INDIANAPOLIS — Coming into May’s GMR Grand Prix race weekend, one of the things I was wondering was if both Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow Mclaren Racing could improve on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

Arrow McLaren and Chip Ganassi Racing are two of the top organizations in the entire NTT INDYCAR SERIES paddock. However, they’ve both struggled on this road course over the years. Then, they went out on May and took 5 of the top 6 finishing spots including a clean sweep of the podium.

The question now is, can they back that up?

At that point, McLaren was rolling. Pato O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races. Felix Rosenqvist had three straight top 10’s while Alexander Rossi had 3 top 8 finishes in the first 5 races himself.

Since?

Rossi has 2 top 8’s over the last 8 races, Rosenqvist has 3 top 10’s in the same span while O’Ward has just 2 top 5’s, both 3rd place finishes, since as well.

Can they turn it back on this weekend?

“Over the past few races, we’ve experienced a few struggles,” admitted Rossi. “But motorsport is never a straightforward journey; it’s a test of resilience. As we return to the site of our last podium, it reminds us that every race is an opportunity to learn and grow. We’re going to harness that past success.”

Arrow McLaren Racing actually qualifies really well here. They just hadn’t finished all that well. Rosenqvist was 6th in last year’s May race and 9th last July but had more speed in it. O’Ward had two 5th placed finishes in his last 5 starts here. What’s baffling is, O’Ward also had four top 5 starting spots in his last five starts here too prior to this past May, but three of his last four finishes were 12th or worse.

They went out and saw O’Ward qualify fifth and finish second, Rosenqvist start on the front row (2nd) and finish fifth while Rossi came from 10th to take the final spot on the podium in 3rd for his 6th top 7 finish in his last 8 tries on this course including 5 of which in the top 4. He’s the defending race winner of this event.

What do they do this time around?

“Back in May, we had the best performance we’ve ever had on the Indy road course,” O’Ward quipped. “It will be awesome to go back to try and repeat that podium.”

Rosenqvist agreed.

“I’m happy to be back at our home track,” he says. “We had a great race here in May with all three cars. I love this track, and we’ll do everything we can to have that same success and get that first win for the team.”

Chip Ganassi Racing was always the far opposite. They didn’t qualifying well here as of late but finished better instead. Basically, meeting the McLaren’s in the middle.

Coming into May, they had just 5 total podiums here with only two of which since the Aeroscreen was adopted in 2020. Then Alex Palou went out and kicked everyone’s ass by winning by 16.8006-seconds.

Palou has always had a fast car here. In the May prior, he was up front before going off course in the rain. The race prior in Aug. 2021, he had a podium going before his engine blew. He was third in the race that nothing went wrong. Then went out and stomped the field when nothing truly went awry all day.

In the case of Scott Dixon, the good? 12 top 10 finishes in 14 starts. That includes a sixth place result in May. The bad? Jus one of the last six finishes here have been better than 8th either.

Prior to that, he did have four consecutive top two finishes here. It’s qualifying that’s holding him back with his last seven qualifying efforts being 12th, 15th, 16th, 26th, 21st, 20th, 9th respectively.

Like Dixon, Marcus Ericsson finishes well, but not always in the top 5 here. In 9 starts, he has 6 top 10 finishes. However, just 1 of those 6 he’s finished in the top 5 (4th May 2022). Qualifying has been his crux too. He’s started 9th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 15th, 11th, 18th, 25th and 7th respectively.

Then you have rookie Marcus Armstrong. He qualified 11th and finished 15th in May. Now that he’s seen this track before, watch out.

The onus is, can they keep Penske at bay?

Ganassi won 5 of the 1st 9 races to the season but 0-for-4 since.

Penske meanwhile has won 2 of the last 3 and had runner-up last time out.

Heading into the 2020 season, Penske had won the May race in 5 of the 6 years that it was around including having every winner of it under their umbrella (Simon Pagenaud won the inaugural race for SPM in 2014). Then, Scott Dixon went out and whooped the field in July 2020 in winning by nearly 20 seconds over second place. That ended the Penske reign. They’ve not won that race since.

Penske went 3-7-20 that July 2020 race. In 2021, they were 4-6-8-11. For 2022, they went 3-20-25 while being 7-12-16 this past May.

However, they’ve been so good in the return trips.

Josef Newgarden led 34 of 85 laps in his win during the first doubleheader race of the Harvest Grand Prix race weekend in 2020. A day later, Will Power led all 75 laps in victory.

In August 2021, Power led 56 of 85 laps in another win. Last year, he finished third in that summer race. The question now is, why are they so good outside of May here and do they have something up their sleeves again?

What about Rahal. They had all 3 cars in the top 8 of the starting lineup in May, had Rahal on the front row at Mid-Ohio last month and Christian Lundgaard on the pole here the last time out and not only winning the pole in Toronto, but the race too.

Andretti Autosport had a rough go of it in May but they swept both races a year ago too. How much of a factor will they be?

That’s why I expect this weekend to be somewhat of a barnburner.