Does The 2016 IndyCar Season Resemble The 2015 Season?

With four races left in the 2016 IndyCar season, we look back at a campaign that shares a few similarities with the 2015 season.

We’re in the home stretch of the 2016 IndyCar season, and in a few ways, this year feels a lot like last year.

Let’s compare notes:

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A Team Penske driver begins dominating the season and is anointed a near-lock for the championship (Juan Pablo Montoya in 2015; Simon Pagenaud in 2016).

Then a challenger emerges in the second half (Scott Dixon in 2015; Will Power in 2016).

One driver gets injured and their injury becomes the talk of the season (James Hinchcliffe in 2015; Josef Newgarden in 2016).

One race gets completely ruined by the rain (New Orleans in 2015; Texas in 2016).

And an Andretti Autosport driver comes out of nowhere to win their first IndyCar race (Carlos Munoz at Belle Isle in 2015; Alexander Rossi at Indianapolis in 2016).

In quite a few ways, the 2016 IndyCar campaign feels like an experience of deja vu. The names have been changed but the storylines are still the same. In fact, they’re even more striking than before.

Team Penske is once again dominant, with Pagenaud having assumed Montoya’s status as the man to beat while Montoya has taken his place as the one fighting to keep up.

Last year Montoya had just three finishes outside of the Top 10. Pagenaud, likewise, has three but he also has two more victories and four more pole positions than Montoya earned in 2015.

Montoya currently sits 12th in IndyCar championship points; Pagenaud finished 11th last year.

Ganassi continues to be Ganassi, quietly lurking behind. Tony Kanaan is sixth in 2016 IndyCar points while Dixon, despite several strokes of bad luck that would make a black cat cringe, is still fifth.

Meanwhile, Andretti is in the same position they were last year – with one victory going into the final four races of the season. Munoz’s victory in Detroit was Andretti’s only win in 2015 until Ryan Hunter-Reay won two of the last four; can Andretti have another surge toward the finish line?

And while thankfully Newgarden wasn’t hurt as badly as Hinchcliffe we once again have a feel-good story of a tough driver who’s not letting his significant injury stand in his way. Newgarden in particular might feel like he’s done this all before; this is the second consecutive season he’s raced under a new team name, following the shift from Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing to CFH Racing back to Ed Carpenter Racing.

And it’s the second year in a row that he’s won a race and been in IndyCar championship contention, while the media speculates on whether or not he’ll leave his two-car team for one of the Big Three.

But in some ways the 2016 IndyCar season has its differences from 2015. Last year the title battle was fantastically compelling because there were multiple drivers still alive going into the final race at Sonoma.

It’ll be awhile before we forget Dixon driving to victory when he needed it most, while Montoya was thisclose to locking up his first title – all he had to do was pass one more car.

In contrast the general consensus is that 2016 is now a two-candidate slugfest between Pagenaud and Power. They’re the only drivers who have reached more than 400 championship points; Pagenaud has 484 to Power’s 426. Helio Castroneves, who is third, is back at 373.

Penske’s status as the top team in IndyCar is also more obvious than it was last year, thanks to Pagenaud’s early-season hot streak. A Penske driver won four of the first five races in 2016, whereas the first five races in 2015 had winners from four different teams.

In fact, after Texas a Penske driver never went to Victory Lane again – while this year four of the last five events have been won by Penske too. Even if they don’t notch another (which seems unlikely) their eight victories will account for half of the 2016 IndyCar season.

Which leads us back to a question we asked in 2015: is Penske their own biggest threat for the IndyCar title? Last year, that was definitely the case, as they had three drivers gunning for the title to Ganassi’s one contender, making them essentially divided. This year, they have…three drivers gunning for the title.

We’ll have to wait and see if the split focus between Pagenaud and Power has any impact, or if Newgarden or somebody else can emerge as a third candidate to mix things up further for the 2016 IndyCar championship.

The 2016 IndyCar season does feel an awful lot like 2015 but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are top drivers who are putting together impressive runs and captivating audiences as the front-runners should, but the smaller teams are still finding their opportunities to break through and steal the spotlight.

While there are improvements that can and likely will be made, we’re still seeing racing that’s the best on the planet. We’ll be able to look back on Pagenaud’s battle with Graham Rahal at Alabama with a smile, or Power coming back from his inner ear condition to reel off wins like a man possessed.

2016 could also wind up being the year we look back on as the start of something. It’s the year Road America and Phoenix returned to the schedule, and the racing at Watkins Glen seems like it could be fantastic too. It’s the year with a strong rookie class, including Rossi and finally a full-season ride for Conor Daly (though what does the kid have to do to have a decent Indy 500?!). The changes of 2016 could have a long-term positive effect on the series.

So let the 2016 IndyCar campaign feel familiar. It might be deja vu, but maybe that’s just because the league has found its own momentum and is about to take things to another level.