INDIANAPOLIS — Prior to the last race weekend at Mid-Ohio last month, 2020 had been an abysmal year for the entire Andretti Autosport organization. They had yet to win a race and the one that they had the best shot in, they failed to even score a top five finish at.

Then, they go out and put two cars in the top five on Saturday in Ohio only to follow that up with a 1-2-3 finish a day later.

Now, we have three races remaining in the season and two of them are on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. This isn’t a track that’s been able to lend a helping hand to the group at all.

Ryan Hunter-Reay scored the only two podiums in this track’s road course history for the team. He did so in 2014 and again in 2017. Colton Herta was close back in July with a fourth place run, but that’s it.

Marco Andretti has no top 10 finishes in seven starts on the layout. Hunter-Reay’s last three finishes on it are 18th, 17th and 13th respectively. Herta, was 23rd last year while Alexander Rossi was 10th, 8th, 5th, 22nd and 25th respectively himself. With how this season has gone for this group, I didn’t expect much out of them on Friday or Saturday despite the Mid-Ohio dominance.

But, Thursday showed that we may need to reconsider. Andretti cars had pace. Herta starts third. Andretti in fifth. Rossi even starts eighth and is confident.

“I’ve got to be honest: For the first time in five years around here, I feel like we have a pretty good car,” Rossi said. “I’m really happy  about that. The team did a good job. This (IMS road course) has been a big weakness for us. The NAPA / AutoNation Honda was good. It was unfortunate that we didn’t get to do reds (alternate tires) because of the red flag rules, but I think the car is really good and I’m excited for tomorrow.”

Hunter-Reay is still struggling but James Hinchcliffe expects to be stronger than he showed on Thursday. See, when he went to the reds, a red flag came out both times.

“It was an up–and–down day for us,” said Hinchcliffe. “We still haven’t managed to set a single lap on the Firestone reds (alternate tires). We got a red flag in practice at the wrong time, and in qualifying, I tried something on my last lap on the black (primary) tires just to know if it was going to work on the reds , and I was on a lap that would have probably put us sixth in our group and then we didn’t get the chance on reds. I’m a little disappointed to be as far back as we are. I genuinely think we have more pace in the car. It’s tough jumping into a series that’s so competitive with so little track time. We’ve got 85 laps tomorrow to get the Gainbridge Honda to the front,  and that’s where we plan to go.”

Watch out For Jack Harvey

While Andretti has certainly struggled on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Jack Harvey hasn’t. In fact, he’s a sleeper to watch for the twinbill this weekend for the Harvest Grand Prix.

Harvey, in an Andretti alliance car, qualified second back in July. He was just caught out by a ill timed caution flag during his pit sequence in which flipped the field. He was likely heading for a second straight podium in this race.

A year ago, in a Schmidt alliance car, he qualified third and finished there. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Harvey contending for the pole and win again this weekend.

“I would say so because when we actually did race here in ’19, it was similar conditions to what we have now,” Harvey said on if he can take anything away from 2020 in July to now. “We started third and finished third. In the heat, we started second. I think we’ve shown we can be quick here in all conditions. Anything you can take from it is take confidence that you’re going to be fast with no guarantee that you’re going to be fast too. You just have to put ourselves in a position to have a good weekend and strive for the moment.”

In terms of the season overall, Harvey says that he feels good about how it’s gone.

“I feel good. I feel like the team and I have collectively done a really good job. I think we’ve had some really random bad luck. When bad luck has struck, we’ve been doing it from a place up front so it’s not like we’ve been slow and having bad luck. That’s how it goes some times I think. On the whole I feel like the season has had a ton of promise and a ton of potential. 

“We’ve unloaded with a good car often and hope we can carry on through this weekend. It’s been a super weird season. I’m not going to say our situation is any different than anyone else’s. We just have to do the best we can with our situation.