Marcus Armstrong isn’t shy about the fact that he wants nothing more right now than to make the NTT INDYCAR SERIES home for the future. The icing on the cake would for it to be with his current team, Chip Ganassi Racing.

“Well, I mean, I haven’t exactly kept it a secret, but I’d love to stay here at Chip Ganassi Racing,” he said during the weekly INDYCAR zoom call ahead of this weekend’s race in Nashville. “I think I’ve been reasonably vocal about trying ovals for the first time. It would be a dream come true to compete at the Indy 500.”

Armstrong says that while the future isn’t up to him, his future is brighter with the better that he does on the track. The better he does, the better the options for him to remain.

“At the moment my focus is on just getting good results because my own results is going to help me in the long-term,” he continued.” Yeah, it’s not really in my hands on the contractual side, let’s say. All I can do is just compete at the maximum of my ability, try and stay present, which is fairly easy seeing as though it’s going well. The team, it’s a very enjoyable environment.

“I feel like it’s all training in the right direction. I just have to keep pumping out some good results.”

Present is what he’s been. Even when not racing, he’s still at the track and on his timing stand. He’s at the shop constantly learning. He’s a regular in the simulator trying to hone his skills. He’s doing everything that he can do in order to be a sponge and soak up all the information that he can so he can one day be among the next great drivers to come from New Zealand. So much so, he thinks a study needs to be done as to why?

Scott Dixon, Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen are just three recent examples of successful drivers who each hail from the small nation of 5.1 million.

Can Armstrong be the next?

That’s up to how he looks over the final four races.

Armstrong is a part-time rookie in INDYCAR this season. He’s only racing the road and street courses which means he’s missed out on the four oval events this year. However, even in saying that, he also currently leads the Rookie of the Year standings by 24 points over Agustin Canapino still too.

With only one oval left (August 27) at the World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, Armstrong knows that he’ll contest in four of the final five races meaning that if all goes to plan, the recently turned 23-year-old driver would take home the distinction of top rookie for the 2023 season with only running 12 of the 17 races.

That would be an impressive feat.

Armstrong has completed all but one lap this season (679-out-of-680). He’s had four top 10 finishes in eight starts but has been in the top 11 in 6 of those 8 in total too.

He’s averaging a finish of 11.62 but even better, he’s averaging a 12.25 starting spot.

A driver who’s never seen these tracks before and to be doing this that quickly, well that does enough talking for him in order to remain here in 2024.

First things first though is taking to the streets of Nashville for Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix (12 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). This will be the fifth and final street race of the season and luckily for Armstrong, he’s raced in all of the previous four.

He started 13th and finished 11th in the season opener at St. Pete. He then qualified 12th and finished eighth in his second career start at Long Beach. For Detroit, it was an 11th to 8th mark followed by 10th to 7th in Toronto.

The momentum is there, especially for the fact that he has 3 top 10 finishes in his last 4 starts and the one that he didn’t, was the race that he had the best shot at his best finish at in Road America.

“Certainly we are building some momentum just due to the fact that we haven’t really been making mistakes as a group, as the No. 11 team,” Armstrong said.

“Also personally, I don’t feel like I’ve made any errors. It’s just been sort of learning and trying to get as many laps under my belt in order to be in a better position towards the end of the season.”

Armstrong led five laps that day and went from his 8th place starting spot to the top five quickly. If not for a questionable strategy call, Armstrong surely would have competed for a possible podium that day.

Still, the momentum is on his side. The question now is, how much can he build momentum on a part-time basis?

“I mean, in a way I would love to sort of have the continuity of constantly racing, just chipping away at everything,” he told me on Tuesday afternoon.

“It isn’t difficult to sort of step in and out. I think throughout a season you always gain momentum and start to get into a rhythm.

“Obviously the two disciplines are very different, oval racing and street course racing. Whether or not one complements the other, I’m yet to find out.

“In any case, I’m at the races. I’m sitting on the stand. I’m doing everything but driving the car, so… I don’t feel like it’s messing with my own performance. If anything, it’s helping it because I actually get the time to sit back and chitchat with people that I wouldn’t normally get the chance to do, talk a bit more personally, let’s say, with my teammates and everyone that I work with just due to the fact that I have more time on my hands.

“INDYCAR weekends are very compact. You have a lot to do in a short amount of time. So having these weekends to actually sit back and communicate with everyone I think has been extremely beneficial, just to give myself a good perspective of the situation and why one guy is doing so well and what they all do differently.

“I think it’s been great either way.”

On the flip side, some can regard this as a detriment to his schedule, but there are some positives to be had too. When the field left Toronto last month, they had to quickly turn their focus to a doubleheader at Iowa. For Armstrong, his mind went further down the line to Nashville.

Where the teams have had 2 weeks preparing for Nashville, Armstrong has had three.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty much focused on the next circuit as soon as the race ends,” Armstrong told me. “I think in one way it’s good. They have to get straightaway back in the car, and I can get into the gym and do my normal prep. From a training standpoint, it’s quite good compared to them being constantly on a plane.

With how strong that he has truly been this season, Armstrong says that his goals remain tempered. He knows how difficult that it is in this series to win.

“I think it’s possible that we will have some very good results the next couple of races,” he told me again. “I’ve said that from the beginning of the season really, straightaway right after the pre-season test, there will be a time this year where I feel like everything’s going really well and I can achieve the result that I want.

“I feel like we will be able to compete for a podium, as we did at Road America. My target isn’t necessarily on, I want to win a race other I want to get podium, but I certainly want to be fast enough to win a race, then certainly be in the leading pack. Get into a good rhythm, sort of arrive at the next race weekend hitting the ground running and be at the pointy end.

“Once I get over that hurdle of learning the nuances of this championship, I think that will help me a lot in the future.”

In saying that, the first-year driver also notes that once the comfort is there, then watch out. The problem for the field, he’s almost there.

In order to take that next step, he’s been relying on veteran members around him. Between his teammates and even a coach like Dario Franchitti, Armstrong is relishing in the information that he’s privy to and the advise that is always available. In fact, he’d like them to be even tougher on him in order for him to know what that little bit is that can take him from top 10’s to podiums and wins.

“Yeah, Dario has been really, really great. I think I’ve probably been on the phone to him about five times over the course of the last five days, so… He’s great in every aspect really,” he says.

“He certainly points me in the right direction. I often say that he needs to be more harsh with me, like tell me what I’m doing wrong, because clearly I need to improve on stuff. But he seems to be very positive all the time about what we have been doing as a group and what I’ve been doing and how I’m progressing.

“He’s very observant. He understands the sport probably better than anyone. Equal with Scott Dixon, let’s say. So for him to be on my stand for the majority of the races this year, and also just to have a very good personal relationship with him is clearly an advantage.

“Yeah, we’re always trying to find things to improve, whether that be driving or whether that be managing the people around me. I feel like, yeah, it’s a huge advantage having him.”

Nashville could very well be that place that he puts it all together for a career-best result…again. He knows how strong Ganassi’s cars are on street courses, most notably here too, but it’s a place where he can take from his last outing in Toronto and apply here as well.

“Yes, CGR has won the races, which is not many, two at Nashville, which is always nice to know. Certainly we’ve got to get everything right,” he noted. “I feel like we have a lot to work on, which is in a way quite comforting because I feel like, despite having had top 10s in the previous races, we haven’t really done that great of a job, or personally I don’t feel like I have.

“Nashville provides an opportunity to try to learn from the things I did wrong at Toronto, which was a similar layout. Like I said, the continuity of street course racing is I think quite useful for me.”