SALINAS, Calif — It’s customary to talk the next season when you get to the current seasons’ final race. Even more so with the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship already wrapped up. How could you not talk 2024. Especially with a slew of driver announcements over the last month.

Here’s a timeline on how this all played out.

July 2022: Ganassi announces that they have exercised Alex Palou’s option for 2023. Hours later, Palou says not so fast and that he not only wouldn’t return, but they’d be going to McLaren instead.

Last summer, you can tell Palou wasn’t happy with Ganassi. He felt like he was being devalued. Ganassi felt like Palou was getting greedy. It wasn’t a good place.

McLaren danged the F1 carrot over Palou and it was enough for him to want to leave. See, Ganassi took a chance on Palou in the Fall of 2020. With Palou wanting to drive for Ganassi, Ganassi in turn knew Palou needed him more than Ganassi needed Palou.

Ganassi likes winners and was impressed with what Palou did with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020. So he felt like he would give Palou a two-year contract with a team option for the third. It gave Palou stability for a couple of years to prove he belonged and Ganassi gave Palou the equipment and resources to shine in this opportunity.

In year 1, they won the championship. Palou felt like it was time to pay him like the driver that he was. Ganassi felt like Palou signed a contract and he needed to honor it.

So, with being disgruntled, Palou sought out a way to get out of his contract. In came McLaren. In came a team with an INDYCAR ride and two cars in F1. With what Palou says next, you can tell F1 was offered…

“I said it many times that it was not my fully focus,” Palou admitted last Sunday after scoring his 2nd championship in 3 years. “Then when an opportunity came, I had to go for it, I felt.

“At the same time I know I’m not 21 or 19. I’m already 26, which is good. I’m not saying I’m old, but I mean, it’s not that I’m super young.

“So next year I’ll be 27. If an opportunity comes in the future, which is like really, really small chances, I’ll think about it for sure, 100%.”

However, Ganassi fought this. He maintained that he had a contract with Palou that was airtight. Meanwhile, the deadline for McLaren to keep Felix Rosenqvist was coming up and with Ganassi’s case looking strong, it was best for both parties to settle.

Palou stays for 2023 but can do F1 tests with McLaren. Rosenqvist as a result would stay too.

With a happy Palou, he went out and won this very race last season by 30 seconds. That was the start of what transpired in a wild path.

Winter 2022/Early 2023: Everyone felt like Linus Lundqvist was going to DCR. But the scholarship money wasn’t as much as he once thought. He told Sting Ray Robb that during a workout at PitFit.

Lundqvist mentioned to Sting Ray Robb that he may not be in the No. 51 Dallara-Honda for 2023 as everyone was expecting. So much so, Robb didn’t even have the seat with Dale Coyne Racing on his radar because most thought that it was a formality that Lundqvist, the reigning Indy NXT champion would be heading to the team that he won the 2022 title with.

Robb was focused on a few other rides.

Unfortunately for Lundqvist, yes he had scholarship money, but it wasn’t enough to land him that seat on a full season basis. Robb only learned of that fact while talking with Lundqvist during a workout.

“I assumed Linus was locked into the seat,” Robb admitted during the preseason INDYCAR content days this winter in Thermal. “Obviously he had a good year. With the HMD association, I just assumed that was a perfect shoe-in.

“But I actually was at PitFit Training one day with Linus and discovered that was not the case. That created an opportunity for us that allowed me to call up my manager, Peter Rossi, and get him on the phone, and he immediately called Dale and said, hey, we’re available.

“I think there was a mutual understanding of what availability was for either one of us. That’s when conversations began with testing options, et cetera, because at that point he had already committed to testing Marcus in the car and Daniel in the car at the Sebring test in the late off-season last year in 2022.

“Then we had a really good test in 2023 right at the beginning of January, and I think that was kind of the one that set the tone that allowed me to get in the seat.”

That in turn moved Lundqvist to the sidelines. Nothing in the works for the upcoming season.

Some may then say, well why not go back to Indy NXT if you’re Lundqvist and just win another title or at least stay in front of these teams. Robb says that unfortunately, you can’t. The risk is too large in doing so.

“Yeah, staying another year in Indy Next would have been a bigger risk than reward because there was a tire compound change that didn’t allow for any teams to have any data from the past,” he noted.

“Driving for Andretti last year I was able to lean on the data from past champions that they had run, as well as have past knowledge of where to brake, where to shift, all the stuff that we can go back and review and then over time find out what the best way is to grow in those areas, et cetera.

“With the new tire compound you don’t know who’s going to be the best team, who’s going to be the quickest. We saw at the Homestead test recently that the teams that were on top were not the teams that have been there in the past. They’re new. The Andretti guys were not the ones that were at the top. That’s not to say that they won’t figure it out, but it’s a risk that you take.

“Let’s say that I finish third or fourth in the championship rather than second or first. That lowers my stock value, so it creates an opportunity that’s not as welcoming for me to step into INDYCAR because I don’t have that high of a value after that.

“There’s been drivers in the past. To name one, I think is Santi Urrutia. He was a driver that did really well in his rookie season and from there he just didn’t win the championship, but the only place he could have gone was higher.

“So to not finish as well as he did or even finish the same, it doesn’t show that he’s got the ability to move up to the next level.”

May 2023: The top dominos was Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson. Even for much of this season, everyone kind of thought Palou was essentially on his final leg at Ganassi. He was going to McLaren for 2024. Ganassi couldn’t afford to lose both Palou and Ericsson who at the time on the Month of May, sat 1-2 in points.

Sometimes it feels good to feel wanted. Ericsson felt like he was the third fiddle at Chip Ganassi Racing. While Ganassi didn’t see it that way, he understood. With Ericsson wanting to be a paid driver and rewarded for being among the top drivers in the series today, Ganassi knew he had some work on his hands.

Palou and Dixon have won 3 of the last 4 series championships now. They’re generational talents. Then you have Marcus Armstrong who’s 26 points ahead of scoring the top rookie honors despite missing five races due to not running on ovals this season.

Where does Ericsson fit in?

He’s owed big money. Ganassi has always had to have funding to hand out big paydays. With Ericsson wanting to feel comforted, Ganassi didn’t have anything big to offer him…yet.

“Yeah, I want him to stay. Yeah, I’m working hard to do it,” Chip Ganassi said of Marcus Ericsson during the Fast Friday press conference this past May.

So what was the hold up? Ganassi says the same thing as everything else.

“I’m not a big guy to be talking about our deals or our contracts or anything, but Marcus has a big future in the sport, and I want it to be on this team, sure, “he said on that fateful May day. “Yeah, we just need to finalize some sponsorship, and away we go.”

Ericsson is a big talent and other teams knew then that he was possibly going to be available in 2024. Why would they not want to discuss options to gain his services?

“Like everyone else, we have paid close attention to Marcus’ success in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and have been impressed with how quickly he proved that he belonged with the frontrunners in what is arguably the most competitive INDYCAR field ever,” said Michael Andretti. “It’s no secret that we want to win races and Championships and to do that we need drivers like Marcus who have that natural talent and determined drive.”

It wasn’t like Ganassi gave up. He was still actively searching for funding to make this happen.

June 2023: David Malukas says he’s leaving his family team for 2024 and going off on his own to find a new ride.

July 1, 2023: Simon Pagenaud barrel rolls several times in practice at Mid-Ohio and as a result, will miss the rest of the season due to injury.

August 2023: Ericsson was allowed to start speaking to other teams on Aug. 1. Malukas was close to a deal with ECR to drive the No. 20.

“Yeah, I will not be returning to my team,” Malukas said. “It’s nothing from the team side. I love everybody there, from the engineers to the mechanics. It’s just for my future with what I want, to Dale (Coyne), things have been different from what kind of our views align. I’m wanting to go elsewhere.”

Malukas was taking a leap of faith. He said then that he has nothing signed yet. Nothing at the moment is guaranteed. However, something could be brewing too…

“There’s nothing signed. But, yes, there is something, but not guaranteed,” he says. “Haven’t signed yet. There is nothing signed. I’m still, like, free with anything, yeah.

 “I will know more in the next coming weeks. It’s still kind of, like, we’re interested but there’s nothing.”

Meanwhile, Felix Rosenqvist knew the writing was on the wall. Palou was taking his seat. Even if the rumors were true about a change of heart, someone else was going to replace him.

“I think somewhere a couple months ago, I started having some bad results. We had a lot of DNF’s and stuff. Kind of things out of my control. You get to a point where you have to settle something for next year. It’s obviously stressful. I think that actually got to me a bit.”

That had to be around the month of June for that. A crash in the Indy 500 while running in the top 5 left him in 27th. 20th in Road America, a first lap crash at Mid-Ohio left him 25th, 10th in Toronto, 13th in Race 1 at Iowa, 22nd in Nashville, 27th in the Gallagher Grand Prix. Rosenqvist felt like the team was moving on from him anyways.

“I think it was pretty clear at some point that it wasn’t like a clear call. I had a feeling they were going to move on with someone else. I had to guard myself against that,” Rosenqvist admitted.

“We’ve seen so many drivers, even like Bourdais, Hunter-Reay, good drivers all of a sudden they won’t have a seat. It can happen with champions, 500 winners.”

Rosenqvist was growing tired of this every year uncertainty anyways.

His suspicions about Palou was true. The first weekend of that month too, Palou felt like he was having a change of heart.

With McLaren on the F1 side looking much stronger and having two drivers on the first year of new contracts and both being 23 years of age or younger, the F1 aspirations for Palou was looking more and more slim, at least with McLaren.

With 2024 looking like he’d be in the McLaren INDYCAR camp, Palou started to wonder why he was making this move in the first place. Why leave a championship winning organization for another team in the paddock?

With Ganassi, Palou has 9 wins and 23 podiums in 49 starts. McLaren has 4 wins as a whole in that same span.

It makes little sense to leave a ride of this caliber. Nothing against McLaren but doing so would be a downgrade.

McLaren seemed like it dangled the F1 carrot but couldn’t deliver on that promise. Palou was waking up from his stupor. A top 8 finish in every race since he and Ganassi patched things up, why leave this team for McLaren in INDYCAR?

Aug. 11, 2023: Palou sent a letter to McLaren. He wasn’t coming anymore.

Aug. 12, 2023: Meanwhile, Linus Lundqvist is filling in for Pagenaud and shining. He qualified 11th in Nashville and had a top 10 going until a late race crash. For this particular race weekend, he qualified 14th and finished 12th.

Aug. 23, 2023: Ericsson signs with Andretti. While Ganassi offered, Andretti did too and by time Ganassi put a contract in front of Ericsson, he was already down the line with Andretti.

“I was quite clear I wanted to have an offer for a long time, and like he had said to you, he gave me an offer, but I had already sort of made up my mind then,” Ericsson said after Friday’s practice session at Laguna Seca, the site of this weekend’s 2023 season finale.

Ganassi felt like he had a great offer but was turned down. That’s a first. However, he also understood and is why both he and Ericsson will remain friends despite splitting up once the checkered flag drops in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network).

“Yeah, for sure. I’m very thankful for Chip and everyone at Chip Ganassi Racing for the opportunity there,” Ericsson said. “I’ve had four amazing years together with them and we won the biggest race in the world, so we end on good terms.

“With that said, I’m super excited about that new chapter that I’m about to start next year. I think that’s going to be great for me. I think it’s going to be a great fit.

“I’m super excited about that, but like I said, very thankful, and ending on very good terms with Chip and Chip Ganassi Racing.”

Aug. 31, 2023: Lundqvist signs with Ganassi. With Ericsson leaving and Lundqvist shining with MSR, it was a perfect fit.

Sept. 2023: With MSR having an open ride now, Rosenqvist felt like he might as well seek it out. “Well, I think, like most of us, we don’t like to admit that we’re struggling or being under pressure,” Rosenqvist said. “Obviously I’ve been in the situation for quite a long time where I don’t really know what my future’s going to hold. I always kind of played it off like, It’s fine, I got it under control.”

Sept. 1, 2023: Rosenqvist agrees with MSR and says on Friday in Portland he’ll have an announcement in 2-6 days. He finishes 2nd in the race with all pressure off.

Sept. 2, 2023: Grosjean confirms he won’t be back with Andretti in 2023.

Sept. 3, 2023: Chip Ganassi didn’t waste much time in saying that Alex Palou will be back in the No. 10 Dallara-Honda in 2024 to defend his NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship.

“Alex Palou’s going to be in our car,” Ganassi boasted. “I can tell you that.”

Sept. 5, 2023: Rosenqvist to MSR is formally announced.

Sept. 7, 2023: Marcus Armstrong is announced to stay with Ganassi but on a full-time basis in 2024.

Sept. 8, 2023: With Rosenqvist at MSR, Friday supposed to being the official unveiling of Palou to McLaren and now he’s staying with Ganassi, Malukas was available and was named as Rosenqvist’s replacement.

It’s why he started 2022 off with 3 podiums in 4 starts. Then word came out that Palou was looking to leave. Drama set in. Over the next 12 races, Palou had just 2 podiums. But, even with the legal battles, Palou was delivering top 10’s in 8 of the 12 starts too. Imagine what he could do with full access and a happy live again.

Now, there’s plenty more left to connect further when they do.