IndyCar: Surprising statistic through just six races in 2021

Five teams have won at least one of the 2021 IndyCar season’s first six races. Throughout all of last year, we didn’t see that many winners.

We all knew heading into the 2021 IndyCar season that this was going to be one of the most competitive seasons, if not the most competitive season, in a while, if not all-time.

There were simply too many good drivers on too many good teams to be able to declare a favorite, or even a set of favorites, heading into this year’s 17-race campaign, and the first six races have shown us just how tight things are.

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For the first time since 2017, we have seen six different winners in the first six races. Those six winning drivers come from five different teams.

The only team with multiple wins so far this season? Chip Ganassi Racing.

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Alex Palou won the season opener at Barber Motorsports Park, and Scott Dixon won the season’s third race, the first of two races at Texas Motor Speedway.

Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta won the season’s second race on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward won the season’s fourth race, the second at Texas Motor Speedway, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay won the season’s fifth race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves most recently won the Indy 500. Palou, O’Ward and VeeKay all became first-time winners this year in their second seasons of full-time competition.

Through six races, we have already seen more winning teams than we saw throughout the entire 14-race 2020 season.

In fact, we hit five winning teams on Sunday, May 30.

By May 30, 2020, the 2020 season hadn’t even started.

Only four teams won all of last season: Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

And only two of them — one, if you count Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport and Andretti Autosport separately — have won so far in 2021.

Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing combined for 12 of those 14 victories, with Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport winning only at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with Herta and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing winning only the Indy 500 with Takuma Sato.

For Team Penske, which are notably not among the five winning teams so far in 2021, Josef Newgarden won four races, Will Power won two and Simon Pagenaud won one.

For Chip Ganassi Racing, Dixon won four races and Felix Rosenqvist, who has since left for Arrow McLaren SP, won one, the first of his career.

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In what race will a driver win for the second time this year? How many teams will have found victory lane by the time the season ends in late September on the streets of Long Beach, California? Will the all-time record of 11 different winners in a season, which was set in 2000 and tied in 2001 and 2014, be broken?