Here’s what the final 2022 IndyCar standings will look like

There are 25 drivers set to compete full-time in the 2022 IndyCar season. Where will they end up in the standings come September?

The start of the 2022 IndyCar season is right around the corner, with the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida scheduled to serve as the host of the season opener on Sunday, February 27.

And if that happens as planned, it will mark the first time since 2019 that the season has started on the initially scheduled date.

The 2022 schedule features 17 races, including seven road course races, five street course races and five oval races, and it set to run through Sunday, September 11.

These 17 races are scheduled to take place at 15 different tracks at 14 different venues. One track is scheduled to host a doubleheader, and that is Iowa Speedway.

The other venue set to host multiple races is Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is scheduled to host both the Indy 500 on the oval as well as two races on the road course, though the road course races are not back-to-back like the races at Iowa Speedway.

In total, 25 drivers are in line to compete in each of the 17 races on the schedule.

Come September 11, how will the final 2022 standings look?

For the second year in a row, we filled out our way-too-early (and probably very-very-inaccurate) prediction of how these full-time drivers will stack up by the end of the year.

For reference, Alex Palou was picked to finish in 13th place out of 21 full-time drivers in his first year with Chip Ganassi Racing last year, and he won the championship. So take this with a grain of salt, but also consider that there’s literally nowhere to go but up after last year.

Note that the chances of picking a perfect final standings order in a 25-driver series are 1 in 15,511,210,043,330,985,984,000,000.

That is 1 in 15.5 septillion.

To compare, the changes of picking a perfect bracket in March Madness are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (1 in 9.22 quintillion), making a perfect IndyCar standings prediction 1,681,728.76 (1.68 million) times harder than picking a perfect bracket, which nobody has ever done.

I made the disclaimer last year that the winner of my March Madness pool picked an Ohio vs. Oral Roberts final. Unfortunately, I can’t make that disclaimer this year since the IndyCar season is actually scheduled to get underway on time for the first time in three years and March Madness isn’t really right around the corner quite yet.

So without further ado, here is how we see things shaking out throughout the 2022 IndyCar season.

1. Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport
2. Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing
3. Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren SP
4. Josef Newgarden, Team Penske
5. Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing
6. Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport
7. Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport
8. Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing
9. Will Power, Team Penske
10. Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
11. Simon Pagenaud, Meyer Shank Racing
12. Rinus VeeKay, Ed Carpenter Racing
13. Christian Lundgaard, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
14. Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing
15. Jack Harvey, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
16. Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske
17. Felix Rosenqvist, Arrow McLaren SP
18. Takuma Sato, Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing
19. David Malukas, Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports
20. Kyle Kirkwood, A.J. Foyt Enterprises
21. Conor Daly, Ed Carpenter Racing
22. Devlin DeFrancesco, Andretti Autosport
23. Jimmie Johnson, Chip Ganassi Racing
24. Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing
25. Dalton Kellett, A.J. Foyt Enterprises

After a thorough look back over this prediction, I think I probably have close to 90% of the field underrated — that’s just the nature of IndyCar fields nowadays. Stacked.

IndyCar championship outlook

In a series where winning more than two races in a year practically makes you elite, Colton Herta probably should have won five or six races throughout the 2021 season. But he ran into a number of issues at the worst possible times in races he dominated. He still ended up with three wins, tied for the most in the series.

The winner of the season opener has won the championship in each of the last three seasons, and Herta won at St. Petersburg last year, leading 97 of 100 laps. A win this year would also make him the fourth consecutive driver to win back-to-back St. Petersburg races going all the way back to 2015. Interesting.

And it’s tough to repeat as a champion, though interestingly, the last driver to do it did it behind the wheel of the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, which is what Alex Palou drives. Dario Franchitti won three straight titles from 2009 to 2011.

While he did finish the season tied atop the wins list with Herta with three, Palou’s consistency is what makes him a threat to repeat. Not since the 2000 season has a driver with fewer than three wins won the title, and there were just nine races on the schedule when a two-win Buddy Lazier secured the crown.

Yet Palou interestingly still would have won the title as a winless driver had all of his wins been flipped to runner-up results. Key word: consistency.

Pato O’Ward was Palou’s biggest challenger throughout the season, and he should continue to improve after earnings his first two wins in 2021. But can Arrow McLaren SP take the next step to elevate him to a true championship level?

Josef Newgarden, despite some fluky results that effectively knocked him out of championship contention, still managed to finish a “down” season in second place in the standings, giving the two-time champion three straight top two finishes and four in the last five years.

Six-time champion Scott Dixon is always a threat, but he has a bit more to worry about than simply beating Team Penske like he has in years past.

In 2021, he finished behind a teammate for the first time since 2011, and two of his teammates, Palou and Marcus Ericsson, won more races than he did.

For the first time in five years, he wasn’t championship eligible heading into the season finale after failing to win a road or street course race for the first time since 2004, which remains his most recent winless season. Can he extend his record streak of 17 winning seasons and earn a victory in a record 20th season?

Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi looked poised to compete for wins as Andretti Autosport teammates, but they will have their work cut out of them in terms of challenging Herta as the top driver in the organization. Grosjean is still seeking his first career win, and Rossi hasn’t won a race since 2019.

And what about Will Power? He is still more than capable of dominating races, but last year was his first season finishing outside of the top five in the standings in 12 years as a Team Penske driver. Was that a fluke, or is he really on the decline? He is riding a 14-year winning streak, second only to Dixon.

The 2022 IndyCar season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, February 27 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. This race is set to be broadcast live on NBC from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET. If you have not yet begun your free trial of FuboTV, now would be a great time to do so!