The green flag is set to drop on the 2023 NTT INDYCAR Series season this week for a two-day test at the Thermal Club in Southern California. In saying that, because of all the drivers being out west this week, INDYCAR conducted two days of media content to chat about a variety of topics with each of the 29 drivers that came through the room.
Here’s what I’ve learned from it.
MORE: Day 1 Of Media Day Notebook
MORE: Day 2 of Media Day Notebook
Futures
Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan have been doing this for a while. Each are back in the series again in 2023. Castroneves is full-time. Kanaan is an Indy only participant. But, is this year their final years that they’ll show up?
“I always said, you want to retire, you don’t want somebody to retire you,” the 48-year-old, Kanaan, said at INDYCAR content days on Wednesday morning.
“But after 25 years in the series I don’t think I could be — I have the right to be upset if I don’t find a ride if I want to race next year. It’s been a great ride.
“Honestly, it’s the hardest — you see it. You see it in every sport. Not many times top guys retiring came back, because you don’t know how to let it go. Then you have examples like me and Helio who are 48 and Dixon who’s in his 40s and still, I want to come back, I know I can do this.
“But I’m really, really — I was at peace with myself three years ago when I made that decision, so now I’m just riding it because, hey, I’m a race car driver. Going to give me a race car to drive, I’m jumping in.
“But no, it won’t — I won’t be sad if this would be my last one.”
For the 47-year-old Castroneves, this too is the final year of his contract with Meyer Shank Racing. Some have started to speculate that Tom Blomqvist, Castroneves’ Rolex 24 teammate with MSR, would swap roles with Helio in 2024.
“First of all, it’s too early to say,” Castroneves said of that discussion. “Second, I don’t want anything more than great things for this team. This team is incredible. They continue to grow as much as — they already stamped that they’re not just a small team. They stamped that they’re an incredible team, that things amazing about to happen in the future.
“Tom, come on, the kid is a superstar. He’s really quick. I feel that he did — he’s doing an amazing job. Last year he did a great job; this year continued doing it.
“Let’s see. Everything happens and falls natural. But as of right now, it’s too early in the season to predict and think what’s going to happen.
“Our goal is to have a phenomenal result with MSR so that we can show what this team is capable.
“Look, I just won Daytona 24-hour. Do you think I’m thinking retiring right now? There is no — there isn’t a thought of that.
“Look, also the same thing it repeats. It has to feel natural. I can’t force myself. I can’t put a number or date that I can say this is it.
“As of right now, I am enjoying very much what I’m doing. I’m about to start a great season with INDYCAR, and my mind is only thinking about that. I’m just going to continue working and get that result that I really want, that I know I’m capable and I know what the team is capable. Whatever happens in the future remains to be seen.”
Kanaan notes that while he’d like to come back in 2024, it’s not entirely up to him and that he doesn’t want to just do this just to do this.
“Let me put it this way: You are totally right, and no disrespect for any teams because I think we have a pretty good group of teams that can win the 500. But at this point, if I don’t think it’s the right opportunity for me then I wouldn’t do it. I don’t want to be at the 500 just to participate,” he said.
“Actually even last year that was part of my decision when I said, I want to come back this year.
“Yeah, I mean, winning, it’s all. I would rather see a young gun coming in, taking place for his first Indy 500, than me just participating just to add a car.”
These aren’t the only two who’s future is worth watching. Jack Harvey enters a make-or-break season with RLL. He do so after an abysmal year in 2022 with them.
“I feel like you summed it up pretty well there really,” he says of his future. “In a lot of ways — every year is a big year, and in a lot of ways I feel past that. I’ve just accepted that. No matter what’s happening, every year is a big year, and the mindset or my mindset right now is just the focus is on Thermal, and then once we finish there, we’re going to try and take what we’ve learnt and see how we apply it to St. Pete, and then just one race at a time, one test at a time, and whatever is coming up is going to be our most important session, race, race weekend.
“At that point the future will figure itself out. At the end of the day last year I wasn’t satisfied team with the results we had. The team weren’t happy either, but we shared that mutual desire to have success.
“At that point I think we all would be happy if we were able to carry on.
“Look, at the end of the day, motorsports, sports is results-based, so we’ve got to go out and get them. I don’t see that as any more pressure. I love what I get to do. I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to get to do this and call it a job.
“While it’s an opportunity to do it, I’m going to keep giving it my all until there isn’t one.”
Another situation worth watching is the Alex Palou and Felix Rosenqvist saga.
It’s no secret, Palou is likely headed to Arrow McLaren in 2024. He just has to get through this season. As a result, Rosenqvist is likely the odd man out. How does he enter this season knowing that it could look for him, a lot like last year’s in terms of his future.
“I mean, first of all, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. That’s a long time until next year,” he noted on Tuesday morning.
“As I said, I think it’s a great opportunity for me. I’m in a good spot. I’m in a well-performing team, not only in Arrow McLaren but my 6 car I think is going to be strong this year. I feel well with everyone around me. I feel like I have a good support from the team to go and perform.
“I don’t really think too much about that stuff. I just try to do what I can do, which is go fast forward and try to win races.”
He said what gives him reason for optimism is on how he responded to this exact situation a year ago.
“I think it went pretty well, to be honest,” Rosenqvist said on how he responded to last year’s uncertainty and adversity in his career. “I think I handled it probably as good as I could. That’s probably a reason why I’m here this year.
“I think it’s a massive opportunity for me to be back for a third year. I feel like I have all the tools I need to perform, feeling very good with everyone at the car. As I said, there’s so many things happening last year on and off the track. I think as a team, we just really learned a lot from that that we can bring into this season.
“I think we’ll be tough this year. We have a lot of things in the bag to try early this season. A couple of things here at Thermal we want to try. Going into the season, we have pinpointed some areas where we feel we were lacking a little bit, like the short ovals, for example.
“I feel like we’ve done the best we can to attack all those areas and bring the best possible package we can going into the season.”
For Palou, he says that the relationship on his side with his current employer is a lot better than it was last year.
“It’s been good since everything was set week after Laguna. The relationship has been back to 100% like it was before from both sides.
“Yeah, I had full access since then. Been at the workshop many, many times before I left for Europe for Christmas, once we’ve been back to prepare all the pre-season and stuff.
“Yeah, I don’t expect anything.
“Then in regards to sharing time between both parties, we set it in the way that will be focused on INDYCAR during the INDYCAR season, then once it’s done and once we try and get to 100%, then I’ll be focused on the other side.”
As far as how hard it was to block out the feelings aspect of this last year?
“Yeah, obviously there’s always some moments where you’re like, Oh, no, my God, this is not going the direction I wanted.
“But there was things that were out of my control obviously. Some things that I could control, as well. But at the end of the day I had all the information from my side, from other sides. I knew that everything could be settled, and it did. So, yeah, I’m just happy it did.
“I mean, I didn’t have another option, so… Either you’re good or not, that’s what you have to do.”
Youth and Inexperienced
Andretti Autosport boasts one of the more inexperienced lineups in the paddock. Yes, they have 4 drivers, but combined, 3 of them have 1 full-time season under their belts. Romain Grosjean was part-time in 2021 but moved to his first full-time foray in INDYCAR with Andretti in 2022. He has made 30 career starts.
Devlin DeFrancesco was a rookie last year. Same for Kyle Kirkwood, except he spent his rookie year at Foyt. Each have 17 total INDYCAR starts.
Colton Herta is now the lead man of the group. Is he ready for that? Herta has made more starts himself (65) than the other three (64) combined. He’s also only 22 and the youngest of the grouping as well. As the highest paid driver in the paddock, is he ready for this type of role?
“It’s not much of a difference for me,” Herta said. “Maybe they’ll rely a little bit more on my feedback and I might have to do a little bit more, but for me, it’s kind of business as usual.”
His teammates very much see his data and feedback as a positive and even if Herta isn’t vocal, it’s that aspect to what they consider him the leader of the team.
“I’d say it’s a little bit different with Andretti. I think Colton’s way of saying that he’s like kind of brushed off his leadership role is in a sense that he’s not beating on his chest, like I’m a driver; everyone kind of bows down to me. He’s trying to brush that away,” said Kirkwood.
“But at the end of the day, he’s the one with the most experience, and if he does something, we’re kind of going to ask him the questions, be like, hey, Colton, when you tried this, what exactly happened, because he’s the one with the most experience, and he’s been the most successful driver on the team that we’ve had. It’s a sure thing that we’re going to reference off of him, which in a sense makes him kind of the lead driver, yeah.
“It’s definitely a unique situation, but at the end of the day he’s the one with the most experience. He has a right to be kind of in that position. It’s not a — I’ll say it again, it’s not a position that we’re all expecting him to lead us on track or expecting him to lead us off track and lead us with car development. He’s ultimately our main source of contact really.”
DeFrancesco views Herta as a leader to him and one that benefitted his rookie year greatly.
“Very fast. Very, very fast last year, just looking at his data, some of the qualifying laps he was able to put in were very, very impressive, and definitely someone I’ve been able to lean on and learn from for sure in many different ways, and I’m looking forward to putting that to use this year and making a big step forward.”
Consistency though, is the biggest key to living up to those lofty expectations for the youngster entering his fifth season.
“Yeah, it’s no secret that last year was not a good one for us,” said Herta. “We need to do better on all fronts. That’s what the main part of the off-season has been. It’s been looking at everything and just trying to improve everything.
“We just need mistake-free weekends, and that’s the goal, one by one.”
Grosjean said they found some areas to be stronger in for 2023 while DeFrancesco hopes he can continue his growth from how 2022 ended. For Kirkwood, he feels like he pushed too much to be successful in a car that wouldn’t allow for it. AJ Foyt Racing didn’t have cars capable of winning. But, for the all-time winningest drivers in the Road to Indy history with 31 wins across all three levels of the ladder, being in 20th place was unfamiliar territory. So he pressed and by pressing too hard, he made rookie mistakes.
However, now that he comes to Andretti with a better car, was last year a learning year for experience?
“Yeah, I feel like there’s a lot of people that look at it that way,” he said. “If you look at one of the most successful teams being Penske, they don’t take rookies. That’s kind of how it goes.
“To that point, Colton did the same thing. He was with Harding Racing when he started off. He had a very successful season there with them. But it’s nice to have that transition year, right, where you have — where you’re able to hone in on your skills and learn everything, but even with that being said, last year for me, I was fully focused on doing so well with that team and trying to progress them forward and stuff.
“But now that I’ve gotten into this year now and taken this step back and kind of looked at it, I was like, man, I needed a year to learn and try and hone in on my skills and learn all the different things about INDYCAR that you don’t learn in junior formulas. Biggest thing is pit stops and strategy and having two different types of tires. Those are way different than anything I’ve done.”
They’re not the only ones facing a youthful season. So is Juncos Hollinger Racing who’ll feature a second-year driver and a rookie.
The main thing holding himself back is data. A year ago, Ilott was the only driver competing without a teammate. Doing so as a rookie and with a somewhat new team (Juncos Hollinger Racing), well it was a tall hill to climb, especially with him being new to the United States and these tracks.
“It’s a huge disadvantage, but is what it is,” said team owner Ricardo Juncos of being a single car team last year. “We knew from day one is our situation and we take it.
“Imagine for Callum being a rookie without knowing the tracks, we go to Toronto and we were P7, hundredths off P6, 2/10ths from P1. We were the only one with old reds. Technically we could be front row.
“Being the first time, we have nobody to compare. It’s very hard. We are hypothetically comparing to imagination.
“Having two cars is big advantage. But we know the different. But have to be right, right? Not just because you go to two cars. If it’s not right, it may be worst. That’s the key question here, how we’re going to do it.
“No question being only one-car team in the level of INDYCAR today, everybody can see is a little bit disadvantage. But, like I said, we knew from day one going to be like that so no complaints.”
Now, he has a teammate to bounce ideas off of for the 2023 season. JHR signed Agustin Canapino to be the second driver with the team. That has Ilott happy heading into the season to have that sense of data coming in.
“But yeah, it’s just data for us,” Ilott said. “The closer he is to me and the better he does, the better the team does, so it’s quite important to be able to get that comparison, and I’m sure he’ll do a good job.
“But yeah, it’s data. It’s another car. It’s another item, another option to test items on, so yeah, incredibly important.”
The only drawback to this is, Canapino is a rookie. He’s never raced in these cars, nor these tracks before. How much real data can that give Ilott?
“Let’s see. Let’s see. I mean, Agustin is in a very tough position,” he admitted. “It’s not easy being a rookie, and it’s definitely not easy being a rookie without single seater experience, so I’m very interested to see how he gets on. I’m going to do my best to help him as much as possible, especially over the next few days here.
“It’s a tough one because of the position that he’s in. It’s a bit of an unknown for me, for the team, for the championship, because for sure he’s quick. But again, it’s a real really tough thing to jump into.
“So I really — I’m a bit nervous for him, and I admire the jump because it’s not easy to do. Obviously Scott McLaughlin has done it in, shall we say, a different environment, but he’s done it, and Agustin has that background but from Argentina.
“It’s more I have to wait and see where we’re at and what we’re doing because it could be more of a data thing or it could be really something that we can work together as a team and build off of.
“But I know it’s definitely not easy as a rookie, but then taking my own experience, we worked really well together as a one-car operation compared to big four-, five-car operations, and sometimes we kick their ass.
“But that gives me the confidence that no matter what, I can kind of work with what we’ve got and do a good job with it.”
AJ Foyt Racing also enters with a young group. Rookie Benjamin Pedersen is only 23. Santino Ferrucci is just 24. However, they feel like changes made this offseason for the program has propelled them forward.
Dale Coyne Racing enters as the youngest team of all.
With the addition of Sting Ray Robb (No. 51 Dallara-Honda) as a teammate to David Malukas in the No. 18 HMD entry, the Dale Coyne Racing team will have the youngest driver lineup in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, with both drivers born in September of 2001. Is that too young?
I don’t necessarily think so.
“Yeah, I think we’re the youngest duo, right? It’s definitely a different dynamic from what I had last year with Takuma, but I think it’s going to be good,” Malukas said.
“From what I’ve heard, his driving style is very similar to mine. He used a very similar setup in Sebring when he tested. I think we’ll work very well together, and I’ve had little moments where we’ve raced with each other in the past, so I’m really excited to get the season forward. It’s just interesting to me that I’m supposedly now the veteran of the group. I definitely don’t feel like one.
“Now that it’s two young guns, there’s going to be two young guys trying to prove themselves. I think it’s going to help a lot with the both of us kind of pushing each other. Our driving styles, like I said earlier, are very similar, so we’ll be able to piggy-back and use each other’s data.
“But the environment with the team is all going to be roughly the same. I think the way we’ve done it previously, I don’t think it’s going to create conflict, and if anything, I think it’ll just create, I’d say, a more humorous environment with two young people and our younger jokes being able to make sense to each other.”
Budding With Confidence
Callum Ilott is only entering his second full-time season in the NTT INDYCAR Series but the English driver isn’t wavering on his confidence level inside of the race car. Part of that is his confidence in himself. He knows that he has the speed to compete here and knows that if given the right amount of time and a fast race car, he can win.
“Yeah, if I be really, how would I say, factual, I’m very quick,” Ilott said on Wednesday morning, Day 2 of INDYCAR content days. “If you put me in the quickest car, I don’t think there’s many people quicker than me, honestly. Looking at Laguna, we had a good car and I was able to put it there.
“I’ll be saying the whole year, once it’s there, I can always compete with it. So that’s up to them to do it. I rarely make mistakes in qualifying.
“If it’s slow, it’s partly maybe 5 percent of the time it could be me. It’s a bit — I feel a bit cocky to say it, but I can tell them when I’ve nailed it and when I’ve not. Normally I’m quite honest if I messed up.
Another confident driver is Marcus Ericsson.
We’ve not seen this type of Ericsson before. The usual cool, calm and collective Swede that’s always boasting a smile was more brash and to the point on Tuesday. He said he’s still “pissed off” at how last year ended and that on, “Race day I’m not scared of anyone.”
That’s not the Ericsson we’re accustomed to seeing but one that has his head down and entirely focused on not only winning a second straight Indy 500, but taking home the Astor Cup championship trophy in September too.
“I had a chance going into the final, but I also was leading the championship for a long-time last year. I’m still a bit pissed off about the ending of last year because I felt we were having a really strong year, then the last three races or so we just fell off a little bit. That was disappointing,” he said on Tuesday of INDYCAR content day.
“But it’s given me a lot of motivation to work hard in the off-season to try and be better this year. It’s definitely our goal to try and get that championship this year.
“We’ve been focusing on trying to improve our package for this year. We feel like we have some areas where we could improve from last year, so we’ve been focusing on that, trying to, yeah, become better as a team, as a driver. I’ve been focusing a lot on myself trying to improve my performance for this year.
“We were close to winning both the championship and the 500 last year. We need to keep pushing to try to do that this year.”
Behind The Scenes Changes To Teams To Chase Team Penske
In sports, there’s a saying, it’s one thing to march to the top of your respective sport, it’s another to stay there. Everyone is after Team Penske in 2023. The organization just won last year’s title and took 3 of the top 4 spots in the final standings.
So in theory, it’s hard for a team on top to find areas to improve upon. On the flip side, for the ones chasing, there’s always glaring weaknesses as to why they weren’t on top. So, the other teams took the offseason to go back to work.
For Chip Ganassi Racing, they’re looking to fix road courses as well as qualifying.
“You know, I think the outlier was definitely road courses, where we had the inconsistency either between the cars or in general,” Scott Dixon said on Wednesday from Day 2 of INDYCAR’s Content Week. “None of us got a pole, which I would say right now the road course kind of tire and combination is probably Alex’s specialty and he’s extremely good at it, and to see him not get a pole I think was definitely something that was missing for sure.
“There was definitely some instances where we made pretty heavy mistakes, I think, on the 9 car side of just not being in the right configuration or doing silly things that shouldn’t have been done.
“But I think there was two pretty big things in the off-season that we saw that we were probably doing wrong and then also not emphasizing enough on.
“I hope that once we get to kind of the first few rounds of road courses that that understanding of what we’re missing definitely helps. I think outside of that, our other packages have been pretty strong.
“Yeah, so it’s — I don’t know, you keep working at it in the off-season is where most of the preparation is done for understanding kind of your weaknesses, and that was definitely a big outlier for us.”
For Marcus Ericsson, his weakness last year was in qualifying.
His Achilles heel in 2022 was in that aspect. 9 times did he started 12th or worse including 5 times in the final 7 races. It’s why he went from 6 top 5’s in the first 10 races this season and was leading the points to 4th. He had no top 5 finishes over the final 7 race stretch. While he had 3 top 10’s, it was the lack of top 5’s that allowed everyone else to catch up.
Consistently coming from behind was the culprit. Imagine if he started closer to the front in those races. It’s not like he wasn’t a hard charger. He went from 14th to 3rd in Texas, 18th to 4th in the GMR Grand Prix, 13th to 6th in Mid-Ohio, 15th to 6th in Iowa 2, 25th to 11th in the Gallagher Grand Prix.
“I think us as a team, it’s been one of our weaknesses the last couple years in that we’re not qualifying as high as we should,” he said. “Race day I’m not scared of anyone. I think on the 8 car we’re always going forward in the races; we’re always very strong in the races.
“It’s no secret that we need to improve on qualifying day. That is us in the 8 car but also Chip Ganassi Racing as a whole. I think if we can all improve, it’s going to help us. These days as well, INDYCAR is becoming more and more competitive. So many good drivers and teams. If you start mid pack, yeah, it might be long races, but to win a race from mid pack is getting harder and harder.
“It’s been one of the big focus areas in the off-season, to try to find things in the setup, in the way to understand the tires, stuff like that, to mainly improve our qualifying performance. It’s been a big focus for us. It’s going to be interesting this week to see if we have found some things that are going to work, then apply that throughout the season.”
They’re aiming for Penske, but it’s not like the Penske boys are just sitting back shining their trophies. They want more and not resting on their laurels.
Josef Newgarden is pissed he’s lost the last three championships. He wants to improve so much, he has the title in hands by time we get to the season finale this year.
“How are we going to build a bigger gap where that’s not even possible? I don’t even want to be messing with it at the end of the year,” said the two-time series champion at Media Day on Wednesday. “In an ideal world, if we get to the end of a season where we don’t have to mess with the gap, if we can just get that out of the way, that would be ideal. That’s where my mindset is at, how do we get to that place where it’s not even on the table, it’s just done.
“I think I’m not arrogant enough to believe that that’s easy. It seems near impossible these days to do that. I think that’s valid. It’s very difficult to do that. I understand that. But I still want to find a way where we can get to a place where we don’t have to mess with it.”
When pressed about if he truly meant that, he doubled down on his remark.
“It’s not easy. It’s possible. I do not think that will be easy whatsoever, but we need to figure out how to do that,” he said.
The reason for that feeling is that Newgarden is sick and tired of coming away runner-up in points.
“Yeah, I mean, it gnaws at me for sure,” he said. “It’s annoying, there’s no doubt. How could you not be frustrated by it, right? I think it’s normal, very frustrating. I try and take the frustration and just put it into motivation.”
That frustration has been weighing on Newgarden since he left Monterey last September. He was dejected when he left Laguna Seca last September, the site of the 2022 NTT INDYCAR Series season finale. That’s also the same spot to crown this year’s champion. The mantra surrounding the two-time series champion was telling. He was pissed.
While he had the most wins during the course of the 17-race season, he struggled to put a complete season together. Newgarden had as many wins (5) as he had finishes of 13th or worse (5). That’s where this title was lost.
“You know, for sure we just needed to have a more consistent season,” Newgarden noted that day. “There’s no doubt. I think that the peak performance was there all year. We just didn’t have the consistency. That ultimately is what put us in an unfavorable position when we came here.
“If we can clean that up, I have no doubt we can challenge for the championship again next year.”
Newgarden’s attitude hasn’t changed one iota since those comments.
“Honestly, I don’t feel that different leaving Laguna, where I was kind of at mentally there, my statements, what I was projecting. I feel very similar to that place,” Newgarden quipped at the 2023 Media Day on Wednesday.
A main reason as to why is the fact that Newgarden notes that not a lot has transpired between now and then. He’s in the same spot now as he was on that day and ready to get back in the car to show that they can improve and put a full season together.
“I don’t think we’re going to change much,” he continued. “I don’t know that we need to change anything as far as our approach or process. I think everything that we’re doing is what we need to be doing.”
Will Power had 1 win compared to Newgarden’s 5 last year. He took home the title. It was the complete opposite in 2021. No one had as many top 10 finishes (13) as Newgarden then.
So where’s the sweet spot?
Newgarden says there truly isn’t one as when you’re in a series as competitive as INDYCAR, sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce in your direction and when it does, you have to capitalize.
“INDYCAR just has that intangible side to it where you just can’t predict everything,” he said. “You do need a little bit of I don’t want say lock but you need the tides to favor you at times. It’s preparation, hard work, maximizing each day, then timing needs to be on your side. Sort of the tides need to flow for you.
“I think most of everything went well for us last year. There were just too many events, just a couple too many races that didn’t go our way that we needed.
“I think you can have a bad race. You just can’t have three or four of ’em. Three or four is a lot. It depends on the year.”
So how do you improve between seasons then?
“I think the complexion of each year is different,” he says. It’s always been hard for me to assess things by comparing year to year. They’re all different. There’s some years you probably could afford three or four bad races. Last year was not a year that you could afford that.
“It depends on who’s having a great year. Sometimes people just have a good run and nothing seems to go wrong for them. That’s just the nature of the beast.
“I’ve done this enough I think to have a fair assessment of it. It’s my opinion there’s that intangible you can’t control. When I analyze other drivers and the seasons they’ve had, even my own, sometime timing just seems to work out really well for certain teams and individuals. That’s a thing you can’t control, unfortunately, right?
“With that kind of comes peace of mind. I focus on controlling how can we build the best cars possible to give ourselves the best speed, how can we make the best decisions we can strategy-wise, position-wise. You really just have to hope that the timing blesses you throughout the year as well.
“I am so positive, when we get a year where we get good timing paired with great speed and decisions, it will be a great year. It will be really great. Much better than what we had last year.”
Power agreed with that saying this a day prior.
“Every season flows differently, but just in general in my life, I just don’t put too much emotion into situations,” he said. “There’s nothing to be gained from it.
“There’s just a lot of things that clicked last year within my team, the crew. Obviously Dave Faustino and the new crew chief are all pretty good group, pretty good, positive group, enjoying the job.”
Then you have their teammate, Scott McLaughlin.
Prior to this season, he made 17 starts with 0 wins, 1 podium, 2 top 5 finishes, 5 top 10’s, 1 race led for 5 laps and 16 times he was running at the finish.
Last season: 17 races, 3 wins, 7 podiums, 8 top 5 finishes, 12 top 10’s, 8 races led for 433 laps and 16 races he was running at the finish.
2023…
“Look, absolutely. I know that we made a massive step personally for me last year,” McLaughlin said during Media Day content on Wednesday afternoon. “That was due to a number of things, things clicking, working out really good.
“But now what we know of INDYCAR racing, you just need to continue stepping up a little. McLaren is going to be fast, Andretti, Ganassi as we know is unreal. We need to continue to build as a team, myself. I’ve certainly looked at negatives that I can improve on. Hopefully that bodes me well for the rest of the season.”
Some athletes say that you can’t take much away from one season to the next. It’s a clean, fresh slate. Others say just the opposite. What side of the coin does McLaughlin fall?
“I think it’s more up to you and your mentality and what you think,” he told me. “I certainly believe you can’t stop me from learning what I learnt last year. I still know what I learn understand and what I can improve on.
“Whether it’s momentum or whether it’s just learnings, I know what I learnt and what I need to learn and be better at from last year, I know what I’ve had to work on in saying that. That’s what I’ve worked on.
“I think that hopefully will put me in good stead.”
Even with how well 2022 ended, McLaughlin reflected back on it and found some areas that he could be better in.
“Yeah, for me, I made a couple mistakes mid-season,” he said. “My Indy crash, Detroit going down the escape road, a few things that just sort of put me on the back foot championship-wise.
“If you looked at my season from maybe Road America on, I felt like everything sort of clicked. I just took races as they came. The way I finished the season last year, I’ve got to start and continue to do every race of the year like that. I can’t afford mistakes. You can’t afford mistakes in INDYCAR and be on the back foot.
“I think right now I feel comfortable with where I’m at. I know, I believe I’m fast enough to win the championship. It also comes up to me executing and doing what I can to perform on the day.
“What I tried to do last year was sometimes when I had, like, an eighth-place car, I tried to make it a second-place car and I’d crash or go down the escape road or something like that. That’s what I changed towards the end of the season. It’s just about letting it happen, letting the pace come, hopefully it bodes us well towards the end of the season.
“I know I have the speed to win a championship, but I’ve got to put it together. That’s the same for Indy 500. I’ve learnt a lot over the years that I know I’ve got the right ingredients around me, I feel like I’ve learnt enough to be a force come May. At the same time it’s about executing at the moments that you really need to and not risk too much in the moments you don’t need to.
“Yeah, I get a lot of enjoyment out of that. It’s a tough series in that regard.”
In saying all of that, this is the year the pressure comes. No one outside of himself expected that he showed in the first two years. But we all now saw this quick trajectory and with that comes pressure. The training wheels are now off. Championships and Indy 500 wins are expected. Can he live up to this pressure?
That’s something he’s not had since really 2019. Yes, he felt pressure internally since then, but not from the outside. Now, he has both factors weighing on him entering this season. Can he produce?
“I think now you just know, like, the learning is over now,” he told me. “Team Penske, you got a car that you know can win races. You’re expected to compete for championships. That’s just an expectation that I have, that I had in Australia for five, six years. I understand the mentality and understand what it’s like to have that pressure.
“I feel like it’s not an unknown for me. I’m not really stressed about it. I sort of know my ability, what I can do. If it’s good enough, it’s good enough. Yeah, it’s not an unknown and I’m not too worried about it at all.
“I put more pressure on myself than anyone can put on me. I just focus on that myself.”
With 2023 being the same engine package as 2022 and 2022 being the same as 2021 and 2021…you get the picture. Why would the Penske and Ganassi domination stop now?
Since 2013, they’re the only two organizations that have won championships in this series. Chip Ganassi Racing has titles from Scott Dixon (2013, 2015, 2018, 2020) and Alex Palou (2021) while Team Penske has titles from Will Power (2014), Simon Pagenaud (2016) and Josef Newgarden (2017, 2019).
That’s 10 straight years with each having won 5 titles a piece. Also, if you go back to 2008, this iconic duo has combined to have taken 14 titles in a 15 year span.
Even further, with this Aeroscreen, they’ve won 72% of the races (33-for-46) too and 100% of the championships.
Does anyone buck this trend for the upcoming season?
Next up is Arrow McLaren. Penske and Ganassi had drivers 1-2-3-4-5-6 in points. McLaren had 7-8 and in the offseason, added the 9th placed finisher. That wasn’t their only addition. They added over 40 new employees this offseason in order to improve.
All three drivers talked about how it’s almost like having to wear a name tag every day inside the walls of the company because of how many new people are truly there.
“Honestly, the biggest one is people, just learning who does what and what everyone’s kind of roles are, experience levels, who you need to go to for help on whatever issue you may have. I think that’s the biggest thing,” Rossi told me on the main challenge of changing teams.
“I still think it was very difficult. Every day you’re still trying to fill little roles here and there.”
O’Ward agreed about the new hires but says he trusts the team will ensure that it’s not a distraction.
“A lot of new faces. A lot, a lot of new faces. I’m still in the process of learning all the names,” he says.
“It’s so cool to see, we’re all growing. There’s been big steps each year. I feel like in terms of personnel this year, it has been a very big one. One reason being probably because of the third car, just the team is growing.
“It’s great to see. It’s great to see everybody’s enthusiasm. Everybody’s here for that one goal, right? We all put so much time and sacrifice and energy into making these race cars go quicker.
“I feel like it’s been so hard to find people in all departments I feel like. From talking to not just the people in our team, but from other drivers, other friends, they’re like, Man, it’s hard to find people.
“I trust the team. I think the group of people that are in charge, seeing who joins the team, seeing who comes about, I think they know exactly what we need, and I trust they’re going to make the right decisions.
“Honestly, from what I’ve seen, there’s so much talent. There were already so much talent in the group. I feel like so much more has been added on which is just going to help us to really get us where we want to be.
“We as drivers put it into: how can we maximize it? Just really, really excited to get this season underway.”
Rossi and Rosenqvist did each note that the key to expedite this learning process up is Gavin Ward. He’s the glue that’s going to hold this all together.
“Ultimately I think the brand is synonymous with a lot of things, and performance is one. Like I said, in terms of Gavin’s leadership style, maximizing people and encouraging people to bring ideas to the table, kind of have that diversity that exists and is so often overlooked in motorsports sometimes, to have opinions come from all different aspects of the team. I think that really encourages people to come.
“I think Zak also kind of leads the charge in that. It’s pretty amazing to me with how easy he is how involved he is with every aspect of the INDYCAR organization, the F1 organization, but like his sports car program, I don’t know how he’s in so many places at once seemingly.
“He makes an effort to kind of keep everyone up to date from top to bottom as to where things are, what the current objectives are and what’s future looks like.
“I think Gavin kind of feeds off that and has a similar style as well.”
Rosenqvist agreed.
“I mean, it’s a big team at this point. The difference when you change one person to another, it’s obviously less the bigger the team is,” he said.
“I think Gavin is good at trying to make every individual perform their best. Might be some kind of a culture difference there where instead of trying to change people — I’m not saying that’s what Taylor did, but I think Gavin in general is very interested in the individual performance of each guy or girl to make sure everyone is maximizing their skills. Maybe someone is better at this position, maybe someone’s in the wrong position. You can swap them out for different jobs and things like that. I think he’s very into that, kind of the lineup of the team is his little hustle that he’s trying to improve.
“Obviously there’s millions of other things that he’s in charge of. Honestly, I don’t really know about that. He’s been very good with me. We’ve had quite a lot of chats. He’s trying to help out if there’s anything you need. I think that goes for the same with everyone else in the team.”
Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan Racing hired their “Gavin Ward” too with the signing of Stefano Sordo.
“Yeah, I feel really good about where we’re at,” Rahal said. “As I was thinking about this exact kind of media conference last year, I was pretty reserved in some of my comments about the outlook, and I was thinking about it this year, I feel a lot more positive.
“I think Stefano (Sordo) has done a great job as he’s come in, but I think also organizationally from the team perspective we seem to be in a much better place. Everybody is working towards achieving the same goals.
The engineering side is more focused I would say. Not that they weren’t last year, but I would say more focused on the right things and not spending time doing things that aren’t moving the program forward.
“I feel really good about where we stand.
“I’m excited to be back with Eddie. I had a great time with Alan. I love Alan. But I think it was time. It was time for a change, and I think it was time for Jack, too, in particular.
“I felt like Jack, when I sit back and look at things from an unselfish perspective and the team, which I often do, I feel like Jack was going to need change to get him on track this year, and to be back with Mike or to be back with Eddie, who he was with last year, I didn’t feel like for him that was going to move the needle on his side of the team enough.
“But for me to have Eddie is awesome. Eddie and I are kind of both pretty low-key guys. We’re on the same page. Super fiery and competitive, but off the track I think we both have a similar mindset.
“Adam Kolesar is going to be the assistant. He’ll be race engineer I’m sure shortly with us. Adam has been under Alan for a long time. He’s a great kid. The hardest working guy on our team by far, not even close, and to have him with Eddie I think will also help further his career.
“We’ve got a really good staff obviously with Derek Davidson on my car, as well, this year. I’m excited about that because I’ve never gotten to work with Double D in that regard, and he’s a guy I have tremendous respect for as a leader, an organizer and a manager and everything else.
“I’m excited about that.
“We’ve had a little bit of turnover this year, as to be expected. There was time for change in certain things. But with Eddie, he and I won five times in three years. We know how to win together, and hopefully we can get this thing back on track. We’re pretty fired up about it.”
Rahal also mentions that a huge positive is that the direction is now simplified. Bringing Sordo on was a huge moment with is experience and direction which solidified Rahal’s thinking process from before.
“I think what we needed most was pretty simple, and that’s just direction,” he noted. “I thought that from the top on down, we needed a clearer path, from the engineering corps in particular. We didn’t have a technical director. We didn’t really have somebody that was leading the charge. We didn’t have enough depth.
“That’s becoming clearer to us now that we know like what McLaren is doing. With Stefano coming in you see what all they’re doing, and we were not even in the ballpark as far as depth and stuff like that. We’ve learned that now. We’ve been able to add. We’ve gotten ourselves into a really good spot.
“You see, though, it’s not like we’ve fired a bunch of engineers. Our guys are good. We’ve got good people. But we needed direction, and we needed somebody to kind of stand up and go, no, this is a — I’m not going to say what it is, but there was some testing we’ve done for a while that we’ve all been saying, this is worthless, we’re getting nothing out of it, but we kept getting told, no, we’ve got to do it.
“Luckily Stefano comes in and says, that’s worthless. Why are you doing that? Thank goodness. Here’s somebody else who can back up what we’ve been saying for a long time. Now we can focus our energy. Engineers aren’t doing all these crazy projects. It’s just let’s focus on what actually can move the needle.
“I thought that’s what Stefano really brought to the table. Kind of helped drive us a little bit better, so I’m really excited about that. We’ve obviously all talked about Ryan Harbar a lot this off-season. I gave him — he’s our trainer, head of human performance for us.
“Given him a lot of s— about the fact that he’s gotten more media attention than anybody else in the INDYCAR paddock this off-season.
“But having said that, he has absolutely changed the mental side and the culture within the team and gotten everybody locked in and focused and working out and using the sauna and playing pickleball tournaments at the end of the day for the camaraderie and the competition, and getting everybody — I mean, the pit stop practice have been amazing, the breakdown of the videos and everything.
“Ryan has also done a great job, I think, just moving the needle on the mental scope for the staff, for us to make our game to the next level.
“Hopefully we can put all those pieces together and have a great year.”
AJ Foyt Racing, like McLaren and RLL, also boosted up their engineering efforts too.
New faces in new places were capped off by highly respected veteran engineer Michael Cannon joining the team this year. Cannon will lead the team’s race engineers Daniele Cucchiaroni and Roberto Garcia along with drivers Santino Ferrucci and rookie Benjamin Pedersen.
“It was an opportunity to do something that interests me,” said Cannon. “I know that Larry has been working hard to move the team up the grid. I saw this opportunity to both help him and Santino and obviously Benjamin Pedersen who’s coming on board. I want to see if I can make a difference here.”
Cannon’s career spans five decades dating back to the early 1980s.
In saying that, can this new group end a near decade long winless drought for AJ Foyt Racing?
Takuma Sato is the last one to win for Foyt and this car in general back in Long Beach for the 2013 season. It’s winless in the last 164 races. Can Pedersen and Ferrucci change that tune next season?
The drought is nearing a decade this April.
It will be somewhat tough to go from a team that made up the bottom of the standings and immediately jump to mid pack.
“We just needed some organization,” Ferrucci said on Tuesday’s Day 1 of INDYCAR Content Day. “I had this chat with Larry back a while ago. The team has all the fundamentals to really put a good car out there.
“If you look back at the results, they’re really not a reflection of the actual speed of the car, in my opinion. I think that having someone like Michael Cannon come onboard to really help organize this team, put them on the right track, give them as what he calls Racing 101. We needed some consistency. I think that was the biggest thing. That’s what we’re hoping to really find.
“I’d like to see this team back inside the top 10 consistently, then go from there. We got to be a little bit realistic. It is tough coming off of where the team has finished in the last couple years. We definitely can see a lot of rapid growth hopefully throughout the winter.”
Pedersen may be a rookie, but he also had a front row seat to seeing the team last year. The plan was always for him to be a driver for them in 2023, so he spent most of his weekend’s in 2022 shadowing the team. He says this new energy brought to this team in the offseason is a great start to improving off of a struggling year for them last season.
“It’s been very exciting times at AJ Foyt Racing, new people, new organization, new structure, new methods. People are so hungry right now to be there and to improve,” said the rookie driver on Tuesday. “I think it’s been a lot of time, but before my time there, of people wanting it but not necessarily knowing how to get there. But now there is a very good path with as a team how we can accomplish things that we have as goals.
“People are staying extra during the weekends to practice pit stops when they don’t have to be. People don’t have to be there to help them are showing up to help with that, and it’s just really special to be a part of.”
Pedersen says that the time with the team last year was so valuable and made him feel already like a piece of the team. The only thing he wasn’t doing for them was actually driving the car itself.
“Every team meeting I was part of. You know, being on the timing stand, seeing strategy come into play, it was a really big help, and kind of made me feel like I got a season’s worth of experience without driving the car,” he continued.
“And the only difference is now I’m driving the car. Strategy meetings, everything like that will feel very similar, and I am very grateful to the team for letting me be a part of that last year, and can’t wait to do it now for real and as an official driver for them and working together.”
How much does that level play out for these three organizations?
Andretti, Juncos and Dale Coyne Racing was very young and inexperienced, so how does this shake up the pecking order in the most competitive racing series in the world?
Herta/O’Ward Seek Consistency
Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward will always have their stats compared against one another. That’s because they’re both as equal as they come in a race car and also have similar paths behind them and similar potential futures ahead.
Each were teammates in 2018 at Andretti Autosport in Indy Lights. O’Ward won 9 times that season. Herta won 4. Herta also had 7 runner-up finishes in that year, 5 of which he had a front row seat to O’Ward’s wins. O’Ward had three runner-up’s himself, two of which were in races that Herta won.
Combined, they had won 13 of the 17 races. They finished 1-2 in 7 of the 17. That allowed them to both graduate to the NTT INDYCAR Series for the 2019 season. Before that, they both made their INDYCAR debuts in the same race in the season finale of the 2018 season in Sonoma. They’d do so as teammates.
However, plans changed in the offseason. Harding didn’t have the funding anymore to run two full-time cars. Even though O’Ward had the scholarship money from his Indy Lights championship, Harding went forward with Herta. O’Ward went overseas but made it back in 2020 to drive for Arrow McLaren.
Now, four years later, Herta enters his fifth full-time season and O’Ward his fourth. Herta has 7 wins, O’Ward with four. Herta leads in the poles category too (9-5). O’Ward leads in podiums (13-11) and Top-5 finishes (23-22) but Herta has him back in Top-10’s (35-32).
Their stats are eerily similar with Herta eclipsing O’Ward in career starts by 10, 65-55.
As they each enter the 2023 season, both have had talks and discussions of a Formula One future. O’Ward drives for a team that has an F1 operation and has gotten some tests in the process. Herta, also has tested for O’Ward’s team, but his current team also has an aspiration to be their own standalone F1 organization too.
The thing is, as things sit at the moment, each need to have a breakout season in 2023 in order for those F1 dreams to remain alive.
Herta lacked the Superlicense points to make a jump in 2023. Andretti lacked the success. For each to be more attractive, they need to be more successful on a consistent basis.
Similar for O’Ward. If he wants to become a future F1 driver, he needs to show Zak Brown that he can win more often here.
Herta had 10 Top-5 finishes in his first 32 starts to his career. The problem was, he only had four podiums among those 10 Top-5 finishes.
2021 was supposed to be that breakout though with 7 Top-5 finishes and 5 of which being on the podium. That gave him more podiums in 16 races that season than in the 32 starts prior. Last year he took a step back in scoring just 4 Top-5 finishes, all podiums. However, he failed to score a single one though in the final seven events.
As he enters 2023 on a backslide from 2022, can he get back to the 2021 level but be more consistent in the process? If he wants to be a champion he better. He knows that.
“Yeah, it’s no secret that last year was not a good one for us,” said Herta. “We need to do better on all fronts. That’s what the main part of the off-season has been. It’s been looking at everything and just trying to improve everything.
“We just need mistake-free weekends, and that’s the goal, one by one.”
2021: The Indy 500 he qualified second but faded to 16th. Belle Isle 1 he was in the top five and going for a podium before a caution flipped the field. He finished 14th. In Belle Isle 2, he was running second but faded to fourth in the closing laps. Mid-Ohio saw him go from a podium to 13th. Nashville saw a dominating weekend end in a crash and 19th. World Wide Technology Raceway saw a top two finish and maybe even a win end in a broken drive shaft and a 18th place result. He was eighth in Portland.
2022: Long Beach Pole (bad 1st pit sequence 1st to 3rd, crash pushing hard to pit lane on 2nd stop), Carb Day flip, Mid-Ohio crew kept him out instead of pitting coming to a yellow, INDY GP in Aug. Gear box while leading.
That’s the difference right now in making him a champion, because he was already there before those problems occurred. The next logical goal from that would be turning podiums into more wins too.
Similar for O’Ward. He’s had two wins in each of the last two seasons. The Mexican star also has had 9 podiums in that same two-year span (5 in 2021, 4 in 2022). Out of his 8 Top-5 finishes a year ago, only four of them landed on the podium.
See a theme among these two?
Both qualify extremely well, it’s just they’re not finishing. In O’Ward’s case, he had 13 starts of 7th or better (10 being 5th or better) over the course of the final 14 races in 2022. He only had 4 podiums to show for it.
Also, he has to get better on natural road courses too. On them a year ago, he won Barber, was 19th and 12th respectively at Indy, 26th at Road America, 24th in Mid-Ohio, 4th in Portland and 8th in Laguna Seca. A lot of those finishes were plagued by electrical issues.
“For sure it’s been looked into. We’ve obviously looked for answers,” he said on the opening day of Media Content Days on Tuesday morning. “Have we found them all? I really think, I mean, it’s a hard statement to say because I feel like you can find and analyze reasons of why things might have happened, but you never really know for sure.
“But what I do know is that we want to minimize those. The perfect thing would be to not have those issues, right? It’s possible, for sure. I mean, the first two years I was with the team, I never had a DNF. I had completed almost all the laps all year.
“Last year, I mean, we had the best, like, average qualifying positions that we had during a season. But we had, like, four DNFs. One of those was maybe unlucky, the other ones were just a mishap.
“It’s so hard to say. But for sure it’s possible to make those a lot less than they were last year. Last year was for sure not a fluke, but like I was very surprised because we had never had those issues, at least to that extent.
“So definitely just starting this year with a clean blank, just starting to work off the strong years that we’ve built together.”
McLaren has done their part to help those areas too. They’ve added more than 40 new hires in the process to help leave no stone unturned. They’re trying to match what Penske and Ganassi does, even personnel wise too.
“A lot of new faces. A lot, a lot of new faces. I’m still in the process of learning all the names,” he says.
“It’s so cool to see, we’re all growing. There’s been big steps each year. I feel like in terms of personnel this year, it has been a very big one. One reason being probably because of the third car, just the team is growing.
“It’s great to see. It’s great to see everybody’s enthusiasm. Everybody’s here for that one goal, right? We all put so much time and sacrifice and energy into making these race cars go quicker.
“I feel like it’s been so hard to find people in all departments I feel like. From talking to not just the people in our team, but from other drivers, other friends, they’re like, Man, it’s hard to find people.
“I trust the team. I think the group of people that are in charge, seeing who joins the team, seeing who comes about, I think they know exactly what we need, and I trust they’re going to make the right decisions.
“Honestly, from what I’ve seen, there’s so much talent. There were already so much talent in the group. I feel like so much more has been added on which is just going to help us to really get us where we want to be.
“We as drivers put it into: how can we maximize it? Just really, really excited to get this season underway.”
Can these two gain in these areas and make a serious run at a championship?
Each are looked upon as leaders of their team even with being the youngest too. O’Ward is 23 but has a teammate in Felix Rosenqvist who’s 32 and a 31-year-old Alexander Rossi. However, O’Ward is the one with the tenure and success at McLaren.
Rossi was Herta and Andretti Autosport’s leader last year and now steps into the role of being only 22, but having teammates aged 23 (Devlin DeFrancesco), 24 (Kyle Kirkwood) and 36 (Romain Grosjean). The thing is, Herta has more starts (65) than that trio combined (64). All three are entering their second full-time seasons in the sport.
Can both lead their teams forward?
“It’s not much of a difference for me,” Herta said. “Maybe they’ll rely a little bit more on my feedback and I might have to do a little bit more, but for me, it’s kind of business as usual.”
His teammates very much see his data and feedback as a positive and even if Herta isn’t vocal, it’s that aspect to what they consider him the leader of the team.
“I’d say it’s a little bit different with Andretti. I think Colton’s way of saying that he’s like kind of brushed off his leadership role is in a sense that he’s not beating on his chest, like I’m a driver; everyone kind of bows down to me. He’s trying to brush that away,” said Kirkwood.
“But at the end of the day, he’s the one with the most experience, and if he does something, we’re kind of going to ask him the questions, be like, hey, Colton, when you tried this, what exactly happened, because he’s the one with the most experience, and he’s been the most successful driver on the team that we’ve had. It’s a sure thing that we’re going to reference off of him, which in a sense makes him kind of the lead driver, yeah.
“It’s definitely a unique situation, but at the end of the day he’s the one with the most experience. He has a right to be kind of in that position. It’s not a — I’ll say it again, it’s not a position that we’re all expecting him to lead us on track or expecting him to lead us off track and lead us with car development. He’s ultimately our main source of contact really.”
DeFrancesco views Herta as a leader to him and one that benefitted his rookie year greatly.
“Very fast. Very, very fast last year, just looking at his data, some of the qualifying laps he was able to put in were very, very impressive, and definitely someone I’ve been able to lean on and learn from for sure in many different ways, and I’m looking forward to putting that to use this year and making a big step forward.”
The other thing is, did their teams close the gap to the “Big 2.” Some of the lack of consistency is due to Penske and Ganassi’s stranglehold on the wins and podiums.
Since 2013, they’re the only two organizations that have won championships in this series. Chip Ganassi Racing has titles from Scott Dixon (2013, 2015, 2018, 2020) and Alex Palou (2021) while Team Penske has titles from Will Power (2014), Simon Pagenaud (2016) and Josef Newgarden (2017, 2019).
That’s 10 straight years with each having won 5 titles a piece. Also, if you go back to 2008, this iconic duo has combined to have taken 14 titles in a 15 year span.
Even further, with this Aeroscreen, they’ve won 72% of the races (33-for-46) too and 100% of the championships.
They just went 1-2-3-4-5-6 in the championship last season.
Arrow McLaren and Andretti have been on a level playing field against each other for the third best team. They tied 2-2 in wins last season and it was 3-2 in favor of Andretti in 2021.
McLaren Teammate Embracing Rossi’s Presence
Alexander Rossi’s goals this season are unknown. It’s not that he was trying to be a jerk on Tuesday, it’s just the fact that he’s not been in this race car yet and has no idea of what’s in store. He’s used to being with Andretti having spent his first seven years there. By doing so, he’s only driven a Honda. Now, he has new faces to learn, new people in place, a car he’s not been in and going to be driving a new powerplant.
He’s tempered his expectations.
“I hope so,” Rossi said of a potential breakout year this season. “I mean, it’s a fantastic organization whose results speak for themselves. I think what they’ve done the past couple of years is very impressive. They’re a great organization with great partners and great people. Getting to work now with GM and Chevy has been pretty cool as well, to see what they’re doing, how they’re helping push the program forward.”Like I said, it’s been a lot of conversations and things in theory. We don’t really know anything until we get on track. But from where we sit right now, we’re very excited about what’s to come.”
However, Arrow McLaren needed his arrival to help them grow too. They were sort of maxed out on what areas they could grow in and needed that third voice around to help close that gap to the “Big 2” quicker.
“I’ve been positively surprised,” said Rosenqvist of the early addition of Rossi. “I think Alex kind of has that bad-guy role a little bit in INDYCAR. He’s always been that guy, which is cool. I think we need those guys, as well.
“Actually having gotten to know him, it’s been super nice, super kind. I think, as I said before, it fits like a glove in the team. I think it fills a role where me and Pato are kind of like, Pato is kind of like the crazy guy, I’m somewhere in the middle, and Alex is the more engineering guy in the team. I think Alex has more experience, as well. He just feels like a guy who knows what he wants.
“Yeah, good addition to the team and great guy at the same time.”
O’Ward agreed.
“He’s been great to have around,” he said of Rossi. “We’ve all really enjoyed the Content Days, the media that we’ve done with the team. I think Felix hit it spot on; he’s in the middle. I think I’m here, Alex is here.
“At the end of the day, INDYCAR, as much as teammates will help in order to gather data, it doesn’t mean they’re going to specifically help you in what you need because it’s a series where you can really tailor the car to what you want rather than like, for example, in Formula 1, this is the car, you need to learn how to drive this certain car. In INDYCAR it’s very different where you can really tailor and customize it to what you want it to feel like or drive like.
“From past experience, I think Alex likes a car similar to what I do. I know he likes it to be able to point well. From experience, I wasn’t at Andretti seven years like Alex was, but from my experience, it was an extremely strong car in the rear.
“I feel like our car is very different to that. I’m curious to see what he thinks and how he kind of develops where we can find some more time.
“I do think we have a very strong car in certain areas, but I definitely think he’s coming from a car where that other car has been stronger than us in other racetracks. I feel like if we can just find gains where we haven’t quite had a winning car, a podium car, that’s just going to help all of us, right?
“It’s been great. He’s been great to have around. I think he needed a fresh start. I think he’s excited to really work with all of us, create the strongest package.”
MSR Duo Seek Improvement
The big storyline entering this season has to be Castroneves’ pursuit of that fifth Indianapolis 500 crown. That’s something that has never been done in the past 106 years of this race and he’ll try again to win No. 5. AJ Foyt was the first to accomplish the feat of the four-win club in 1977. He made 15 attempts after to score his fifth win. He’d never do so with only scoring two top fives after including a runner-up finish in 1979.
Al Unser was the next to join the four win club in 1987. He’d try five more times to earn a fifth ‘500 triumph with finishes of 3rd, 24th, 13th, 3rd and 12th respectively.
Rick Mears joined in 1991. A 26th place finish in 1992’s race was his final shot.
Now, Castroneves is in the club. Can he get his fifth crown in May? That’s going to be a huge storyline that month again as he scored a top 10 last May.
“Look, expectation for me, it’s obviously the big one. It’s Indianapolis 500,” Castroneves said on Wednesday morning. “That’s the one that we feel that we have the same car, we have all our bets on to that.
“However, I’m not going to give up on the other ones, either. I feel that we have as much of a chance as anybody in some of the places that I feel comfortable. In position, if you’re thinking about finishing in the top 12 would be a great goal, would be a great place to be.
“However, we want to be able to have a podium. We want to be able to show what we can get, and we can.
“INDYCAR is so competitive. There’s so many scenarios that you’re like, I will never see that. That’s why. We’re going out there thinking that we do have a chance to repeat what we did in 2021, and obviously have a better result in the road courses and street courses, as well.”
Castroneves has 31 wins now which is tied for 10th most. His 50 poles is fourth most, three shy of Foyt. His 41 runner-up’s rank third best. His 94 podiums are four shy of Unser for fifth most. His 142 top fives are fourth most with seven shy of Foyt for third.
By the end of this season, Castroneves could be alone in with five Indy 500 wins.
So, what did he learn in his first full-season back in the sport a year ago and apply that to closing that gap to the front this time around?
“Yeah, so we have some change of personnel in my group in the 06,” said the Brazilian driver. “We have Dave, our engineer; also we have some data people, as well, in the pit stop. We’re going to have some communication that we’ve got to — that’s why it’s important two days, at least for us, to get everybody going.
“And yeah, it’s important because we’ve already been one year with Meyer Shank Racing, so putting all the pieces and puzzles together, looking forward to a great 2023.
“Everyone understands when you’re going through, even if it’s one year, people think it’s a long time, but hey, we’re talking about teams that’s been together for a long, long time, years of experience and communication and everybody is in sync.
“Even though for us we did 2021, all those people were part-timers and we have to start all over again. That was the first time that we had two cars in the team. There was a lot of dynamic changing.
“Now we are continuing to move forward. It’s important for us to be part of this process, be patient. Yeah, I can’t wait when things start to connect so we can show at the racetrack.
“You’re always looking for improvement. The good news is we finished 18th last year in the championship. That’s not a place that we want to be. However, we feel there was some areas that we felt we could have better results, but racing is unpredictable, as always.
“The expectation is obviously always to do well, but also we understand the possibility of things not going according to the plan.
“But I feel the plan is that. It takes some time to collect some of the informations that we want, our alliances with Andretti Autosport also is still very strong. They also know that they need to improve. It’s not only in our organization.
“We still keep pushing each other so that we can have a better result like we had in the past or that Andretti had in the past.
“For us, remember, the alliance, they have their own engineers, their own resource, they translate it to us, and yeah, we’re looking forward to having a much better season, and let’s hope for the best.
“But we’re only looking forward, and we feel we’re going to have a much better season.”
Pagenaud is eying the same thing. It all starts with this week’s test to help them grow.
“We’ve done a lot of work on simulators with the designs, several packages we think might be better for the problems that we had last year,” he notes. “One of the main issue was tire wear, which was my main problem in races.
“We are going to evaluate what we found on the simulator and make sure it translates in real life. I’m hoping it really does because with two days of testing, if it doesn’t work, then I’m going to have the same problem I had last year.”
Pagenaud said that the past preseason tests were at Sebring and that last year’s worked well on the street courses but held them back on natural road courses. This year’s test is on a natural road course but not one that they’ll race on. What’s that mindset coming into this year’s edition then?
“We went to test last year twice. It translated to some tracks but not all the tracks,” said the Frenchman. “It translated to a street course where we were extremely strong, but didn’t translate to the road course.
“We’re going to work with the road course tire here, which is better for us because that’s tire wear, which we’re having a big issue with. I have to remind, Firestone brings a different type of tire for each track. It makes it very difficult for us when we go testing to figure out what the tire really need.
“The tire is the most important thing on the race car, especially when you’re in a series like INDYCAR right now that is so close. We know the car so well that the margin for improvements are very small.
“If you can just extract a little bit more out of the tire, you’re going to have a better advantage. Penske did that last year, they figured out what it was. We didn’t. The goal for us is to figure that out with the little built of testing we get.
“It’s tough. It’s the difference between sports cars and INDYCAR is sports cars you can test as much as you want, like we did this winter. You kind of know what you have going into the first race.
“INDYCAR you get two days. What you got is what you got. That makes it very difficult and very reliant on the development that has been done by the engineers.”
One thing that helps Pagenaud’s mindset coming into this season too is his Rolex win last weekend. That’s a high note that can’t be taken away from him. Does seeing the ball go into the net that soon though, make for an advantage? Sometimes just seeing that trophy on the mantle or in this case, a watch on your wrist can be a good reminder of what can happen.
“Big. Massive,” he says. “It gave me confidence that my training was good, that mentally speaking I’m working on the right things, that my influence within the team is going in the right direction.
“Helio and myself are closer than ever, helping the team in many ways. It’s good because it’s showing Mike and Jim that our input is also helping putting us on the map.
“Everything is going according to plan, even better. Yeah, I’m full of confidence, full of happiness because of the work I’ve done is paying off.
“I think I’m extremely proud for myself, which is very important as a driver, especially at this point of your career. You just want to be proud about what you’ve done. I’ve got many more years to go and more races I want to clinch. I have a list of things I want to do, that’s for sure.
“So proud of myself for the achievement, but also proud of the team. We talked about it in press conference, but this team is just incredible. The calm and the way they run this race is the best I’ve ever seen. They are able to be a relaxed team with having everything in control. I’m really proud to be part of it. I’m really proud to bring my experience to the team. Seeing them go like this is spectacular. All the success that we’re having is just incredible.
“Yeah, I’m just blessed and excited to be here at this time.
“I’ve built on that work all last year. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to show it to you as much as I wanted with results. But in the background, I feel like, yeah, there’s something there. The potential is amazing.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time. You’ve got to be patient. But you have to know how good you are inside and you have to believe in it.
“Certainly when results start showing, then all of a sudden the rise is even stronger and it makes you feel really good. So that is a big positive. Certainly I feel on top of the world right now. I’m riding the wave and I’m going to use it to my advantage.
“It’s a perfect timing because with my preparation, it’s coming at a perfect time.”
Pagenaud enters his 12th full-time season in the sport. Another thing going for Pagenaud is history. He’s proven that in a second season with a team, he’s on an elite level. That first year is tough. It’s about getting to know each other and learning what works and maybe what doesn’t. That second year, the puzzle is already there, it’s just putting those pieces from the first year that you had learned together.
No one better than Pagenaud at that.
His second full-time season came in 2013 with the then Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team. He went from 5th in points as a rookie in 2012 to third in 2013 which included his first career win (he had 2 in total). After another strong year in 2014, it led him to Team Penske starting in 2015.
That first year was a struggle. He finished 11th in points. The second season with Penske?
5 wins and a championship.
Interesting Stories
As always, there’s some great soundbites that come out of the media days. Here are a few:
Race Review Online 