Ah, it’s like a kid at Christmas. In February. Close enough.
The Motorsport off-season and winter of mild discomfort is just about over, and we’re almost ready to get going again with the 2025 seasons of our three major series here, F1 on March 16th, and MotoGP and IndyCar on March 2nd.
For Part 1 of what we call #SeasonPreviewSeason here on Motorsport101, I’m going to give you a guide to everything IndyCar you’ll need for the 2025 season, including the calendar, the 500 one-off entries, the rumours for certain seats in the field, and the state of the sport as a whole.
Stick around, next week, I’ll be doing the same for MotoGP, and again for Formula 1 in early March. There’ll also be Podcast versions of all of these wherever you get your audio from in the coming weeks!
So without further ado, here’s The Haters Guide to the 2025 IndyCar Season!
The Calendar And Cleanup Stuff
1 – St Petersburg (March 2nd)
2 – Thermal Club (March 23rd)
3 – Long Beach (April 13th)
4 – Alabama (May 4th)
5 – Indy Road Course (May 10th)
6 – 109th Indianapolis 500 (May 24th)
7 – Detroit (June 1st)
8 – Gateway (June 15th)
9 – Road America (June 22nd)
10 – Mid-Ohio (July 6th)
11/12 – Iowa (July 12/13th)
13 – Toronto (July 20th)
14 – Laguna Seca (July 27th)
15 – Portland (August 10th)
16 – Milwaukee (August 24th)
17 – Nashville (August 31st)
You can tell from the start that FOX has been involved in shaping this calendar. We’re done in August. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they want to avoid the NFL in early September, which is the ultimate ratings killer. More on them later.
There are some grievances I have to air here. Firstly, Gateway moves from August to June 15th; which means a direct clash with the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which rules out all the IndyCar crossovers like Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Colton Herta and more. That sucks. And I don’t buy the tight schedule as an excuse either when we still have this slow start to the year with just four races in the first two months.
The Thermal Club is now a full Championship round despite its… lukewarm reception last year. Milwaukee is only a single-header but keeps its spot after a better-than-expected turnout in 2024. Oh, and there’s a gauntlet in the middle of the calendar, with just one off-week between Gateway on June 15th and Laguna Seca on July 27th. This is brutal for all involved, even if the travel is similar to NASCAR and easier in theory.
Charters: After all the teasing and negotiating between the series and the teams, the series now has a charter system. If you’re new here or missed it last year, charters guarantee protection to be on the grid for the entire season outside of the Indy 500, which directly adds value to the team. Thankfully, the 25-8 rule of years past was removed from the table, and guaranteed Indy 500 spots are no longer available.
We’ve already seen the charter system utilised as Ed Carpenter Racing sold a percentage of theirs to find new investment. The system itself was thrashed out on a “3-22-25-27” system as Marshall Pruett nicknamed it:
3 – Charters per team / 22 – Leader’s Circle bonus spots / 25 – Charters across the grid / 27 – Max Grid Size
They’ll still be a seven-figure payout for the 22 highest finishing Leader’s Circle cars, and only 25 charters for the whole grid, which essentially means everyone but PREMA, the only non-chartered team that’s licensed to race. They’ll be fine as long as no one else wishes to compete across the season, as the grid for all non-500 races is now capped at 27 cars.
FOX: The series has a new television home on FOX for 2025 and they’ve already made some big splashes entering the series. First up, all the races will be live across their channels. On top of that, all of Indy NXT will also be featured on side channels as well, a potentially huge deal in terms of getting more eyeballs on the junior scene. There’s already been an announcement that Will Buxton will be moving stateside from F1 TV to front the broadcasts and be commentating again, alongside James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell, both retentions from the previous deal. As mentioned before, I quite like the move. Buxton’s always been a fan of the series and appreciated it for what it is, which in IndyCar circles is already half the battle. Not the biggest TB fan, but Hinchcliffe is excellent so I think it’ll all be fine.
Also, the TV promos have *mostly* been terrific. I’ll post all three of them across this guide, but here’s the ad for Alex Palou:
Now, I have to acknowledge and make an apology here after doing some reflection on some of social media posts – I glossed over a serious problem with Pato O’Ward’s promo, that run during the Superbowl. FOX referring to Pato’s fans who identify as women as “groupies”, was a step too far. I’m glad to an extent that FOX has leaned into the attractiveness of the drivers. There’s something to that, and I’m glad it’s not totally taboo. I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality as a cisgendered man that Josef Newgarden is a beefcake with a gorgeous wife and kid. It’s conventional attractiveness 101, we should be able to say that and it’s as valid a reason to watch as any other.
However, calling women “groupies” and the sexual implications you’re typecasting Pato fans with, is classic misogynistic, antiquated marketing and not cool. I should have called this out when the ad went live. My head played that down and it’s a classic problem with us as men in the male-dominated space that Motorsport is. It doesn’t affect us, so we don’t think about it and don’t see things from the perspective of women. The inequalities, the judgement, and the work needed for women to just gain a foothold is Motorsport’s most nasty open secret and we’re placating that because we’re excited that FOX has done the bare minimum in terms of promotion.
I need to do better and remember my privledge as a man in this space, FOX needs to do better, and we as men in this space need to do better. I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.
And it’s a damn shame because it’s tainted what’s otherwise been an excellent marketing campaign that’s gotten a lot of people across US Motorsport genuinely excited for the season.
Indy 500 Additions (At time of writing):
#06 – Helio Castroneves ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Meyer Shank Racing)
#17 – Kyle Larson (Arrow McLaren/Rick Hendrick)
#23 – Ryan Hunter-Reay 🏆⭐ (DRR-Cusick Motorsports)
#24 – Jack Harvey (DRR-Cusick Motorsports)
#33 – Ed Carpenter (Ed Carpenter Racing)
#98 – Marco Andretti (Andretti Global)
Helio is back for another crack at a record-breaking fifth Indy 500 win (He turns 50 on May 10th!) The usual contenders are here in DRR-Cusick, generally the best 500-only entrants, with Ryan Hunter-Reay back alongside new teammate Jack Harvey. Ed Carpenter is back for another go with his team, but seemingly only as a 500-entrant with Alex Rossi and Christian Rasmussen now full-time in the #20 and #21 cars.
Marco Andretti is back for his 20th attempt at the race (And he’s still only 37… somehow), and the headline addition – 2024 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year and half-decent NASCAR driver Kyle Larson is back for his second attempt at the “Hendrick 1100 Double” as he goes for the Indy 500/Coke 600 double that he couldn’t finish last year due to the weather.
As it stands, we’re at 33 entrants but more should be expected. Honda has already more or less said Takuma Sato’s back for another go, and we’re just waiting for confirmation. There are also murmurs that Tom Brady and Jimmie Johnson might team up to field an entry with Seb Bourdais behind the wheel under Chip Ganassi Racing.
As it stands, we’re likely getting a bump day for at least one car, probably two. That’s fun, right?
Right, onto the team-by-team breakdowns! As per tradition, the position in the brackets is their 2024 Championship position. Onward!
Code: ⭐ – One Indy 500 Victory / 🏆- One Astor Cup / 🔰- Rookie
Prema Racing
#83 – Robert Shwartzman 🔰 (9th in 2024 World Endurance Championship)
#90 – Callum Illot (11th in 2024 Indy 500)
Welcome to IndyCar, Prema! We have no charters, but it will be no bother!
We have a nickname for PREMA here in M101 Towers. We call them “Titletown” because of their dominance of the junior ladder, and expansion into IndyCar is an intriguing and fun addition to the series. They’re exempt from charters for now (They may have to buy some from another team later), but their spots on the grid are safe as no one else is trying to make the grid right now.
Prema hinted they wanted to have an alumni of theirs and a new talent, and they’ve brought back Callum Illot alongside their former F2 driver, Bobby Shwartzman, who did solid work in the AF Corse WEC Hypercar program in 2024. It’s a fun team – Callum Illot had Top 10 potential but never got a fair shake at Juncos, I hope he gets fairer treatment here. Shwartzman I have some concerns about his tyre management the last time he was in single-seaters. He had a knack in F2 of butchering them by locking up and not taking care of them, but I hope he’s evolved beyond that since then. Also worth noting is that Romain Grosjean is at Prema as a reserve and is almost certainly getting a 500 attempt in a third car.
But there’s already been some controversy behind the scenes. Their big purchase of Michael Cannon from AJ Foyt Racing has already been terminated, with Cannon alleging that he was straight-up ignored in the development process. Not a great early sign about the team behind the scenes and I hope it’s not fully indicative of the overall management direction. Cannon is a 500 whisperer, and while expectations should be low for a brand-new team, making the 500 would be a minimum expectation. Cannon I’m sure would get you over the line. Let’s hope they don’t live to regret it.
Keep the expectations low (Making the “Leader’s Circle” despite not being eligible would be decent), and I think they’ll be fine.
Dale Coyne Racing
#18 – Rinus Veekay (14th)
#51 – Jacob Abel 🔰 (Runner-Up in Indy NXT 2024)
I’ve never been so happy to have to rewrite a section of this blog because of a last minute driver hire.
Jacob Abel is confirmed in the #51 car for the full season. He was solid in Indy NXT in 2024, finishing runner-up with three wins on the year, but it’s hard to ignore he was molly-whopped by Louis Foster to the tune of 122 points. That’s two and a half full races worth of points. By default, it doesn’t make him as appealing an option, but with the Abel family banging on the door of full-time entry with good cash, it makes sense to push him onto the grid ahead of time if DCR was prepared to take him.
But as of the day before this post went live, Dale Coyne confirmed that Rinus Veekay has been signed for the entire 2025 season in the #18 car. Thank goodness. I was genuinely scared that Coyne had to go highest bidder avaliable race-to-race like in 2016 or 2024 when nine different drivers took part in at least one race, a modern IndyCar record. It would have been a crime if a driver as rock solid as Rinus Veekay was off the grid. He’s an IndyCar race winner, shown a lot of promise despite often being limited by the resources of ECR, and while DCR is in a similar pick, some driver stability is something this team badly needed. Veekay is the most talented driver Coyne has signed since Alex Palou in 2020, and now they have a genuine shot at the 500 again given Veekay is one of the series’ best qualifiers in that discipline.
Coyne still has their issues keeping themselves afloat, but a free Veekay is definitely a shot in the arm for a team that badly needs one.
Juncos Hollinger Racing
#77 – Sting Ray Robb (20th)
#78 – Conor Daly? (26th, 8 Races)
Juncos will likely be looking at a much calmer, quieter campaign after the hot mess that was the fall and deeper fall of Agustin Canapino. FORESHADOWING…
Things were looking bleak for the team after Canapino’s early release, but Conor Daly’s podium finish in Milwaukee (Juncos’ first ever as a team), got the #78 car back in the Leader’s Circle. Daly was deservedly rewarded for his effort – He got to keep it. If nothing else, Daly’s always been a solid pair of hands regardless of where you drop him on the grid and it’s nice to see someone who’s deserved the opportunity in the heat of battle, actually get one. I just hope he can stretch that end-of-2024 form across a whole season. Maybe throw some Prismatic Evolutions Pokemon packs at him as an incentive.
Sting Ray Robb gets his third season in the series across the garage in the #77 car. He did show some minor improvement in Year 2 with Foyt but he probably needs to take another step forward to shake off the pay driver monikers. Let’s hope he prays 17 times across the season.
BREAKING: Another update – Someone posted a shareholder meeting from Polkadot, the title sponsor of Conor Daly yesterday, where it was announced that the company will not be paying him $3,000,000, almost certainly the funding needed for his seat. Conor openly admits on the call it will likely cost him his ride.
I do share a small degree of empathy with Daly – He’s a man who’s been desperate to stay in IndyCar and take any opportunity he can to keep himself out there. But taking crypto “money” to do it was always going to be risky given how volatile its “value” is. This is another general Motorsport problem, it’s embarassing how much the sport has bent the knee to facilitate “funny money”. Hell, as I type this, Aston Martin announced Coinbase as a new partner, a “stablecoin” backed by the US Treasury. After Binance, an Alpine sponsor had to pay $4 billion in damages at the end of 2023, and of course the mega-collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX platform, it just shows how desperate Motorsport is because it struggles to bring in outside money via conventional means, and large investors are a lot more risk-averse in life post credit-crunch and post-COVID.
Moral of the story – Have a rich family with money to burn. Anyway…
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
#15 – Graham Rahal (18th)
#30 – Devlin DeFrancesco (Returning from 2023)
#45 – Louis Foster 🔰 (2024 Indy NXT Champion)
It’s hard not to label RLL as anything less than miserable off the back of their 2024. Graham Rahal had his worst season in a decade, vented openly about his struggles within the team, how much he didn’t like the new hybrids and only cracked the Top 8 once all year.
Their oval form was shambolic, so embarrassing they were nearly beaten in outright speed in Milwaukee by Louis Foster’s NXT car, and they lost their talisman driver Christian Lundgaard to McLaren. This was before their base was raided by the FBI due to accusations of espionage from Andretti. Besides that, it was great!
Rahal is back for his 18th season as RLL desperately tries to find something to rejuvenate the team that sports his family’s name. He’s still shown he has flashes of that speed that can win races, but they seem to be happening less often these days. Joining him in the #45 is… Louis Foster, who I mentioned earlier! I like that RLL took the best Indy NXT prospect on the board and just gave him a multi-year deal. No clauses, no nonsense, and hopefully, no pressure to be an immediate success. Foster was terrific, with eight wins and going 1st or 2nd from May to the end of the year. It was a dominant season and if he can translate that over to the big car, there’s some promise here.
Oh, and Devlin DeFrancesco’s back. That’s nice.
Ed Carpenter Racing
#20 – Alexander Rossi ⭐(10th)
#21 – Christian Rasmussen (22nd)
New year, new them. ECR has been one of the busiest and most newsworthy teams during the off-season. They dumped Rinus Veekay in the big shock departure of the off-season, announced they were keeping Christian Rasmussen on and promoting him to a full-time seat, and made a power move in capturing Alex Rossi from McLaren.
Since then, they’ve repackaged the team with new sponsors and new ownership, Ted Gelov, owner of Heartland Foods Group, aka… *sighs* “Splenda Daddy”, according to the Internet. The reports were that Ed sold a portion of the rights of his charter to finance the deal, and it was over $40m in new cash. So if you were wondering where Rossi’s salary likely came from, there you go.
This is still an odd team formation. I liked Christian Rasmussen’s rookie season, his Mid-Ohio and Indy 500 runs were superb. But I think it was too soon for a full-time promotion over Rinus Veekay in the 21 car. But I’ll say what I said last year, he was superb at Daytona once again, the fastest man in the LMP2 class over the B-Pillar average. He has speed. I just wish he could show it more often.
As for Alex Rossi… I dunno, man. He’s a very good driver. Good enough to get podiums and finish Top 10 overall but will he be able to replicate that in a team that traditionally has been as good as the big hitters for some time? The last time Alex Rossi was truly great in IndyCar, Donald Trump was President. The first time round. Maybe that’ll finally get his mojo back.
But we all know what ECR is here for… can they finally get that 500?
Meyer Shank Racing
#60 – Felix Rosenqvist (12th)
#66 – Marcus Armstrong (14th)
Meyer Shank showed a lot of promise at times in 2024. Very fast over a single lap with Felix Rosenqvist being a genuine threat for multiple pole positions. Their big problem was getting the most out of the car over an entire race distance. But they can still take some solace in that FR60 had the best single-season a Shank car has had since joining IndyCar.
Felix is back for 2025 via a new contract extension and with the Swede finally in a permanent home, I hope he can get his head down and utilise his full potential because I think the guy can crack the Top 10 overall if it all comes together and grab a podium or two. Remember, he entered last year’s Month of May as a genuine title contender.
Alongside him is Marcus Armstrong, a casualty of Chip Ganassi’s downsizing to three cars. Marcus’s ceiling was high last year, scoring four Top 5 finishes, five if you include Thermal’s non-title race. Scored his first podium finish in Detroit too. I’ve watched his time in IndyCar and there’s definitely something there with the New Zealander. I think he just needs a little more consistency and to find a little bit more on ovals.
On paper, this is the most dynamic team that MSR has had, something they can build on for the future.
AJ Foyt Racing
#4 – David Malukas (24th, 10 races)
#14 – Santino Ferrucci (9th)
This still feels icky to say out loud, but there’s no getting around it – Santino Ferrucci was my vote for the Most Improved Driver of 2024 at the M101 Awards. He was a guy who we all questioned if his talent ever matched up to the hype he was getting on and off the track. 2024 was the year he finally proved it. A pole position in Portland, 11 Top 10 finishes, the most for a Foyt driver in over 20 years.
But this year feels like the real test for the Foyt team, who finally may have turned the corner. Just how much of their success hinged on Michael Cannon, who left them for Prema at the end of last season? Better team logistics might mitigate some of the blow here, but losing Cannon could have serious consequences for a team that punched well above its weight.
An even bigger smoking gun for Ferrucci is new teammate David Malukas. He got an exceptionally raw deal at McLaren, but the meme lord still showed plenty of speed in his cameo appearances for MSR, where he once again nearly won at Gateway until he was taken out by Will Power. I’m still concerned he has the Newgarden problem of being a bit too lopsided on Ovals when it comes to his skill, but Malukas is more than good enough for a second proper run full-time. Roger Penske agrees, having facilitated the move to Foyt in the first place. Is he the Penske driver of the future? Or is Ferrucci truly the American heel and Anti-Cody Rhodes that IndyCar’s always wanted?
With that and questions over Foyt’s overall quality still out there, this will be one of the more intriguing teams to watch in 2025.
Arrow McLaren
#5 – Pato O’Ward (5th)
#6 – Nolan Siegel (23rd, 14 Races)
#7 – Christian Lundgaard (11th)
2024 was another year of McLaren spinning their metaphorical wheels. They had two bullets in the chamber for the 500 down the stretch but missed both shots with O’Ward second again and Alex Rossi fourth. The David Malukas wrist injury led to a hot mess of driver firings and re-hirings, but Zak Brown now claims he has his team of the future. Hard to argue given the average age of 23. No more talk. No more bullshit. It’s time to punch the big boys in the mouth.
Pato O’Ward has been fiercely loyal to the Papaya in IndyCar and has done a brilliant job in cheerleading for the team that’s backed him. But it remains frustrating that he still hasn’t been able to do what he did in 2020 and take a title fight to the final day. He’s an elite driver in the series, a genuine three-tool driver who can win anywhere. But how much of the frustration is on McLaren not being operationally as sound as the big two?
Christian Lundgaard has earned the right to have better machinery after two excellent coming-of-age seasons with RLL, winning in Toronto in 2023 and hovering around the Top 10 in a team that’s had little business being there otherwise. I think even better teams should have been chasing his signature, but he’ll fit in well with the happy-fun-times McLaren squad. I’d like to see him push himself further and give Pato something to think about. I think he can do that, but I just pray the RLL run wasn’t Fool’s Orange.
And then there’s Nolan Siegel, Tony Kaanan’s big bet after the bravery he showed at last year’s Indy 500. After the release of Malukas and only finding out down the road that Theo Pourchaire was “broke broke”, Siegel got the nod and was… largely mediocre in his first half-season in orange. I don’t want to be harsh, he’s still only 19 and very raw, but he needs a big second season to justify the attention and pressure put on him by McLaren in the first place. A lot of people were very quick to play the “pay-driver” tag on him, something we only do when we think you suck. It’s way too early to make those kinda claims, and I hope the off-season settles him in properly. I say that because if it doesn’t, people will be talking.
I never bought the “McLaren needs cash” argument because a lot of it tied down to Arrow potentially leaving them. They haven’t, and McLaren’s even talking about a Hypercar/GTD programme in WEC and IMSA in the next couple of years. But I do wonder if their Formula E and IndyCar projects will be compromised as a result. Brown wants McLaren to be a global Motorsport brand. The teething pains are still very much here, mind. PS: Can someone other than Pato win on this team? Because that still hasn’t happened yet.
Andretti Global
#26 – Colton Herta (2nd)
#27 – Kyle Kirkwood (7th)
#28 – Marcus Ericsson ⭐(15th)
A good return to form for Andretti in 2024, with Colton Herta challenging on all fronts across the season. But some of those classic Andretti gremlins held them back from true success.
Herta finally snapped a 40+ race dry spell when he won in Toronto, before finally breaking his oval duck in Nashville at the finale. But a crash at the Indy 500 and a silly mistake in Detroit ultimately denied him a genuine chance of doubling up. But in any case, it was great seeing the rockstar back to his best and the driver we all knew he could be. But I do wonder, is 2025 now a job interview for the Cadillac F1 drive? The only thing missing was Lord Sugar telling another Andretti senior rep he’s been fired with a signature finger point.
I think Kyle Kirkwood is a dark horse shout for the Championship. Seriously. He was seventh last year and took big steps forward in terms of his consistency, regularly in the Top 10. Thirteen of them in seventeen races. If he can find a little more upside to start challenging for wins, like we know he has, you could be looking at the next driver to enter IndyCar’s true elite.
The third seat is the elephant in the room. Marcus Ericsson was the big-money free-agency hire to fill out the team but had a disastrous May where he was a non-factor. While I think the scoreboard was harsh given the amount of 50/50 clashes he was involved in, there’s no way you can ever justify dropping multiple millions a year on someone finishing fifteenth in the world. Ericsson needs to bring his best to 2025 or else he’ll be cut for someone else, and that’s a meaty seat that half the grid would want if it became available. This is Ericsson’s true test of his IndyCar mettle. Was all your hype due to Chip Ganassi? And in Year 1 in life after Michael Andretti’s stepping down, do you want to still be the Bronze medalist?
Team Penske
#2 – Josef Newgarden 🏆🏆⭐⭐ (8th, 2024 Indy 500 Winner)
#3 – Scott McLaughlin (3rd)
#12 – Will Power 🏆⭐⭐ (4th)
Don’t let Alex Palou’s ultimate crown fool you – Team Penske was back to their best with a dominant 2024. Eight wins between their three cars, good for almost half the season, and retained the biggest prize of them all with the Indy 500 victory with Josef Newgarden being the first to go back-to-back in 22 years. If anything, it was the squabbling in-house and out that led to none of their fleet taking Palou’s Astor Cup. BUT YOU WON THE 500!
There’s a big internal change behind the scenes. After over 25 years in senior leadership, Tim Cindric is stepping down as Team President. It’s a confusing one mind you, because it looks like he’s still going to be Josef Newgarden’s race strategist and his statement didn’t mention any change in that role. It looks like more of an ambassador role, ala Michael Andretti, but we have to see how it plays out in time.
Speaking of Newgarden, his last two years in the series have been a bit of a mess. Whisper it quietly, but has Josef become too dependent on ovals? In the last two seasons, all six of his wins have been around that specific discipline, including two 500 wins that have only cemented his legacy as one of the greatest of the modern era.
But it’s a skyscraper built on a foundation of popsicle sticks. We’re now looking at nearly three years since his last (legal) win on a Road and Street course. Last year was the big reboot year with the social media culling, the Bus Bros departure and the renewed focus on racing, and he ended up with his worst Astor Cup campaign since his boss was Sarah Fisher.
He’s better than eighth, and if he doesn’t have a good 500, I think more people will be seeing my line of thinking. I’m not sure just how good Newgarden is in 2025 and he needs to focus on the tracks that turn left and right because it’s becoming a weakness in his game that was never there before.
Will Power was Penske’s main threat for the Astor Cup for the majority of 2024, proving that the 44-year-old still has some juice in the tank. Dominant wins in Portland and Road America, but a mix of bad fortune in Nashville and uncharacteristic errors in Milwaukee had him drop to fourth. I feel much better about Power entering 2025, but you have to wonder how long he can keep performing at this level. What I will say is that signing up with Fernando Alonso’s management firm doesn’t sound like the act of a man retiring anytime soon…
I think Penske’s best driver now might be Scott McLaughlin. The sole remaining Bus Bro had three wins, and five pole positions, including the fastest Indy 500 pole speed ever seen. He’d have likely won the title if it wasn’t for the cheating scandal. I think he still has issues with his racecraft (He races his teammates way too hard), which leads to mistakes, but as an all-rounder, he might now be the team leader on raw ability. The McLaughlin prophecy, spearheaded by Rick Mears himself once upon a time, is starting to see its full fruition. I think if he brings in his best form to the table, he has the best chance of taking the fight to the man in the next section.
Chip Ganassi Racing
#8 – Kyffin Simpson (21st)
#9 – Scott Dixon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🏆 (6th)
#10 – Alex Palou ⭐⭐⭐(2024 Series Champion)
It’s a smaller setup for CGR entering 2025, arguably the biggest victims of the charter system inclusion as they drop from five cars to three. They’re moving assets into a new two-car Indy NXT team… just don’t ask me why they felt like they had to take Niels Koolen after his F2 performances last season.
And it’s a controversial downsizing as Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist were dropped for Kyffin Simpson to take the #8 seat. I get that Simpson is a long-term project and he’s still just 20 years old, but in terms of evaluating the rookies of 2025, Lundqvist was better in every department. It frustrates me as a pundit and fan that Chip made a beeline for Linus and saved his IndyCar career only to drop him a year later. Simpson has to show me more in 25’ for me to think he’s anything more than a classic CGR-paying hire.
We all know why you really care about CGR. Nine and ten. Scott Dixon is back for his silver anniversary. That’s right, Year 25 of Dixon at the highest level of American single-seaters, and he’s 45 in July. This is still Scott Dixon who can win any race, any track, anywhere if the chips fall his way. However, even I’m a little concerned that the anonymous days are starting to add up a little more as he enters the final chapter of his career. And there’s no getting around it, his teammate has beaten him in four of the last five seasons. It’s Palou’s team now. Can Dixon squeeze out one final run?
And then there’s the reigning Champion, Alex Palou. The FOX Promo summed it up perfectly. He lives rent-free in the heads of the field. A fierce, ruthless competitor who rarely makes mistakes, but smiles through everything and is impossible to fluster. He dodged half a dozen accidents and survived a dead battery in Milwaukee and a rare mistake in Iowa to capture his third Astor Cup in four years. If you let this man get going, he’s virtually unstoppable in terms of managing a Championship, constantly applying pressure as the rest of the field trips over each other.
But for Palou, just one question remains – Can he win an Indy 500? He’s been an excellent qualifier in recent years, including the former pole record run of 2023. Consistently great, but never quite being there to win, especially since his runner-up finish in 2021. If he can tick that final box, we’re already looking at one of the greatest the series has ever seen. This is now the level we’re talking about with Alex Palou. Quite possibly, the best racing driver on the planet today.
Indy NXT
Worth giving NXT a quick mention as I did last year. It feels like a “reset” year with Louis Foster and Jacob Abel moving up. The big stories have been two women making their series debuts – Sophia Floresch heading over after years of grinding away in Formula 3, and Hailee Deegan, once NASCAR’s most hyped woman as a prospect, but flamed out in Trucks and the Xfinity Series. I like that both women have been pretty humble about the transition, just looking to gather speed more than any targets for big results.
The other big mover? Dennis Hauger, the 2021 F3 Champion is driving for Andretti’s fleet of NXT in 2025. Not going to lie, Hauger’s F2 run was a big disappointment, so hopefully a refresh can do the Norwegian some good.
At the front end, I expect Caio Collet to be amongst the favourites after a solid first season finishing third in the standings, but I’d keep an eye out on Callum Hedge, James Roe and Salvador de Alba (Especially on Ovals, he’s rapid on those). Of course, we’re all pulling for Myles Rowe, but at 24 and a slightly underwhelming rookie season, this might be his final chance for a real shot in IndyCar.
Final note: Gutted there was no room for Christian Brooks or Yuven Sundaramoorthy on this grid. Also great talents in their own right. Yay, funding…
Final Final Note: As I was putting the finishing touches on this one, Juncos have announced they’ve shelved their NXT team for the time being. Given they had only one driver announced a fortnight out from the first race, and they’ve been struggling with drivers bringing in cash for sometime, it’s sadly not a huge shock. Wishing the best for Miguel Marta Garcia, the one driver they did confirm going into the season.
Predictions
For the Championship… I’m going to say it’s Scott McLaughlin’s year. Again. Palou can embarrass me one more time, but I just have the feeling that Team Penske’s overwhelmingly great across the series, and even though CGR’s downsizing should help on resources being spread thicker, I have a feeling the Kiwi’s getting better and better and 2025 he finally goes over the top.
For the Indy 500, sticking with the Team Penske theme, I think Pato O’Ward finally gets his ring. McLaren has been the only real challenger to Penske the last couple of years and surely he can’t miss out a fourth time, right? Right?
Going by M101 traditions – I think we’ll get 8 different winners across the year, Andretti keeps its 3rd best team status and I think Louis Foster wins a stacked Rookie of the Year category. Ha.
See you on March 2nd on the streets of St. Pete.
