IndyCar: How 5 drivers kept a Dan Wheldon record alive

Five drivers entered the 2022 IndyCar season finale with a chance to win the championship, keeping alive Dan Wheldon’s impressive mark from 2005.

Team Penske’s Will Power entered the 2022 IndyCar season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with the points lead. Unlike three of the four previous times he entered the final race of the year atop the standings, he held on and won the championship, his first since 2014.

Power became the seventh straight driver to enter the season finale with the points lead and win the championship.

In fact, since Power lost his lead in the final race for what was a third straight year in 2012, only once has the driver who entered the season finale in the points lead not won the title. When that happened in 2015, that driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, only lost on a tiebreaker.

After 16 of 17 races on the 2022 calendar, there were still four drivers other than Power eligible to win the championship. Teammates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin remained in contention, as did Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson.

It made the 2022 season the 17th consecutive season in which the championship was not decided until the final race.

Not since Dan Wheldon won the 2005 championship has an IndyCar title been wrapped up before the season finale.

It is worth noting that IndyCar utilized double points-paying season finales from 2014 to 2019. However, even under a single points-paying format, the championships would have come down to the final race in each season.

The lone semi-exception would have been 2014, when under a single points-paying format, points leader Power simply would have needed to show up to the season finale to secure the championship over closest challenger Helio Castroneves.

But the same actually could have been said for Wheldon with two races to go in 2005. He was that far ahead of everybody else that simply showing up meant he would win the title.

Even if this 17-year run does come to an end in the near future, it is highly unlikely that anybody else will ever come close to doing what Wheldon did and effectively locking things up with two races remaining on the schedule. He officially remains the most recent driver to secure the championship with one race to go.

Wheldon was also responsible for starting a separate streak which also remains intact. From 2005 to 2010, five of the six Indy 500 winners went on to win the championship the same year, including Wheldon in 2005.

But in a one-off entry, Wheldon won the Indy 500 for a second time in May 2011, just four and a half months before he succumbed to injuries suffered in a 15-car wreck in the season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — 11 years ago today.

Not since the year before has the Indy 500 winner won the title in the same season (Dario Franchitti, 2010), making Wheldon the first Indy 500 winner in a current 12-year streak.