Tony Kanaan: Is the End of his IndyCar Career Near?
By Asher Fair
Now in his 20th season of open-wheel racing dating back to the 1998 CART World Series, Tony Kanaan may very well be coming close to wrapping up his IndyCar career.
It seems like it was just last year that Tony Kanaan was sitting in 3rd place in the IndyCar championship standings following a podium finish at Texas in one of the most competitive finishes in IndyCar history.
That’s because it was.
But now, nearly eight months later, four more races have passed. While four races is not a huge amount, those four races have given fans an indication that Kanaan, 42, may very well be on his way to retirement.
The 2016 Texas race was the 14th race of the season. Up until that point, Kanaan had finished all but one race during the course of the season, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Of the 13 of 14 races that he did finish up to that point in time, he finished lower than 9th place in just one of them with a 12th place finish at Mid-Ohio.
After the Texas race, however, something changed. A 19th place finish at Watkins Glen and a 13th place finish at Sonoma to end the season dropped Kanaan all the way down to 7th place in the final 2016 IndyCar championship standings despite being up in 3rd place just two races prior.
This season, Kanaan has picked up right where he left off, and that is not a good thing for him at all. A 12th place finish at St. Petersburg, a track at which he had finished outside the top 10 just once due to a mechanical issue in 2012, and a 15th place finish at Long Beach, his lowest finish at the track since 2014, have many fans wondering what Kanaan’s future in the Verizon IndyCar Series may hold. He sits tied for just 15th place in the current IndyCar championship standings.
Kanaan’s Future
There is a lot of speculation going around about what Kanaan could potentially do about his future in IndyCar. While he is currently on the longest streak of consecutive IndyCar starts in the history of the sport having started in 267 consecutive races, that streak cannot last forever, and it may very well come to an end within the next season or so.
Many signs point to Kanaan possibly giving up his full-time ride in the near future and running in the Indianapolis 500 as a one-off effort for a couple more seasons. After all, he is one of the fastest drivers at the Indy 500 each season, so that may be the best possible scenario for him.
If the end of his career is indeed near, what a career Tony Kanaan has had. While he has not won a race since 2014 at Fontana, he does have 16 IndyCar victories and one CART victory to his name. He also won the 2004 IndyCar Series championship and the 2013 Indianapolis 500, the race that featured the most lead changes in Indy 500 history (68). Regardless of his decision, Kanaan will never lose his place among IndyCar greats.