Still Was A Penske vs. Ganassi Battle For Championship
Penske and Ganassi have combined to have won each of the last 11 series championships now. A year after going 1-2-3-4-5-6 in points, they just went 1-2-3-5-6-7.
They’ve won 14 of the 17 races this year and 47 of the 64 (73.4%) of the races with the Aeroscreen. Furthermore, if you go back to the 2022 Indy 500, they’ve combined to have won 24 of the last 30 (80%) of the races.
However, this season has taken a drastic turn between the two teams.
Last year, Penske won 9 of the 17 races and went 1-2-4 in points.
This year, Ganassi has won 9 of 17 races and had 1-2-6 in points. It was the first time since 2009 that they went 1-2 in points.
Last season, the Ganassi camp went 3-5-6 in points on the heels of four wins, one of which including the Indy 500. This year, Penske had 5 wins including the Indy 500 and finished 3-5-7 in points.
Still, while Penske is regarded as the top team ever in the sport with 236 wins and 295 poles compared to 131 wins and 95 to Ganassi, they’ve also been doing it for decades longer too. Ganassi is by all accounts, closing that gap back up.
If you go back to 1996, Penske leads Ganassi 140-131 in regards to trips to victory lane. In the two most important matrix, Indy 500 wins and championships, Penske leads 8-5 in trips to victory lane on Memorial Day weekend. However, Ganassi has doubled Penske up in championships 15-7 in that span as well.
This duo has ebbed and flowed with Penske winning 7 times in 2020 to 5 by Ganassi. In 2021, it was Ganassi with 6 wins and Penske with 3. Last year it was 9-4 and this year 8-5. It’s tied 24-24 in trips to victory lane between the two in this Aeroscreen era.
Penske outperformed Ganassi in 2022 only for Ganassi to pay them back.
Andretti Cars Fast When Not Self Destructing
Andretti Autosport said all the right things entering the season. Better strategy calls, better team, faster cars. Time to deliver. It initially started off really well. They were quick in the Thermal Test. Fast in Sebring. Then, when it counted, they had 3 cars in the Fast Six in St. Pete. Kirkwood crashed in that session but still was quick. A day later, Devlin DeFrancesco crashed on the first lap in getting airborne, Kyle Kirkwood got airborne in a separate incident later, Colton Herta crashed with Will Power and Romain Grosjean crashed while battling for the lead with Scott McLaughlin.
2023 looked a lot like 2022.
In the next race, Kirkwood crashed on pit road with Alexander Rossi, DeFrancesco crashed in Turn 3 and Grosjean crashed with two laps remaining.
Long Beach and Barber went better. They won Long Beach (1st, 2nd) and had the runner-up at Barber too.
Indy went awry. A dismal Month of May led to more carnage in Detroit with Kirkwood crashing in qualifying, getting ran over in the race and Grosjean finding the wall again also in that race.
For Road America, strategy got in the way of Herta winning from the pole. In Mid-Ohio, speeding on pit road left Herta without another win from the pole. At Portland, tires and speeding again on pit road kept Herta away from a top 10 despite qualifying P3.
Grosjean crashed in Toronto and Portland, Kirkwood ran over Helio Castroneves and DeFrancesco in Toronto and was out early too.
Iowa was ho-hum, Nashville was a win, Indy road course return they were just there and the rest of the season followed suit.
It goes to show that if they can maximize their potential, they have the speed. They just don’t have the luck.
O’Ward Close To A Breakout
Pato O’Ward was winless in 2023 and hasn’t won in his last 23 starts. However, it’s not like he’s not been close. He’s just missing that little bit that’s kept him from making the next leap from top 5 contender to a championship one.
O’Ward was almost the top Chevy driver this season. He’s finished 4th, 3rd, 7th, 4th in points in his four years in the series.
He’s honestly closing that gap to the big teams. The last 21 champions have hailed from the Penske, Ganassi or Andretti camps.
The last time a team other than the “Big 3” won a championship was Panther in 2002 with Sam Hornish Jr.
O’Ward’s only issue is not having a win with his crux this past season was being overly aggressive at times.
O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races of the season. He was 4th in 1 of the other 2 races. The one that he wasn’t was being overzealous in Long Beach.
The Indy 500 he was aggressive on the Lap 192 restart with Marcus Ericsson in Turn 3. He was first, slipped to third by time we got to Turn 1 and when trying to get back, he overstepped it. In Detroit, a bad pit stop while leading and pushing too hard to make up for it saw him catch the wall.
Take those three races out, his average finish on the season is 4.85.
He finished the season with results of 3rd, 8th, 8th, 3rd, 10th, 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 9th in the last 10 races.
RLL’s Fight Back
Detroit was the turning point of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s season. Coming off of a disappointing Indy 500 performance, then compounding that with a lack luster result on the streets of Detroit, RLL had finally had enough. Changes had to be made.
Good thing too. Over the final 10 races to the season, RLL showed that they’re on an ascension back to the top once again.
Bobby Rahal is a racer. Always has been. He’s won three CART titles. He won the 1986 Indy 500. His 24 career wins rank in a tie with Ralph DePalma for 18th all-time. He 18 poles are tied with Rex Mays for 17th. He knows how to win.
He also know how to be successful even without winning. His 37 runner-up finishes are fourth most ever. His 88 podiums are ninth all-time. His 119 top 10 finishes are 10th most.
So, for him to sit back and watch his team regress after spending millions on a new building in Zionsville was never going to happen. It was time to make some changes.
It was getting so bad, his own son was possibly going to move on from the family business.
That pressure and a lack of results was getting to Bobby. So, when he watched his son get bumped from the Indy 500 field by another one of his cars, something had to be done. 3 of the 4 cars started 30th or worse.
“We weren’t fast enough and that’s what race is all about is being fast enough. What are you going to do? I feel bad for him. You know, I feel worse for the cars we gave our drivers and we’ve got to get our act in order,” Bobby told me after Indy 500 qualifying.
A broken weight jacker was the reason Graham missed out.
Then, the next time out in Detroit, they massively missed it. They finished 14-15-26.
“I struggled after Detroit just to understand what was going on because you put it on pole in the beginning of May,” said Christian Lundgaard. “We have the 500. We were absolute last. We got into Detroit, and we just can’t find our feet.”
It was at this point to where Bobby Rahal was reeling himself. Not just professionally as a boss, but personally too. This downward spiral was taking a toll on his mind and body. He was on the verge of another breakdown.
“You know, we came out of Indy really very, very disappointed and really kind of — it would have been hard — you would have been hard-pressed to believe we actually won the race two years earlier, and now we’re on the back row, and one guy didn’t make it in the race. At least in our car,” Rahal admitted.
“That kind of shook us to our core I think, but I have to say I think, frankly, the race that maybe had a bigger negative affect was Detroit because we were just — we were not good at all.
“After Indy, the month of May took — I’m 70 years old, and the month of May took a real toll on me.
“I wasn’t sleeping well at night. We’re here to win. We’re not here to fricking play around or to be part of it. We’re here to win.
“I’m telling you, it was bad. So much so that I thought my physical health had been — you know, a year ago in June I had open heart surgery. This May, I mean, it knocked me back a few steps because I’m not here just to show up. I’m here to win.
“All the effort this young man and Graham and Jack and our team, everybody is working their butt off, and it haunted me. It pained me.
“That’s why I just said right after Indy, I said, we’re going to create and instill and initiate the Indy recovery plan, which we’re in the process of doing, which is all about looking into why we performed so poorly and fixing those issues so that next May we’re fighting for the pole, and that’s our goal.
“I’ve got great people to help me do that: Steve Eriksen, Stefano Sordo, Ricardo Nault.
“Anyway, May was hell for me. That’s why we made the decisions that we made, and they weren’t easy. I think we’re getting the results of those, but I don’t take any confidence that we’re there yet.
“That’s when we decided to make the changes that we made internally.”
Those changes have sparked a nice revival.
“I think we’re finally starting to make changes with the car, as I just said, that they’re responding the right way, the way you’d expect them to, and it’s nice. It’s nice to feel that,” Rahal said.
Lundgaard was a top 5 driver over the second half of the season. The second-year Danish driver had finished 14th or worse in 4 of the first 7 races.
Now, 10 races later, Lundgaard not only has another pole and netting his first career race win (Toronto), but he also has scored 6 top 10 finishes including 3 of which in the top four at that.
His average finishing spot in the first 7 races?
12.42.
The last 10 races?
9.2.
Qualifying is a big part of that. He started 11th, 27th, 17th, 6th, 1st, 31st, 18th in those first 7 races. Over the next 10, it’s been 7th, 5th, 1st, 20th, 21st, 13th, 2nd, 20th, 17th, 3rd.
He went from an average starting spot of 14.28 to 8.9.
Lundgaard’s worst results in this span are on ovals. The only four starts and finishes not in the top 10 over the last 10 races?
Iowa, Gateway and Portland.
Portland was because he was held up in qualifying but he’d rebound in the race to finish 11th.
Lundgaard has scored the fifth most points (328) on road and street courses this season trailing only Alex Palou (489) and Scott Dixon (402), Scott McLaughlin (342) and Pato O’Ward (330).
On ovals? He’s 20th with 62 points scored.
See the difference?
It’s ovals holding him back.
Graham Rahal is also making a nice resurgence too. He went from 0 poles in 105 races to 2 in the final 4 races of the season.
Rahal had no top 5 finishes, 2 top 10’s and finishes of 12th or worse in 5 of the first 3 races including 3 finishes of 22nd or worse.
Since?
Average start of 11.2 and an average finish of 15.1.
They look like they’re back on road and street courses. It’s ovals to where they need to make up ground. Does that continue for 2024?
Honda Shines On Road Courses, Chevy’s On Ovals
We all knew the sophomore class was going to be a good one and this year, we saw them win 3 of the 5 street courses. Kyle Kirkwood won at both Long Beach and Nashville while Christian Lundgaard was victorious in Toronto.
The future is bright with these two.
Honda went a perfect 5-for-5 on street courses and 6-for-7 on natural road courses. Chevy went nearly perfect 4-for-5 on ovals. With Kyle Kirkwood winning the final race on a street course in Nashville, he gave Honda a clean sweep on the city streets and their 7th straight win on them when dating back to last season even.
Also, Honda took 11 of the 15 podiums too. It went Ganassi-McLaren-Ganassi in St. Pete, Andretti-Andretti-Ganassi in Long Beach, Ganassi-Penske-McLaren in Detroit, RLL-Ganassi-Andretti in Toronto and now Andretti-Penske-Ganassi in Nashville.
That’s 6 podiums for Ganassi, 4 for Andretti, 2 for Penske and McLaren each and 1 for RLL.
On ovals, Chevy flipped the script. The podium in Texas went Newgarden-O’Ward-Palou. for The Indy 500, it was Newgarden-Ericsson-Ferrucci. In both Iowa races, it was Newgarden-McLaughlin-O’Ward and Newgarden-Power-Palou. For World Wide Technology Raceway, it went Dixon-O’Ward-Malukas.
That’s 6 Penske podiums, 4 for Ganassi, 3 for McLaren and 1 each for Foyt and DCR. 10 of 15 podiums belonging to Chevy.
Chevy led 492 of 500 laps in Iowa, they led 218 of 250 at Texas and 130 of 200 laps at Indy.
For natural road courses, it was all Penske and Ganassi. They combined to win all 7 but it was Ganassi winning 6 of the 7.
Penske went 4-for-5 on ovals, Ganassi went 6-for-7 on natural road courses.
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