It’s strange to have gotten through the first half of the season without a Scott Dixon victory. It’s stranger still to put nine of 17 NTT IndyCar Series races in the books without a pole or win from reigning champion Will Power.
And who would have predicted the expanded and strengthened Arrow McLaren team would get to July without at least one victory from Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi, or Felix Rosenqvist, as the squad approaches the July 24 anniversary of its last win? Or that Kyle Kirkwood would be the first and only Andretti Autosport driver to reach victory lane?
Even better, who imagined star-crossed Alex Palou — all but invisible on track in 2022 — would turn the championship upside down and emerge victorious at 44 percent of the races held so far in 2023?
To that end, an IndyCar win pays 50 points. There are a few bonus points that can be earned to take it up to a maximum of 54 points, but for the sake of simplicity, there’s eight races to go and 400ish points left available. Keep that 400 number in mind while reading how far most of the field has fallen behind Palou by early July.
It’s been a long time since so many drivers embarked on the last few months of the season with no real hope of challenging for the championship. A point of pride for IndyCar is how the title is always decided at the last race, and while that could happen again, prepare yourself for it to be clinched a race or two early if Palou continues to demolish the opposition.
And as good as Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing have been with three of its drivers in the championship top four, we’ve also had an alarming number of teams who’ve been dreadful during the first half of the 2023 season. I can’t help but think if my old colleague Robin Miller was still with us, he’d be handing out a record amount of failing grades with his Mid-Season Report Card feature.
As usual, nothing has gone according to plan in IndyCar, so with a brief pause before we run headfirst into the final half of the championship starting on Sunday in Canada, let’s take stock of the 10 full-time teams with RACER’s three-part mid-season reflections.
A.J. FOYT RACING
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Chevrolet, 18th in Drivers’ Standings (-252 points to Palou)
Benjamin Pedersen, No. 55 Chevrolet, 26th in Drivers’ Standings (-302 points)
We knew the season was going to be filled with a lot of lows and a few medium-level achievements, because that’s how things always go for smaller teams embroiled in years-long rebuilds. What we didn’t know is that amid those lows, A.J. Foyt Racing would also deliver some serious highs, which speaks to the organization’s newfound capabilities.
Technical director Michael Cannon delivered the ‘Cannon Effect’ at Indy where the underappreciated Santino Ferrucci and the improving rookie Benjamin Pedersen rocked qualify ing by making the Fast 12 and Ferrucci went on to earn a career-best third-place finish in the race. The team then proceeded to faceplant at Detroit, and rebounded by cracking the Fast 12 with both drivers at Road America, which was great and surprising at the same time.
Next, it was another faceplant at Mid-Ohio, where Ferrucci and Pedersen were missing all weekend – further evidence of the boom-or-bust cycle the team is working to improve. When the team’s on an upswing, it’s capable of running inside the top half of the field, and when it isn’t, we forget they’re in the race.
Well, except for Pedersen, who just placed a big target on the back and sides of his car after enraging most of the title contenders while waging a one-sided fight to avoid being lapped at Mid-Ohio.
Looking ahead, there’s no reason to expect the Foyt team to suddenly find the consistency it craves, but that’s the objective to pursue over the last eight races.
An uptick in qualifying results for Ferrucci would also be a welcome improvement. Pedersen has been Foyt’s top qualifier six times through nine races, and Pedersen has led Ferrucci in qualifying at all four road courses. That’s a surprise considering the vast difference in experience between the veteran and the rookie. But when it’s time to go racing, Ferrucci leads 7-2 in being the team’s top performer with an average finishing position of 18.1 to Pedersen’s 22.2 through the opening nine rounds.
There’s more to come from the Foyt squad, especially if Pedersen can make peace with all those who might want to ruin the rest of his season.
ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT
Colton Herta, No. 26 Honda, ninth in Drivers’ Standings (-173 points to Palou)
Kyle Kirkwood, No. 27 Honda, 11th in Drivers’ Standings (-200 points)
Romain Grosjean, No. 28, 12th in Drivers’ Standings (-210 points)
Devlin DeFrancesco, No. 29 Honda, 21st in Drivers’ Standings (-273 points)
Nine races. Five poles. One win. The numbers tell us everything we need to know about Andretti’s season of almosts and what-ifs.
In an alternate universe, we’ve reached the midway point of the season and Andretti’s the dominant team with five victories thanks to Romain Grosjean owning a pair of wins at St. Petersburg and Barber, Kyle Kirkwood laying claim to Long Beach, and Colton Herta holding the big trophies at Road America and Mid-Ohio.
In the real world, Andretti’s found the outrageous speed that was missing in qualifying last year, but when it comes to turning its pace on Saturdays into victories on Sundays, 2023 has been an extended exercise in giving wins away through errors or misfortune.
Sadly, the same cartoon anvil that fell on Ryan Hunter-Reay and then Alexander Rossi without mercy during their final years with Andretti refuses to leave the team alone and has taken aim at Grosjean, and Herta specifically, who is living the old adage of, “If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”
The fact that Herta – Andretti’s top title contender — is an impossible 173 points behind Alex Palou in ninth after nine races tells the bigger tale of how missed opportunities have ruined the team’s chances of securing its first championship since 2012.
Qualifying has been an interesting area of development for the team whose three top drivers have had equal success; Herta, Kirkwood, and Grosjean have been Andretti’s highest starter three times apiece. And with those five poles, the team has clearly made a big leap from 2022 where it only produced three for the entire year. Right? Actually, that’s another revealing part of its results.
Newcomer Kirkwood leads the team with an average starting position of 8.89, but behind him in second, Grosjean is at 9.89, a slight drop from his 9.56 average through Mid-Ohio in 2022, despite claiming two poles this year. Herta, in third, has an average of 10.44, which is 1.22 spots lower than the 9.22 from the first nine rounds last year, and like Grosjean, he also has two poles in 2023.
The stats highlight one truth: when things are going well for the trio, they’re on pole, but when they aren’t, they’re having forgettable days in qualifying.
Grosjean has started 14th or worse four times. Herta’s also started 14thor worse four times. Kirkwood’s started 12th or worse four times. It points to the fact that stronger, more consistent qualifying results when pole-winning speed isn’t available is the next area of improvement for Andretti.
Devlin DeFrancesco, to his credit, has improved from a 20.11 qualifying average as a rookie to 17.89 as a sophomore.
On race days, Herta’s been the best of the group at getting to the finish line first, doing so five times. In year-to-year average finishing positions after nine rounds, he’s gained two spots, going from 12.0 in 2022 to 10.0 in 2023. Kirkwood’s second in this intra-team stat, making it home first in three races. Grosjean’s led that first-home category once, but his average finish has gone backwards, a change from 14.44 last year through Mid-Ohio to 15.44. Similar to his qualifying, DeFrancesco’s made gains here as well, going from an average of 20.22 to 18.44.