actually slowed his client down a bit. Who’d have thought?
After the dizzying heights of 2024 where Santino had double digit Top 10’s on ovals and road courses and finally started looking like the prospect his fans thought he was, this feels like a step back.
He had a white-hot streak in May and June with a 5th in the 500 followed up with second in Detroit when he went off-sequence, another 5th in Gateway then a great fuel save in Road America to score a third. Beers were skulled like Stone Cold and some fans were won over. That was the peak of his season though, with just two more Top 10’s for the rest of the season, and an embarrassing warm-up crash in Toronto that forced a withdrawal and a rare “DNS” on the Wikipedia page.
For me, it’s the same old story for Santucci. He’s not a very good qualifier and he’s never been consistently great on road courses. 20th in those disciplines in his 5th season isn’t acceptable anymore in my opinion, and better drivers have been cut from the series for less than that. Unless IndyCar reverts back to the IRL days, you can’t keep dodging that bullet forever.
Ferrucci had a huge chance to put himself down as a genuine contender for a top seat if he was able to back up 2024. He failed and now Malukas has jumped him in the queue. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. 5.5/10
Meyer Shank Racing
Season Highlight: Outstanding Consistency / Season Lowlight: Erm…
Cutting to the chase on this one – Meyer Shank was probably the best team in IndyCar pound-for-pound in 2025 and was exceptional. They’ve been threatening to have a genuine breakout season for a while now and this looks like it was the one.
They ticked just about every box a midfielder could tick this year. Road and Street form? Check. Oval prowess? Yep, both drivers were in the Top 10 in both major rankings. A 500 contender? Yep, Felix Rosenqvist was 4th. They didn’t win a race, but this was a really down year for variance due to Alex Palou reasons. And even then, they came really close at Road America when Rosenqvist’s aggressive chasedown strategy nearly paid off, but it was still the team’s best ever finish with second. Marcus Armstrong also got on the podium in Gateway in the middle of a stretch of 9 Top 10’s in 10 rounds.
This team beat some of the biggest names in the business – Sandwiching Colton Herta with Felix ahead on countback. ALL THREE Penske’s beneath them both in the standings too. I’m really not sure how much more you can ask of a midfield team. Yes, some will point to Ganassi’s technical alliance, but they’ve never been this good and AJ Foyt has a Penske partnership and they got smoked by the boys in blue (Complimentary).
The only thing now is, is this the ceiling? Looking at the table, they needed another 60 points to penetrate the Top 5 and Christian Lundgaard’s exceptional season. You have to ask, just how high can MSR take this thing? Right now, who cares – Meyer Shank was superb in 2025 and was unlucky not to make the Part 3 segment of this review. They’re keeping both their drivers around for next season too. An awful lot to like about Meyer Shank going forward…
Felix Rosenqvist – 6th in Points (372), 1 Podium, 10 Top 10’s / Average Start: 9.7 / Average Finish: 11.6
Road/Street Ranking: 8th / Oval Ranking: 9th
Nice little “fuck you” back to McLaren for breaking up his bromance with Pato O’Ward for Alex Rossi eh? Felix’s best season in IndyCar and as said earlier, something he had been threatening to do for a while. Last year, the speed was clearly there, but the results were a little lacking. This year, that Sub-10 average start is really good, and his average start while looking a little ropey as it sits in the 11’s, it’s dragged down by a few patchy moments at the end of the season. Milwaukee’s spin crash in Qualifying led to finishing 2 laps down on Sunday, and being taken out by Kyffin Simpson at Monterrey.
But for the first time since he started in IndyCar, he was able to take a strong start of the season and carry it on through most of the season. Double digit Top 10’s, the second place at Road America as mentioned, as well as 4th at the 500 and Long Beach.
In some ways, Felix’s 2025 was quiet. What it lacked in spectacular, it made up for consistently being in the mix. And in IndyCar, that’s worth a whole lot, and it’s why I think he ended up in P6 overall. Exceptional from the Dane and proof he can play with the best of them. 8.5/10
Marcus Armstrong – 8th in Points (364), 1 Podium, 11 Top 10’s / Average Start: 10.8 / Average Finish: 10.4
Road/Street Ranking: 9th / Oval Ranking: 10th
Here’s a list of the drivers who had more Top 10 finishes in IndyCar this season than Marcus Armstrong: Scott Dixon, Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou. That’s it.
Another driver who bathed in the fountain of consistency. I was impressed by a lot of Marcus’ road and street course performances in 2024, even if he didn’t have the results to prove it. This season he has, and he’s massively improved on ovals to back it up too. Three Top 10’s at Gateway, Iowa Race 2 and Milwaukee, and was tracking for another in Nashville before a needless blocking penalty. It sucks that because he only had the one REALLY good day with that podium in Gateway, the bad days stand out a little more – Like in Toronto when he was on for a podium there too before spinning Kyle Kirkwood out in the pits and picking up a Drive-Through Penalty.
I’m nitpicking because I have to at this level, this is still a really, really good season, I just think Marcus could have pushed it even higher, beaten Felix straight up and finished Top 6. He just needs a few more chunky results in the Top 5, something that Armstrong lacked with 2, when most around him had 5 or 6.
Still,excellent stuff and something to build on for even greater heights. So once again, I ask – Why did Chip Ganassi put Kyffin Simpson in the 8 again? 8/10
Team Penske
Season Highlight: It’s Over / Season Lowlight: Where do we start?
Let’s start this segment by posing a question. What about Penske’s season went well?!
Honest to god, I’m struggling. Erm… they still have really good short oval pace? Yeah, that’s something, right?
It says it all about Penske’s 2025. The year started well, hit a cliff in May and barely recovered. In fairness, they were pretty good in the early season, with cars regularly in the podium and in the Top 5 spots, that’s largely fine. But the Month of May was a complete, unfathomable disaster.
It turns out that on Will Power and Josef Newgarden’s cars, the rear attenuator units had been smoothed over, and when spotted, meant they failed tech inspection for modifying a spec part. While the talk of performance gain was marginal at best, it’s a slam dunk penalty with both cars sent to the back of the grid, with Scott McLaughlin stuck in 12th after wrecking a car on Carb Day. Oh, and it turns out that Newgarden’s 2024 car had the same smoothed attenuator that would have had him disqualified from the race.
A metric fuckton of embarrassment led to Roger Penske firing his entire senior management, with a combined 55 years experience between Team President Tim Cindric, Managing Director Ron Ruzewski, and general manager Kyle Moyer. And the final humiliations? Scott McLaughlin wrecked on the formation lap, and Josef Newgarden was trending for at least a Top 5 until a fuel pressure issue ended his race when the three-peat looked on.
After that Newgarden juggled cartoon anvils and tossed away a couple more races via uncharacteristic errors, Scott McLaughlin somehow went over three months between podium finishes, before Penske narrowly dodged their first winless season since 1999 when Will Power finally scored a dub in Portland. Only then did Penske remember they had to give him a new contract. WHAT THE FUC-
Even with Newgarden winning the finale in Nashville, this was a horrendous season by Roger Penske’s standards, and all of a sudden, their team looks very vulnerable and I’m not convinced this is going to be a quick fix. Scott McLaughlin’s wheels fell off this season when he was supposed to be challenging on all fronts, Will Power was glossed over to the point where he chose to quit, and Josef Newgarden’s skid now heading into his seventh season since his last Astor Cup and in a contract year.
David Malukas (or anyone else on the open market) isn’t going to immediately fix the hole that Will left behind, and his departure further highlights the flaws in Penske management. On every level, this team was a mess and mission Number 1 needs to be to get their ducks in a row, because a lot more questions will be asked in 2026.
Josef Newgarden – 12th in Points (316), 1 Win, 1 Pole, 3 Podiums, 7 Top 10’s, Average Start: 12.2 / Average Finish: 15.7
Road/Street Ranking: 16th / Oval Ranking: 4th
Fuck me, sideways. What the HELL am I gonna do with this one?!
If you ever want a visual metaphor for Josef Newgarden’s season, think back to Gateway. A race that Josef has won multiple times. He’s leading comfortably, as the race cuts to commercial, then comes back seconds later because he was caught up in Louis Foster’s accident and is now seen upside down and heading to the wall. That’s Josef’s 2025 season in a nutshell. A car crash where you don’t know when to stop looking.
Let’s get the good out of the way – He’s still outstanding on ovals, one of the very best and this season showed that in spades. But the rest of these stats are a cry for help. An average finish of nearly 16?! 16th on points for the Road and Street courses? I’m more aghast at the surprise of the Number 16 than Nepenthez on that F1 2020 meme. This might be the end of Josef as a genuine three-tool driver. Remember, his last win on one was Road America… in 2022.
Now, to be clear. This man was Wile E. Coyote in terms of cartoon anvils landing on him this season. Assessing the luck would make Cumberbatch’s Sherlock blush. See below:
Long Beach – Belt Buckle breaks, loses 2 laps, finishes 27th
Indy 500 – Comes from back row up to 5th before a fuel pressure problem, finishes 22nd
Gateway – Caught up in Louis Foster’s crash, finishes 25th
Road America – Spins out on his own at the final corner, finishes 25th
Mid Ohio – Spins out at the first corner and puts it in the wall, finishes 27th
Toronto – Caught up in Jacob Abel’s crash, finishes 24th
Portland – Taken out by Scott Dixon, loses a lap recovering, finishes 24th
It’s a bloodbath. Even on some of his better weekends like Iowa, his strongest track, he had 2nd and 10th when he had the speed to win both. On any level, it’s the unluckiest IndyCar season I’ve EVER seen from a driver. The problem is that even if I gave Josef EVERY benefit of the doubt, I’m not sure he’s better than the 8th he was at last year. And even then, he won the 500, and as I’ve joked before – That can carry a shit season. This isn’t it chief.
And the most confusing thing about it – There’s no obvious explanation. Was Josef an early bloomer? Has all the crew and management changes had a detrimental effect at Penske? Did he genuinely fall out with Scott McLaughlin and has that hurt him? The IMSA side-hustle that didn’t work out? The side projects a distraction? The extra “face of the franchise” pressure he got from all his promotion work? The cheating scandals?
There’s a massive amount of possible reasons and I can’t put my finger on one specifically and that’s why I think people speculate so wildly when it comes to Josef. On one hand, the cool and measured, charismatic “Peter Perfect” of IndyCar, the next, the whiny theatre kid who people want to see brought down a peg.
Josef’s a free agent at the end of 2026. The paddock believes his seat is up for grabs. One thing for me is certain – Another year like this one and I don’t think he’s safe. His 2025 isn’t as bad as the numbers suggest… but it isn’t good either. Simon Pagenaud, Juan Pablo Montoya and Helio Castroneves were cut for less. 6.5/10
Scott McLaughlin – 10th in Points (356), 3 Podiums, 1 Pole, 5 Fast 6’s, 9 Top 10’s / Average Start: 11.1 / Average Finish: 13.8
Road/Street Ranking: 10th / Oval Ranking: 11th
Before you lob that grenade in here and remind me, let me cut you off – Yes, I picked Scott McLaughlin to double up and win the Astor Cup and Indy 500 this season. Safe to say, he came up short.
I was getting ready to sharpen the knife on Scotty Mac’s season, thinking it might have actually been even more questionable than Newgarden’s due to the latter’s bad luck. But then I dug a little deeper and clocked that they’re actually very similar in terms of wild shit. Watson, the list:
Thermal Club: Taken out by Devlin DeFrancesco on formation lap, finishes 27th
Gateway: Mechanical failure, finishes 24th
Iowa Race 2: Taken out by Devlin DeFrancesco again on opening lap, finishes 26th
Toronto: Penske pitcrew fails to attach wheel properly, it comes off, finishes 26th
It’s not quite the same plate, but it also has a whopper, bigger than Josef’s that I conveniently ignored for the plot – The Indy 500. And in arguably the most embarrassing goof of the entire season, spinning into the inside wall on his formation lap. Like sticking a marshmallow into a fondue made of bullshit.
And this is the problem with McLaughlin’s season. At least with Josef, you can still clearly see his strongest traits were still there. With Scotty, even that’s up for question. Just the one pole at St Pete. Five Fast 6 appearances is up there with the best (Only three others did more), but he also didn’t make it out of Round 1 five times, hence the average start of 11. And an average finish of nearly 14 is probably down to the fact that while he had some chunky podium finishes, it never felt like Mac was winning a race all season. The nearest he got was Nashville… and he grazed the wall trying too hard to pass his teammate.
For someone who had trended up and up to the point where they looked like the complete package in 2024, this is two steps back, and the first real adversity that McLaughlin’s had to face since joining Team Penske. Next season, he has to bounce back, especially as he likely represents Penske’s best chance of challenging on all-fronts. On sheer reputation, this might the most disappointing season in IndyCar. 6/10
Will Power – 9th in Points (357), 1 Win, 3 Podiums, 8 Top 10’s, Average Start: 10 / Average Finish: 12.8
Road/Street Ranking: 6th / Oval Ranking: 20th
A genuine end of an era. After 17 years, 239 starts, 41 victories and 64 of his record breaking pole position count, Will Power is a Penske driver no more. We’ve been saying at Motorsport101 for a while that if Power was out of Penske at the end of 2025, it wouldn’t be for performance reasons. We were right, but on the way we expected, given Power felt so disrespected by his team’s incompetence in tying him down, he walked away of his own volition.
Power had a similar opening to the year to McLaughlin. A big bump (Being caught up in Siegel’s crash on the opening lap of St Pete), surrounded by the well-documented 500 horror show. By Detroit, he had five Top 6 finishes in the first seven races.
But I’ve dodged the statistical elephant here for long enough in this room – 20th on Ovals is an absolute horror show. Power finished third at Iowa Race 1… his second best result was 16th at the Indy 500, where he started from the rear. Hit the wall from pole in Gateway, engine trouble in Iowa 2, another outside wall hit in Milwaukee, and then two laps down in the pits in Nashville. That is an unmitigated disaster, and like with his teammates, it’s a nasty blend of bad luck, team errors and skill issues. But Power being by a mile their best driver on road/street courses ultimately spared his overall blushes and led to Power beating McLaughlin by a single point over the season.
Power now heads to Andretti and his Age 45 season in 2026 and on a multi-year deal. He could be a fantastic, consistent scorer for that team, something they badly need. I do wonder when the wheels might fall for Will, but I’ve been saying that every year since I started these long form reviews. The ovals need to improve. You’ve inherited the #26 crew. Good luck. 7/10
In Part 3, Andretti, McLaren, Chip Ganassi and my closing thoughts on 2025. See you then.
