Will Scott Dixon Ever Win 7th Championship?

Scott Dixon is showing no signs of slowing down. While he flashes glimpses of maybe this being it, Dixon quickly then shows why you can never question him. However, will he ever snag that record tying seventh championship?

There’s no doubt that his career is winding down. I mean he’s been doing this for two decades now. His wins aren’t coming quite as often. But he still found himself in a position last year for his 6th straight finish in the top 4 of points and 16th time in the last 17 years. Do that long enough you’ll find titles. But can he keep doing that?

His first three titles came in five-year increments. 2003, 2008, 2013. Then, he exploded with championships won in 2015, 2018 and again in 2020. That’s three championships in a six year span including 2 of the last 5.

Dixon, has reached victory lane just three times in his last 39 starts.

What’s crazy is, from July 2019 through August 2020 (Gateway 1), Dixon had 11 podiums in a 15 race span. Among those 11 top three finishes were five wins and five runner-ups. Over the last 39 races, Dixon has had just 3 wins (Texas 1 in 2021, Toronto, Nashville), one runner-up (Nashville 2021) and only 10 podiums.

The thing is, despite being in this position, it’s not like his season has been all that “off.” Dixon still has 20 top five finishes and 33 top 10’s. The only thing absent has been turning those top fives results into podiums.

But, the thing also is, if cautions and/or bad luck came differently too, Dixon may not be behind either. He may be the one in the drivers seat instead.

For Texas 2 in 2021, Dixon was well in control of a weekend sweep until Jack Harvey brought out an ill-timed caution for him while he was leading. Same thing in that Indy 500 when Stefan Wilson’s pit road crash on the opening sequence cost Dixon dearly. He hadn’t pit yet and ran out of fuel while coming to pit road. His car wouldn’t refire and he’d lose a lap as a result of trying to get it going again. After dominating the Month of May, he’d finish 17th instead. He was caught in a crash not of his doing in Gateway last year too while running in the top 10.

Just think of where he’d be if those three instances went differently. This past year, think of what happens if he doesn’t speed on his final pit stop while leading the Indy 500.

That’s why I say that if luck flipped its script for Dixon, he’d be on the verge of a historic season this year.

Time is against him though for that 7th. Just 10 times has someone won the title at 41 years of age or older. Three drivers were 42. One was 43 and four more were 44. No one was 45 while two drivers won at 46.

Among the drivers to be crowned a champion at 41 years old and up, only one came since 1990. With his stats declining and the trends not being on his side, this is a legitimate question.

Will Foyt End Decade Long Winless Drought?

For the 6th time in the last 7 years a new driver (Benjamin Pedersen) is in the 2nd AJ Foyt car. Same for the primary (No. 14) – Santino Ferrucci. How much does all this driver turnover cost them on track performance? Does having 2 new drivers in 2023 force them to take another step back?

They hope not. See, for this once storied organization, they’re going to keep tweaking with the whole structure until they can find some footing. It’s something that has escaped them in the last several years and for this time around, they feel like they’ve got the right people in place.

There’s been some new hires not only driving the cars, but in house 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.”

Larry Foyt said last Fall that he doesn’t expect to necessarily win right away. It’s going to take some time still to gel. However, there are certain places that he does feel to where they can excel and maximize their growth quicker than others.

“Well, what I’d say is we know there are certain types of tracks that we feel we should show well,” Foyt said. “I think for us our strengths are certainly road and street courses. As always, we put an emphasis on the Indy 500, so we’ll continue to work on that program and make sure that we can do the best we can at Indianapolis.

“Then it’s, okay, where do we improve. I think permanent road courses have been a struggle for us, especially smoother tracks, so we’re certainly deep diving into damper programs to see what we’re lacking to make grip on that type of circuit.

“Again, a lot of rules aren’t changing from last year, so I think everyone tries to build on what they’re doing well, make it even better, but also what are weaknesses and how we make that better.

“The engineers have a lot of work over the winter to do on that, and that’s kind of our focus.”

If not this year, then surely in 2024. It takes time to gel and I’ll give 2023 as a learning season for Ferrucci, Pedersen and Foyt. Even saying so, Ferrucci is so good, so fast, that I can’t see him not showing flashes of contention in some races. 2024 he could be there more consistent.

It’s more about Ferrucci taking this car and maximizing it as a veteran.

“The tough thing was there were plenty of races I think we showed some speed, and we couldn’t capitalize,” Foyt continued. “We had too many accidents. At Texas Kyle was running well and we have a crash. You get kind of beat down because you start — you’re fixing cars all the time, and the guys get tired, and it’s kind of a domino effect.

“It certainly made it tough, and all of a sudden you’re like we’re back in the points and we’re trying to climb out of it, and it certainly was frustrating and disappointing because we did come in with a lot of optimism.

“But that’s motor racing. You don’t give up. None of the guys gave up, kept going, and even I know Kyle was frustrated, but through all of our talks, he just wanted to push on.

“That was just unfortunate, but that’s part of racing, and sure, we wanted more out of it, but that’s the way it went, and now we start to where we’re looking forward, not backwards.”

Ferrucci agreed in what he saw out of this group.

“I mean, the biggest thing is when I talked to Larry, spent a lot of time on the phone with him, talked about this,” he said. “The car has shown speed this year, without a doubt. It’s had its moments of brilliance. It’s about how to make it consistent.

“The car also didn’t finish a lot of races because he had a rookie in the car. Bringing the team back into consistency. Are we going to show up in St. Pete and light the world on fire? Absolutely not. Are we going to start with realistic goals, put the car in the top 10, seeing how consistent we can be? Yeah, without a doubt.

“It’s going to be a new team for me. It’s going to be completely reorganized by the time we start our winter prep, which has already started. I’m now about join.

“It’s one of those things where we’re going to get the most out of this if we stay realistic and we stay consistent. Talking to Larry about it, I think we can bring in a couple of good engineers, me being based in Texas, I can spend a lot of time with the team, make sure our pit stops are good, building the cars to top quality.

“Like I said, all we got to do is go out there and perform and see what it gives us, go from there.”

It marks the 2nd time in 4 years that Foyt will roll out a completely new driver lineup. Foyt says that the turnover of that magnitude doesn’t have as much of an impact as it once would have.

“Well, I think what we’re seeing is without the rules changing as much right now, I think it is different back in a time where maybe there’s a new chassis or some really new rule developments. I think everyone has brought this car down to such a level — we’ve had virtually the same car here for a little while.

“So your basic setups, you’re not going to reinvent the whole wheel. You do have driver preferences, so whether it’s Kanaan or Bourdais or Kirkwood, they do have some little things that you’re going to have to tune around the driver.

“I’m not really that concerned about it because I think you see these kids — Indy Lights drivers come in and do really well. We saw what Malukas did, we saw Kyle show speed plenty of times. Veterans are great, but rookies coming out of Indy Lights have shown really, really well, too, and I think Benjamin is going to jump right in and be just fine.”

Pedersen is only 23. Ferrucci is just 24. Foyt has a young pairing that can last for years if they do this right.

Will Anyone Top The “Big 2?”

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?

They’re chasing them. Penske’s drivers haven’t done much this offseason but it doesn’t mean that they’re not studying to get better. Will Power isn’t even thinking about last year’s title. Josef Newgarden is pissed to finish second in points for three straight years and doing everything in his power to seal up the title by time we even get to the final round. Scott McLaughlin is hopeful to continue his upward trajectory and sees no reason after studying his weaknesses to improve even further.

That sounds like a hard team to top.

However, everyone is has made updates to their teams.

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.”

Good luck breaking that bubble. However, if someone does, who is it?

Most years, Andretti Autosport would make the most sense. But, are they ready? 3 of their 4 drivers on a full-time level have one full season under their belt. Romain Grosjean ran part-time in 2021 and full-time in 2022. Both Kyle Krikwood and Devlin DeFranceso were rookies a year ago. Colton Herta is their lead driver. Can he lead them to a title?

Andretti however, is the only other organization to have won a championship outside of the Penske and Ganassi camps since 2003 though.

Which is why I pause to wonder if anyone outside of these three organizations can truly lead a driver to an Astor Cup this Fall.

That trio has combined to have won 38 of the last 46 races now (78%) and the last 20 championships.

In 2020, Penske, Ganassi and Andretti combined to have won 13 of the 14 races. A year prior it was 13-for-17. The only 4 that they didn’t win was 2 by Harding Steinbrenner Racing and Colton Herta but they were aligned with Andretti, so it very well could fall under the Andretti umbrella and 2 by Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan and Takuma Sato.

In 2018, they won 5 of the final six races with the exception being RLL and Sato again. If you go back to the second race of the season in 2018, they won 14 of the last 16 races of 2018 factoring in SPM’s Iowa win with James Hinchcliffe.

14-for-16 in 2018, 13-for-17 in 2019, 13-for-14 in 2020. 12-for-16 in 2021. They just went 15-for-17 last season too.

So breaking down the barrier to these three teams is difficult.

“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.”

However, does Andretti’s youth and F1 dreams cloudy their path? In wake of that, Arrow McLaren could rise to that challenge instead. In all actuality, they’ve showed more consistent pace than Andretti over the past 2 seasons. They also tied Andretti, 2-2, in wins last season. It was 3-2 in favor of Andretti in 2021.

Now, in saying that, can AMSP seriously threaten the “Big 2” or does Andretti steal that thunder back?

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.

RLL made a strong end of season push as well. Graham Rahal had 5 top 10 starts in his last 9 starts to the season in comparison to 3 in first 7. The Ohio native also has scored 5 top 10’s in the last 8 races at that. His teammate Christian Lundgaard has 7 top 11 finishes over the last 10 races on the year. He had just 3 in the first 7. He was runner-up in the July 30 Gallagher Grand Prix, 8th in Nashville and 5th in the season finale at Laguna Seca. Also if not for a couple of bad pit stops and a run-in at the end of the race at Portland with Rossi, he would have had at the very least a top 5 there too.

RLL has 2 of the next four in the standings outside of the top 10 and are hoping to build upon that end of season surge. Is the gap from the top 2 from the rest increasing or is there some jockeying in the middle?

“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?

MSR also has made some personnel changes but both drivers also feel improved from 2022 as well.

“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.

Is Will Power Underappreciated Within His Own Team?

Scott McLaughlin is everyone’s sexy pick to win this year’s championship. Josef Newgarden is annually the one to pick too. However, are we dismissing Will Power’s prowess?

He worked the system flawlessly a year ago. While he only had 1 victory, he did have 9 podiums in 17 races and took home an easy title. Now, coming into 2023, Newgarden has 2 championships but no Indy 500’s and dubbed as an all-time great. McLaughlin hasn’t won a title or an Indy 500. Power has 2 championships, the pole record and an Indy 500 triumph.

Maybe he’s the leader of this team after all.

How Many Combined Wins For The Super sophomores?

We have 5 sophomores in this field in 2023 and it’s worth wondering how many of them will win this upcoming season. Each had their moments in 2022 and I can see at least 2 or 3 of them finding victory lane in their second years.

David Malukas was the top finishing rookie in the Indy 500 and while he only had 3 top 10 finishes, the speed was there. He had qualified in the top 10 5 times and showed the pace that it takes to win. Most of the time it was slower pit stops which took him from top 10 results to top 15. Now that he’s had a full year under his belt, watch out.

Christian Lundgaard was the rookie of the year. He had 2 Top-11 finishes in the first 7 races. He had 7 in the final 9 including a runner-up at Indy. A 2nd full time season in this car could do him wonders.

Callum Ilott and Devlin DeFrancesco each are back with their respective teams while Kyle Kirkwood was the only one among them to swap organizations but he moves from Foyt to Andretti. The all-time winningest Road to Indy driver shifts over to the No. 27 Dallara-Honda in replacing the departing Rossi. We witnessed what Rossi could do with this car and saw just how good Kirkwood can be in his rookie year with AJ Foyt Racing. Now imagine what Kirkwood can do with an Andretti seat in INDYCAR.

I think this crop is set for a further breakout in 2023.