Indy 500 champion looking to end crazy drought

Not since the 2010 IndyCar season has the Indy 500 champion gone on to win the championship, when Dario Franchitti pulled it off.

Just over a month ago, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson became an Indy 500 champion, winning the 106th running of the “Greatest Spectacle Racing” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway behind the wheel of his #8 Honda.

With his victory in this double points-paying 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) oval in Speedway, Indiana, Ericsson shot to the top of the IndyCar point standings for the first time in his career, which began in 2019 following a five-year run in Formula 1.

The Indy 500 has been a double points-paying race since 2014. Aside from last year, when part-time driver Helio Castroneves won the race for a record-tying fourth time, there have been eight double points-paying Indy 500s, and the winners of six of them have shot to the top of the point standings following their victories.

Yet not since 2010 has the Indy 500 gone on to win the IndyCar championship.

Even ignoring the double points aspect of the situation, this is a crazy trend, because from 2005 to 2010, the six Indy 500s were won by the series champion on five occasions. The lone exception was 2009, when Castroneves won the race for the third time and Dario Franchitti went on to win his second title.

Dan Wheldon won both in 2005, Sam Hornish Jr. won both in 2006, Franchitti won both in 2007 and 2010, and Scott Dixon won both in 2008.

In 2011, Wheldon won the race for a second time in a one-off effort, and Franchitti won the championship for a fourth time. Franchitti then won the race for a third time in 2012, but Ryan Hunter-Reay won his first championship. In 2013, Tony Kanaan won the race, but Dixon won his third title.

Hunter-Reay won the Indy 500 in 2014, but Will Power went on to win the championship. Juan Pablo Montoya nearly ended the trend in 2015, winning the race for a second time. But after leading the point standings all season, he lost the title on a tiebreaker to Dixon in the season finale.

In 2016, Alexander Rossi won the Indy 500, but Simon Pagenaud went on to win the championship. Takuma Sato won the race in 2017 before Josef Newgarden went on to win the title, and Power won the race in 2018 before Dixon won his fifth title.

Pagenaud won the race in 2019, and Newgarden won his second championship. In 2020, Sato won the race for the second time, and Dixon went on to win his sixth title. Then last year, after Castroneves won the race for a fourth time as a part-time driver, Alex Palou won his first title.

Can Ericsson, who leads the point standings by an even bigger margin two races later, end this trend and win his first IndyCar championship this year? There are still nine races remaining on this year’s 17-race schedule.