It’s true, IndyCar heads into the second half of its season with a championship leader boasting a 110-point advantage and with its biggest race of the season well in the rearview mirror.
However you’d be silly to turn your attention away from it as that aforementioned points leader Alex Palou flirts with Formula 1, his rivals look at the fact that a race win is worth 50 points making that lead seem smaller, and there’s a host of drivers in the field racing for their futures.
Where the silly season is concerned, we’ve tried to leave out drivers like Palou and Marcus Ericsson whose results – unless they are spectacular in some way – aren’t likely to impact next year and therefore where they finish this year is less important. Those included on this list are fighting to stay with their team or in the series and their second-half performances will impact that.
With so much still to be decided in 2023, here are the drivers to keep an eye on and those who need a big second half of the year.
Josef Newgarden
It might sound silly to put the Indy 500 winner in the category of a driver who needs to do even more in 2023, but if Newgarden is to achieve his own stated ambition of ending a barren spell for 500 winners winning the championship, it’s exactly what he needs to do.
While some may look and be totally shocked by Newgarden being 11th of all drivers on street courses and ninth on road courses, as JR Hildebrand points out in this week’s The Race IndyCar Podcast, he’s still the top Penske driver in terms of wins and championship position.
Any year you are the best Penske driver – knowing how strong its driver line-up is – is usually a good one.
The team has struggled slightly in 2022 for wins and hasn’t scored a pole yet, finding that ultimate, peak performance that bit harder to come by, although consistency across its three drivers means its average finishing position across all cars is only fractionally off Ganassi.
Average finish across full-time entries
Chip Ganassi 8 Penske 8.86 Arrow McLaren 11.76 Andretti 14.56 Rahal Letterman Lanigan 15.11 Ed Carpenter 16.78 Juncos Hollinger 17.5 Meyer Shank 18.89 AJ Foyt 20.17
Dale Coyne 20.78
The big reason to watch Newgarden is that even though he is third in the points, he might be the best-placed challenger for Alex Palou.
Not only is Newgarden one of the few drivers capable of ripping off multiple-win streaks, he is arguably as strong as any other driver/track combination, at Iowa.
It’s a double-header again this year and Newgarden would have won both races last year if not for suspension failure in the second.
A double win at a place Palou called his worst track last year would really pull Newgarden back into contention for the championship.
And if all that wasn’t motivation enough, Newgarden faces the possibility of a fourth-straight season finishing second in the points. He’ll really hate that.
Felix Rosenqvist
I don’t recall a bigger disparity in recent memory than Felix Rosenqvist being the series’ third-best qualifier but only its 17th driver in terms of average finish!
Sure, there has been some bad luck, like the last race where he was taken out on the first lap (below) by Marcus Ericsson. But there have also been errors from Rosenqvist and his team that means he’s well behind his team-mates and not for the first time in his Arrow McLaren career.
It looks like McLaren will stick at three cars next year, so Rosenqvist is likely racing for the best possible seat available elsewhere in 2024, so the second half of the season is the time for results.
His team-mates are also worth keeping a close eye on. Alexander Rossi has been very consistent on a run of six top 10s in a row matched only by Scott Dixon and Palou, and his three race-ruining errors aside, Pato O’Ward has been the only driver capable of getting anywhere near Palou’s form and therefore if he can cut some of those discrepancies out it might allow him to come back into title contention.
O’Ward is the second best driver on road courses and always runs well at Gateway, so there’s plenty of potential to score some Palou-zapping wins.
Simon Pagenaud
As far as The Race is aware, Pagenaud’s future hasn’t been decided yet.
While Pagenaud’s 25th in the standings owes more to bad luck and team errors than his own, he’s still a highly-paid Indy 500 winner and series champion languishing well down the order
He’s also miles behind team-mate Helio Castroneves, who looks set to move part-time next year for the team to accommodate the arrival of Tom Blomqvist from its sportscar programme, although how all of that pans out and looks next year is still to be determined.
There’s an element of double negative for Pagenaud here. Even if he performs well, is there much point in the team paying for such a good driver to struggle around at the back if it can’t offer him a competitive car?
And conversely, has Pagenaud done enough to earn his paid gig?
This writer’s answer would be yes, his technological knowledge and desire to make his switch from Penske pay off by building this team into a juggernaut mean he has all the skill and motivation required. He’s hellbent on helping this team grow.
All that’s left then is to stick better results on the board.
Missing the last race because he wasn’t cleared after a somersaulting practice crash won’t help nor will missing this weekend’s race while Blomqvist makes an early IndyCar debut, but Pagenaud is made of stern stuff and he can still make a future at MSR work, if the second half of the season is better once he returns to the cockpit.
Marcus Armstrong
On one hand, the Ganassi driver is in the series’ best car, so an average finish of 12.28 might not blow your socks off. But there’s a lot to like about Armstrong’s rookie campaign.
He has such high standards that even top 10s don’t impress him much, and his desire to improve has infected everyone working with him at Ganassi.
And that 12.28 average finish is still good enough for 11th in the series, which is miles better than the next rookie.
If he wants a full-time seat at Ganassi next year, which is certainly within reach at the moment especially if David Malukas heads to Andretti which seems his most likely destination, he needs more of the same but a couple more stand-out performances to seal the deal.
He’s absolutely rapid and well capable of better when he’s comfortable in the car and knows the tracks.
Christian Lundgaard
Lundgaard is a very impressive 10th in the points, but even better, he’s the fourth-best driver on road courses.
There’s still three road courses left, so it will be fascinating to see if he can move further up the standings from here.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan street and oval set-ups have been very problematic this year, so road course form is crucial.
It’s a big second half of the year generally for RLL as Graham Rahal and Jack Harvey are both potentially out of contract at the end of the year. It’s hard to see Rahal leaving his father’s team, and you’d be a brave person to suggest Harvey will keep his seat for next year after his performances.
He’s one of the nicest drivers on the grid but he knows as well as anyone his results don’t stand up, so nine races remaining are very important for him too.
Who will you be watching closely in the second half of the season and why? Let us know in the comments.
Keyword: The drivers to watch as IndyCar’s 2023 season resumes