“The vibes are off.”
And welcome to the final part of my IndyCar Season Review, if you need a catchup of Parts 1 and 2, they’re down below.
In Part 3, we talk about in my opinion, the three best teams in the series – Andretti, Penske and Ganassi, as well as my general vibes about the series going into 2025, and if you think the subheader’s a hint, you’re right to think so. Still, it’d be a real shitter if some massive news dropped in between Parts 2 and 3 that made me have to re-write a whole section aga-
Last Friday: *Michael Andretti to stand down in running of team*
MOTHERFUC-
Andretti Global
Season Highlight: Challenging on all fronts / Season Lowlight: A Poor Indy 500
In the time it took me to write this section, Michael Andretti has announced he is stepping back from the day-to-day running as CEO of the company after 22 years at the helm. For those who didn’t know, the reason why Andretti rebranded to “Global” was because Michael sold a part of the business to Dan Towriss, the owner of Gainbridge (Their big sponsor of the 26 car), and their parent holding group, Group 1001. Dan’s poured a bucketload of cash into the company and has led to an expansion into Formula E where they won a World Championship with Jake Dennis and Extreme… H now, is it? It’s hard to remember these days.
It means Michael will be moving to more of a strategic role on the board as well as an ambassador for the brand, with Towriss taking control going forward. What this means… we don’t know yet, but I suspect this has a lot to do with Towriss maybe being the chisel to work Andretti into F1 as opposed to Michael’s closed fist. We all know that’s the white whale that Andretti wants to be a part of.
So far, Michael’s (and his Dad, Mario’s) rather bullish approach has been criticised at times, with a lot of murmurs his confrontational attitude against Formula One Management may have been an extra hurdle in terms of the F1 push. FOM would never admit it because it would only prove their beef was personal, but maybe a different approach could reap dividends if Dan Towriss sits on that board instead, in addition to FOM already revealing that a General Motors Factory team sounds far more plausible in 2028. Of course, all of this is swirling around while F1 is under investigation by the US Department of Justice for a potential antitrust charge.
As for their IndyCar team, welcome back to the big leagues. Rob Edwards has handled the switch to three cars with aplomb. This was a great season from the Andretti camp and signs that they’re moving back in the right direction.
Colton Herta was superb down the stretch, putting together the sort of season we all knew he was capable of putting together and realising his full potential as Championship runner-up. Kyle Kirkwood took another step forward as a driver and was a fringe title contender for most of the season. And Marcus Ericsson… we’ll get to him.
In any case, this was a big improvement and exactly what Andretti needed after 2023 when McLaren was nipping at their heels and years of criticism for poor execution in their operations. I’ll address why there’s still room for improvement in some of the driver sections in a moment, but overall, a really solid campaign all around.
Colton Herta – Runner-Up In Points (513), 7 Fast 6’s, 2 Wins, 11 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 7.4
Road Course Ranking – 3rd / Oval Ranking – 6th
Yes, yes, yes. This is the Colton Herta we were all worried about when he burst onto the scene as a teenager half a decade ago. This was a devastating season where (for the most part), it all came together for him and Andretti.
At his best, Herta’s devastating pace was overwhelming. He was untouchable all weekend in Toronto with only Kyle Kirkwood a genuine threat. His other win was opportunistic at the season finale in Nashville but that pass on Pato O’Ward for the win was superb and the most obvious sign of his marked improvement on Ovals. He outpointed Champion Alex Palou on that discipline as he chalked up his first oval podium, then won at the end. I’d have never guessed in March that he’d end up Top 6 in the series on Oval Points scored in 2024. He was one of the best qualifiers in the series this year too as the only man to make the Fast 6 round seven times, with an excellent average start position of 8.6, fourth in the league.
And yet, there’s still this niggling back of the head thought – This should have been more. Herta probably should have won the Championship this year, and maybe even the double. Don’t forget, he spun out at the Indy 500 when he was running second in a fast car. Given the all-out nature of that race, you can understand the error. But there was the meltdown in Detroit where he went straight down the escape road when he took a completely unnecessary lunge at Tristian Vautier. And of course, the tyre coming off at the final pitstop in Milwaukee Race 1 which dropped him to 22nd. Correct one out of three, he’s right in the title decider. Two, he’s probably the Champion. There’s still more to improve and when you’re competing for the Championship, those blunders matter more.
But this is a niggle on an otherwise excellent season. Colton Herta might be the threat to Palou’s crown in 2025. It could be the younger driver rivalry that this series has needed. Stay tuned. 9/10
Kyle Kirkwood – 7th In Points (420), 1 Pole, 5 Fast 6’s, 13 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 2nd, Average Finish – 8.7
Road Course Ranking: 4th / Oval Ranking: 11th
Yeah, my brother Ryan Erik King had a point when he sat us down three years ago when he described Kirkwood as THE definitive Road to Indy prospect. He’s starting to come alive in this series as he enters Year 4.
Kirkwood keeps making these gains in the right direction. 4th on Road Courses for the year is superb with only Herta, Power and Palou higher. Yes, two more points than Scott Dixon scored on them this season. Okay, it’s 64 points behind Herta, but it’s something!
Being harsh, it is a significant gap to the Top 3 and that was Kirkwood’s problem in 2024. His consistency was exceptional and was in the Top 10 at will almost all season long, but only 5 of his 13 Top 10s were Top 5’s, the real bread and butter of Championship campaigns given how the scoring in the series works (50, 40, 35, 32, 30, -2 down to 10th). The ovals could still be a little better too. There was some progress in Nashville at the end of the year with his 4th place there, leading 67 laps, more than anyone else. But that needs to be the next step if we’re serious about Kirkwood as a Top 5 finisher in the series next year.
But as said, the consistency and high floor of Kirkwood is a fantastic building block in terms of turning it into a potential future campaign. Kirkwood is close. Very close. 8/10
Marcus Ericsson – 15th In Points (297), 1 Podium, 8 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 2nd, Average Finish – 15.2
Road Course Ranking: 8th / Oval Ranking: 21st
This… is going to be hard to evaluate because Marcus Ericsson’s perception and performance were all over the place.
Marcus Ericsson was a big-money signing for Andretti, with McLaren also making him an offer and Chip Ganassi changing his mind at the last minute after the man himself didn’t want to be a paying driver anymore. And given he won them an Indy 500 and had three straight seasons in the Top 6 of the standings with a 500 win and very nearly a second, it was a reasonable play to test the market. He’d earned it. Andretti allegedly paid $3m a year to bring Ericsson in… and he promptly called back all the people who said he was only good because he was in the CGR environment.
There’s no getting around or sugarcoating it. 15th overall is incredibly disappointing for what he was brought in to do. Marcus was meant to be the consistent floor-raiser for an underperforming Andretti team whose fourth car didn’t even make the Leader’s Circle. Vibes were at their lowest after a horror show “Month of May”, where he hit teammate Colton Herta in the Indy GP before a practice crash in the week leading up to the race derailed his entire 500, running in the last chance qualifier (and losing a run due to miscounting laps), and then being taken out at the first corner by Tom Blomqvist. While it wasn’t his fault directly, the steps leading up to it certainly were.
And that’s what makes his season so bizarre. On Road Courses, he was good – 8th overall there was solid and he was unlucky not to win in Detroit when Scott Dixon survived the Demolition Derby, and as he did at CGR, he was regularly in the Top 10. On the other side of the coin, 21st on ovals is shambolic. Again, not all on him, his 500 can’t all be put on him, the Milwaukee crash with Josef was a racing incident and Gateway was mechanical. He’s probably more like a fringe Top 12 season rather than 15th, but even that would have only been okay, rather than poor.
I don’t think this season is as bad as some have labelled it as. But don’t get it twisted, this isn’t “good” either and more needs to be done for a man in his position as the midfield is hungry for names who could replace him at the drop of a hat. 5.5/10
Team Penske
Season Highlight: Retaining The Indy 500 / Season Lowlight: The St Pete Scandal
That Monkey’s Paw I talked about in last year’s Season Review did a number on this team I reckon.
If there’s one thing I can say about Team Penske for sure, it’s that they’ve reestablished themselves as the best team in IndyCar. Between them they had seven pole positions (And amazingly, Will Power had none of them), eight wins, and of course, retaining the Indy 500 for the first time in five years when Power and Simon Pagenaud went back to back in 2018-19.
Their Magnum Opus was the Indy 500, where despite the controversy of the changes to the dampers potentially contributing towards their newfound speed, the collaboration with AJ Foyt and Scott McLaughlin’s bravery led to a front row lockout, and Josef Newgarden hitting Pato O’Ward with one of the great 500 winning passes of all-time.
That was the peak, but the valleys were rough. Of course, nothing stands out more than the St. Pete cheating scandal, where a glitch between their cars and IndyCar’s push-to-pass computers at Race Control meant they could use the button even when unauthorised, leading to Newgarden and McLaughlin’s disqualifications from that race, and Will Power losing 10 points for not using the button despite potentially being able to. (He only lost a net two points after he inherited second, mind you)
That was a humiliating sting for the faces of the series, leading to a tearful Josef Newgarden taking the fall for the incident and the relationship between the team and the series as a whole coming into question. It came up again when a contentious restart in Gateway caused by Newgarden led to Will Power, Romain Grosjean and Alex Rossi being put in the wall, and multiple teams saying the quiet part out loud – Thinking Penske was getting preferential treatment. Do I think that’s fair? Probably not, but the fact a restart line was painted at Milwaukee a fortnight later was a not-so-subtle admittance of guilt.
Penske’s 2024 has certainly not lacked in intensity. Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were barely on speaking terms after a loud breakup in regards to their Bus Bros YouTube show, which didn’t come back in 2024 despite the Kiwi saying that it was set to return. And all three of them have been caught up in incidents with each other across the season like Power and McLaughlin colliding at both Laguna Seca and Toronto, and the scrappy nature of Newgarden’s season as a whole, coming up next. Without a doubt, if they had stopped tripping over each other, I think they could have cleaned house on all fronts. The fact they didn’t is disappointing.
In any case, Team Penske is near to their dominant best. Beyond that, I think battle lines are being drawn behind the scenes. 2025 is going to be fascinating for the faces of the series.
Josef Newgarden – 8th In Points (401), 5 Fast 6’s, 2 Wins, 8 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 12.8
Road Course Ranking – 13th / Oval Ranking – 2nd / Indy 500 Winner
Where do I even start on this one?
I remember this time last year writing the 2023 version of this review, and saying how weird Newgarden’s year was, and how it was the antithesis of “How much slack does a 500 win give you?”. That was over an erratic 4-win season where he was dominant on ovals but ultimately fell off the Astor Cup wagon.
It was a bad season, and Josef reacted like it was a bad season. He essentially ended “Bus Bros”, ditched his social media manager and his third-party influencer site and unfollowed everyone on his platforms in an attempt to “focus on his racing”. The result was his worst year in IndyCar in a decade, 143 points out of the Championship, splitting fan opinion via taking the brunt for the St Pete cheating scandal and taking himself out of Le Mans contention via Penske’s Sportscar collaboration after being carried by the much faster Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. If his 2023 led to a radical clearout despite winning the 500, what the hell is he going to do now?!
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a disaster of a season. Two wins, a team screw-up at St Pete robbing him of a third, even if he ultimately made it happen for pushing the P2P button when he wasn’t meant to. Second on Ovals overall despite some absolute rotten luck (Put his Milwaukee straight in the bin), is still a lot of the Newgarden we’ve come to expect.
But with his St Pete DQ, Newgarden has now gone nearly two and a half years since he last won on a Road or Street course, when he used to collect them like Pokemon Cards. But an overall average finish of nearly 13 across the season is catastrophic for what we used to think was the best all-rounder in the series. Without the ovals? It’s fifteen. And even if you consider the mitigating circumstances like Mid-Ohio with his hybrid disabling his pit limiter, there were days like Laguna Seca where he got a gift on a caution re-roll and then blew it by spinning into the dust twice in the closing stages.
And that’s not me not even touching the off-track shenanigans. I don’t have a strong opinion on how Newgarden has been perceived after the cheating scandal. My gut says that Josef’s good has far, far outweighed the bad in the series, from being an ambassador of the series to the amount of promotion he’s done for the sake of IndyCar as a whole. At worst, you can probably say the mask slipped like it did when he put Grosjean at the wall in Nashville in 2022. If I was being cynical, you could question his sincerity in terms of explaining his actions. But calling this a “villain era” feels like a reach.
What I can say is, at what point do we call this a concern? Two Indy 500 wins to cement his all-timer status will be worth more than anything I say here, but across the board, this is not the Josef that can control a Championship like he did a couple of years ago. I don’t know how much his off-track life has played a role in that, but at the very least it’s worth a mention. Because by his own confessed standards, this isn’t good enough and he knows it. 6.5/10
Scott McLaughlin – 3rd in Points (505), 3 Wins, 5 Poles, 12 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 9.2
Road Course Ranking – 7th / Oval Champion (266 Points) / Indy 500 Pole-Sitter
Want a free hot take? I don’t think we talk about how great Scott McLaughlin is enough. For a good while, I genuinely thought this was going to be the year for Scotty Mac. A pole position at the Indy 500 and the fastest qualifying run in the history of the race was everything great about McLaughlin’s story and how great he’s had to be, converting himself from a Supercars Hall of Famer into now, one of the best racing drivers in the world, period. The man ran essentially no wing and straight up beat Josef Newgarden and Will Power at their speciality over four laps. Stunning.
He finally got his long overdue first oval win in Iowa, and then followed it up with another in Milwaukee, as well as another dominant win in Barber, arguably his best track in the series. Add in 5 pole positions spread out evenly across the disciplines and you could make an argument that McLaughlin is now as fast as anyone in the series, period.
It’s obvious where he shined brightest – Undisputed Oval King with 63 points more than anyone else in the series, and an average oval finish of 3.7. Best average starter in IndyCar too with an average of 6.4. These are all outstanding numbers.
How did he end up not winning the Astor Cup? Too many days where he was off the boil. The DQ in St Pete hurt. How much so? Well, if you changed nothing else in the season but his St Pete result stood, he’d have won the Championship over Palou on countback.
A crash of his own volition in Detroit. Taken out in Toronto, and a clash with Will Power at Laguna Seca. There were just too many mistakes from Penske operationally and he could never quite get close enough to stay with Palou’s scoring consistently. McLaughlin is now an elite driver in the series. He can win anywhere. He’s the crossover star that IndyCar has badly wanted. Forget Kyle Larson. He’s funny, charismatic, and brilliant at working socials. He’s everything this series needs. Do what you did again in 2025, and it might just win him the title. Maybe even the double.
Say it quietly… has McLaughlin become the new Newgarden? 9/10
Will Power – 4th in Points (498), 5 Fast 6’s, 3 Wins, 11 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 8.6
Road Course Ranking – 2nd / Oval Ranking – 9th
William Steven Power. Whatever you say about his ability in 2024, it’s never dull. Friend of the show Ed Hamilton often describes his favourite driver as a “puppy with a knife”, and words are rarely more accurate in their description. Man lost a shot at the title via heartbreaker and he was the first to congratulate Alex Palou and then was playing the drums in a bar in Nashville hours later. What a guy.
As said when I talked about the run-in for the season, I said it was wonderful just seeing Power back to something near his best after his rough 2023 and the mental burden of his wife nearly passing away due to complications from a Staph Infection. Power came out of the gate like a house on fire, treating third place in qualifying and races like the floor was lava. His win at Road America was his first in two years, the same track he famously had a bit of mental wobble, threatening to punch Grosjean in the face and double-birding Scott Dixon for a crash in practice.
Two more wins would follow in 2024 for Power, with a bit of a fortunate caution reshuffle in Iowa’s Race 2, and a throwback to his prime in Portland with a dominant win, bullying Alex Palou into submission via sheer raw speed. At his best, it was Power at his very best. At his worst, his season looked like it was going completely off the rails, and that’s why I think fourth overall was probably a fair reflection of Power’s season. On the one hand, he was Palou’s closest challenger for most of the season. But fell down the board due to a combination of bad luck and errors.
In the Indy 500, he dropped down the order from second place and eventually crashed. In Iowa Race 1, he got dinged for speeding in the pitlane and then jumped the start by taking Pietro Fittipaldi out. He did the same to teammate Scott McLaughlin in Toronto and fell to 12th with a late penalty. In Gateway, he pinched David Malukas and put him into the wall. He dodged a penalty but he was the biggest victim of Newgarden’s bungled restart.
And then Milwaukee Race 2, in a car good enough to win, with Palou 20 laps down… he spins out on a restart and goes two laps down. And the cherry on top? After getting another golden chance in Nashville after Palou has a poor qualifying session? His belt buckle breaks and Power does the right thing and stops to get it fixed. 5 laps down, the Championship donezo.
See why I said Power’s title campaign was never dull? It was carnage. Every moment of brilliance is surrounded by another where he wet the bed. A big one. One you can’t put a towel over. This was a very winnable Championship for Power and he’s going to rue the bad days during the off-season I fear.
Then there’s the future. Power’s 44 next year. 44 was the age when Roger Penske decided it was time to move on from Helio Castroneves. And while it’d be impossible to cite performance reasons as a valid one to cut Power on recent form, he did just cut a cheque for David Malukas to join AJ Foyt, the technical partner of the team. Has Roger chosen his next apprentice for the future? Is 2025 Power’s final season? Keep tabs on this, it could be one to watch next year. 8.5/10
Chip Ganassi Racing
Season Highlight: Do I really need to say it? / Season Lowlight: Why did you have five cars again?
This might be a hot take, But Alex Palou (And Scott Dixon to a lesser extent) bailed out CGR this year. This was a radical year for Chip’s team, losing Marcus Ericsson in free agency to Andretti, and expanding to five cars with the allure of Kyffin Simpson’s money, the intrigue of Linus Lundqvist after some strong showings for Meyer Shank in 2023, and Marcus Armstrong’s sophomore season.
It showed on the track that CGR was just stretched too thin. None of the new additions or Armstrong were consistent threats to the big scoring positions, and Penske dominated the season with eight wins, compared to Ganassi’s three. Palou was so good it ultimately didn’t matter as Ganassi won its fourth Astor Cup in five seasons, but there are question marks about this team going forward.
They’re the biggest victim of the new charter system not named Prema, effectively forcing them to downsize back to three cars, but I think this will benefit them in the long run, to concentrate their resources across fewer cars, with the excess going towards a new Indy NXT development team. But it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow at the stubborn insistence that Chip has to have a paying driver in one of his cars, as he’s seemingly elected for Kyffin Simpson to stay in the #8 car over Lundqvist and Armstrong – Who both have looked far stronger and aren’t that much more experienced than Simpson is. I get it, he pays for his ride, but it was this need for cash that lost you Marcus Ericsson, who objectively made your team more balanced.
But lifting another Astor Cup is an easy way of forgetting all of that. Alex Palou is the best IndyCar driver in the world and he got the team out of jail, Scott Dixon had a bit of a down year but was still “good enough”, but I do wonder what the future of the #9 car is when Dixon eventually hangs up the gloves. This may have been the first season he looked and drove like a man entering his Age-45 season. More on that shortly.
Kyffin Simpson – 21st In Points (182), Best Finish – 12th, Average Finish – 19.5
Road Course Ranking – 20th / Oval Ranking – 23rd
I wanted this one to be good, you brought back the #4 car and everything!
Look, as mentioned before, Kyffin Simpson was effectively Ganassi playing with house money here, as the Cayman Islands native was paying for his ride. He’s been decent over in IMSA’s LMP2 category so I was mildly intrigued to see what he could do. And sadly… It wasn’t much.
I also had the thought going in that for his single-seater progress, Simpson needed another year of seasoning in Indy NXT. He wasn’t dreadful out there, and at times showed some genuine speed, his debut had him 12th in St Pete, but overall there just isn’t much to write home about.
He’ll likely be back next year and maybe some more seat time will iron out some consistency in his game, but I fear there’s going to be a lot of bad faith regarding how he’s perceived because of his paying status, and the fact that right now, there’s better drivers who were denied the opportunity. 3.5/10
Linus Lundqvist – 16th In Points (279), 1 Pole, 2 Podiums, 5 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 15.4
Road Course Ranking – 17th / Oval Ranking – 12th / Rookie Of The Year
The bookies’ favourite for Rookie of the Year, ticked that box. I was excited about Linus Lundqvist’s move here after his promising performances for Meyer Shank last year. The result? Inconsistent but signs of promise.
When Lundqvist was good, he was incredible. A podium and several laps led at Barber when he was holding off Scott McLaughlin, who was rampant that day. A bold defence of Colton Herta in Gateway to finish on the podium there too. He was solid on ovals in general, very McLaughlin-esque in how he’s seemingly taken to that discipline first. Pole Position at Road America too, but that was the first of two occasions he tangled with teammate Marcus Armstrong, a race ruiner on the opening lap. Seriously, how did that happen twice in a year?
It’s a shame that we only saw glimpses of the very best of Lundqvist on rare occasions in 2024. There’s something here with Linus, but it seemingly wasn’t enough for Chip, with Marcus Armstrong kept on via the Meyer Shank team in 2025, with Linus now back on the open market. It’s a damn shame Chip had no room for him as I think he had potential. But if we’re being harsh, I think Armstrong’s a bit better right now, and I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get a little bit more out of Linus. But it wouldn’t be the first time Chip expected too much too soon from a driver. Ask Felix Rosenqvist and Ed Jones about that… 5.5/10
Marcus Armstrong – 14th In Points (298), 3 Fast 6’s, 1 Podium, 8 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 14.7
Road Course Ranking – 12th / Oval Ranking – 16th
I put these two together because ultimately, they had very similar seasons. Both were peaky in how they attacked the 2024 season. Armstrong was a little more consistent across the season. He didn’t get a pole but made the Fast 6 three times, and had a much better average start (11.1 compared to Linus’ 15), given the choice, I’d rather still be stronger on Road Courses given that’s 2/3rds of the calendar, and Marcus was strong there. A podium in Detroit’s carnage, and many a race where he looked comfortable mingling with the big hitters. Finished the year strong as well with four finishes inside the Top 8 in the final six races.
I was curious to see how Armstrong would take to ovals in his first season running them… and he didn’t give us much to work with here. The 16th in the rankings was, okay. A Top 10 finish in Gateway and Iowa Race 1, but a shame his 500 was curtailed by mechanical problems.
What surprised me here was that both he and Simpson both get the reputation of paying drivers but Armstrong is far better as an IndyCar driver right now and he got shoved to the B-Team when sending Simpson there made way more sense. But that’s Chip for you. A year with less pressure in pink might be good for Marcus in the long run, so he can focus on more important things – Like making Podcasts. *stares directly into the camera* 6/10
Scott Dixon – 6th In Points (456), 2 Fast 6’s, 2 Wins, 11 Top 10’s, Average Finish – 9.6
Road Course Ranking – 5th / Oval Ranking – 4th
Only three things in life are certain – Death, Taxes and Scott Dixon playing a role in the Championship battle, and 2024 was no exception.
This was a season where Dixon’s floor was still there, and he was good at racking up the points across the year. He was the only driver all season to finish Top 5 overall in both Road Courses and Ovals. And at his very best we know exactly what he’s still capable of. That Long Beach win was masterful driving, a vintage Dixon fuel-mileage classic, something that you feel like he’s the only man in the world who can do it at that level. It was career win #57 and the 20th consecutive season with at least one win on the year.
The problem with Dixon’s year was there were just too many days where he was just straight-up slow or, shit outta luck. He was uncharacteristically nowhere in a couple of races like Barber and had a nightmare Alternate tyre stint in Road America that took him out of the running. He was the first major victim of the hybrid power unit in Mid-Ohio when it died before the race even started, and then he was run off the road and then punted off at Portland, ending his title campaign. Not even Dixon can come back from that one when Alex Palou is across the garage. The qualifying pace is still a concern as well, only making the final round twice all season, and an Average Start of 11 is giving himself extra work he doesn’t need to do.
But he’s still Scott Dixon and he’s still one of the best in the world. I’m not sure for how much longer that’ll be, he’s 45 in July – But like he did in Milwaukee when he came from out of nowhere and was suddenly challenging McLaughlin for the win, write him off at your peril. 8.5/10
Alex Palou – 2 Wins, 3 Poles, 6 Fast 6’s, 13 Top 5’s, Average Finish – 6.5
Road and Street King / Oval Ranking – 7th / 2024 IndyCar Series Champion (541 Points)
Have you spotted the common pattern in IndyCar this year? Despite the high level of close competition at the highest level, it was a clumsy season for many of the elite drivers in the class. Honestly, I think if you moved a couple of chairs around in the past, there were maybe six drivers who if everything went to plan, could have won the Astor Cup – McLaughlin, Herta, Power, Dixon and O’Ward all looked like at times they were in with a chance. They all tripped over themselves at times. One of them, I can remember vividly – When Power put McLaughlin in the wall in Toronto late on, McLaughlin’s post-race interview summed it up: “Palou was right in front of us, and we had a chance to take points out of him…”.
Will Power saw the bird in the hand, a bit too much. It was the same race where Palou’s mere presence spooked Pato O’Ward into his horror spin. This is what Palou does to people, he forces you into taking chances to stay with him because he’s always there.
This season wasn’t his ridiculous 2023, which will likely be remembered as one of the best in IndyCar history. This was a different kind of brilliance from Palou. It was getting his head down, keeping his nose dry, and letting races come to him, which he did better than anyone else in the field and it wasn’t even close. Kirkwood I mentioned earlier had 13 Top 10’s, joint most of anyone in the field. Palou had 13 Top FIVES. No one else in the field had more than nine. The montage in Nashville that NBC showed of just how many incidents Palou avoided had to be seen to be believed. It was like a plot device being revealed at the end of an anime that the whole thing was rigged from the start.
The only four races he didn’t finish in the Top 5; were when he was taken out in Detroit by Newgarden, the only major mistake he made all season when he crashed at Iowa Race 1, Milwaukee when his battery was drained before the race had started, and 11th in Nashville when he gambled on fuel-mileage with the Championship already won.
Even with his perceived weakness on ovals, he was still very solid. Maybe not enough to get that first win (Despite coming close in Iowa), but with four Top 5 finishes there was more than enough to keep the points on tick-over and hold off the big hitters spiking like McLaughlin and Pato. 7th overall on points wasn’t amazing, but as we’ve joked on M101 before, it’s like his FIFA rating for an Oval would only be a 92.
Three Astor Cups in four years is phenomenal, a special achievement in the context of how talented IndyCar is and arguably, one of the strongest top-ends of the field we’ve ever seen. Everyone in the Top 6 of the field (And I’d chuck in Marcus Ericsson, Graham Rahal’s previous run as top Honda, and maybe even Alex Rossi and Christian Lundgaard), and beyond can win the title in the right circumstances. Palou has walked into the series and won three titles in the five seasons he’s been here, and he’s the first repeat Champion since Dario Franchitti did it in 2010. If he can match the Scotsman’s three-peat next year, we’re going to have to start having all-timer discussions. On any level though, it’s a generational run from the Spaniard. Did I mention he’s still only 27?
Alex Palou is a phenom. He wouldn’t have beaten this field so convincingly by being anything less. IndyCar now runs through him and he is inevitable. 10/10
And that does it. Over 30 drivers reviewed across the 2024 IndyCar season, the longest of its kind I’ve ever done on this website. So, with all that now said and done, what have I made of the year as a whole?
Rough.
This for me, was the ultimate “The vibes are off” season. Right from the start, the series moved beyond the usual IndyCar realms of fun nonsense and veered into genuinely unserious.
We went into the season with a double dose of embarrassment as Nashville’s moved finale into Broadway was scrapped and moved to its Superspeedway in Lebanon (Not the country, prayers with them <3). The series getting into bed with Taylor Swift’s former promoter was always going to raise eyebrows, and the ignorance of all parties involved with the Tennessee Titans’ new stadium build was an awful look.
There was also genuine concern over the hybrids being introduced mid-season. When they eventually did debut at Mid-Ohio… it was met with a parade of glitches. Even beyond the big one of Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden’s pit limiter didn’t work, taking him out of the Top 12. We had multiple glitches in Iowa too that led to confusion and chaos during Qualifying with multiple runs repeated and the rulebook itself coming into question.
They’ve largely been fine from a reliability standpoint since, but it begs the question, is raising the running costs of the series and two years out from a new car anyway, making this move worth it? A worth that ultimately ended up being two and a half years late? Because to me, it hasn’t added much to the racing product yet.
So be it if it keeps Honda in the series by placating their desire to keep IndyCar engine technology a battleground over software rather than hardware. A third manufacturer seems more like a pipe dream than ever due to IndyCar’s supercapacitor tech not vibing with IMSA’s hybrids, and Honda is likely going to have to decide by the end of next year regarding its long-term future given its current deal expires at the end of 2026. The question for me is, if Honda goes, are Chevrolet/Ilmor prepared to power the entire grid? Because the magic 8-ball seemingly reads “Don’t count on it”.
There were continued disputes over the nature of the series’ marketing. From its weird OTT promotion of Santino Ferrucci despite being violent and homophobic in Detroit and running Romain Grosjean off the road multiple times, and the series lapping it up rather than taking a firm stance. Mark Miles and Pato O’Ward were at loggerheads in Milwaukee over the series and continued fumbling over a race in Mexico City after NASCAR beat them back to the country.
And let’s not forget The Thermal Club which was more of a B2B Marketing exercise than it ever was as a race at a facility that was great for charcuterie, but not for hosting an actual race. And next year, it’s a Championship round. And as much as there are valid reasons for it being there, a Grand Prix in Arlington, Texas isn’t going to excite people when the series has burnt down bridges almost everywhere in America where fans want to see them race.
There was the ugly case of social media backlash as Agustin Canapino killed off all his goodwill by accusing Theo Pourchaire of faking death threats when he was in the right as a victim of the Frenchman’s clumsy driving. The series took two rounds before finally sitting Jack Harvey after suffering back and neck spasms. The team that owns the series cheated to win the opening race and has permanently damaged their relationship with the other teams via accusations of bias and criticism of the ownership after frustrations about not wanting to invest in the series. And the new charter system just told Prema to kick rocks and the series has followed in MotoGP and F1’s footsteps by slamming the door in the face of anyone potentially wanting to enter the series.
Does that about cover all the frustrations?
IndyCar has been able to hang its hat for years as the niche series that has great racing, great personalities, and a tight-knit community to gas the series up. It’s getting to a point where that is no longer enough. NASCAR, even with its own relative dwindling popularity and charter issues of its own, dog walks IndyCar in terms of TV ratings. F1 might still be the boogeyman, but it has renewed focus in the States and is still leaning on the goodwill of America being a bit more willing to give it another chance. All of a sudden, IndyCar looks like the series that’s most stuck in its ways, and 2024 marked the year that not even the most hardcore of its fans could ignore the issues. When Zak Brown is writing 1,000-word open letters and the fans are posting the “worst person you know made a great point” meme, it says a lot about where we’re at.
Thank God the actual talent is shining brighter than it ever has. There is a superb elite group of racers at the top of the series. The Magnificent Seven of Palou, Power, Dixon, Herta McLaughlin, O’Ward and Newgarden is a fantastic balance of youth, charisma, experience, racecraft and speed. And one where new names like Ferrucci, Malukas, Lundgaard and Kirkwood are one step away from being in that class. That is something to hold onto and build a series around. It’s not perfect, I still think some of the stewarding leaves a bit to be desired, but that goes for everyone in global Motorsport at present.
But it sits on a water bed of uncertainty. Is Honda going to stay? Is it time for IndyCar to move on from Mark Miles as CEO after a set of faux pas? How is FOX going to promote the series, especially with a six-month off-season while they get out of the way of the NFL? Is IndyCar ever going to take some chances with how to sell itself as a series or is it just content with the status quo? These are all valid questions to ask, and I’m not sure the series has the answers.
IndyCar is a fantastic series with truly outstanding potential. I’m just not sure it’s ever going to be fully utilised. See you next year, and thank you so much to everyone who’s been reading all my IndyCar content in 2024. It’s not been an easy ride, but I’m still so grateful you buckled up. If you want a little more before I go, there’s a season review next week on the Motorsport101 Podcast, and I made my Autosport Podcast debut this past weekend with Joey Barnes breaking down my Top 10 drivers of the year, so check that out too. Until next time, thanks for reading. <3 x