You have to go back to 2012 to find the most recent IndyCar season in which a team other than Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing won a championship, which is somewhat bizarre in a series that has ironically been, even during that 13-year stretch, touted for its parity.
Seven of the sport's other eight teams have found victory lane at least once during that stretch, with three doing so in 2025 alone. One of those three is Andretti Global, and Andretti Global have already stood atop the podium through four races in 2026 as well.
For a while, Andretti Global was considered a part of IndyCar's "big three", until it became clear in the early 2020s that it was really only a "big two".
Andretti Global, then known as Andretti Autosport, remains responsible for that most recent non-Penske/Ganassi IndyCar championship, when Ryan Hunter-Reay won it in 2012.
For several years in a row, it almost felt like fans were kidding themselves when it came to expectations of Andretti Global actually contending for championships.
After Alexander Rossi's strong finish to 2017, runner-up finish in 2018, and third place finish in 2019, he was supposed to take that next step in 2020. He ended up not winning another race until 2022.
After Colton Herta closed out the 2021 season with back-to-back wins to tie first-time champion Alex Palou for the series lead in victories, he was the championship betting favorite heading into 2022. He won a grand total of one of his next 46 starts and posted career-worst points finishes of 10th in both 2022 and 2023.
Herta finished runner-up to Palou in the 2024 standings, although that was aided by the Team Penske push-to-pass disqualifications; he was never really a title threat and was not championship eligible heading into the season finale. Still, expectations were high in 2025, yet he went winless for the second time in three years before moving to Formula 2.
Is Andretti still a pretender, or has the tide turned?
With Andretti Global, the issue has been consistency, both in terms of a lack of it on the race track, and an abundance of it when it comes to not meeting expectations.
As Herta went winless, teammate Kyle Kirkwood was second in the series with three victories a year ago. Yet Kirkwood did not record a single other podium finish and had just two other top five efforts. Again, he was never truly a contender in a series where championships are often won by capitalizing on non-winning race days.
But in the early stages of the 2026 season, Andretti Global are arguably as strong as they've been since Rossi's back-to-back top three finishes in 2018 and 2019, possibly even since Hunter-Reay's 2012 title run.
"There have been a lot of things happening in the team," Marcus Ericsson, who finds himself tied for seventh in the standings after finishing 15th and 20th in his first two years behind the wheel of the No. 28 Honda, told Beyond the Flag, in an interview made possible by his partnership with Allegra.
"They’re pushing very hard, and we have a lot of good people, some new people as well, with Ron Ruzewski running the team now and Will Power coming in. That’s been really, really good for us, and they’ve done a really good job."
Kirkwood leads the championship standings by two points over Palou, and he's yet to finish a race outside of the top five; he ended 2025 with nine straight finishes of sixth or worse. He won the inaugural race on the streets of Arlington, Texas, and he picked up only his second career non-win podium finish with a runner-up effort at Phoenix Raceway.
The Phoenix result was notable because of how badly the organization has struggled over the years on short ovals. Even in Kirkwood's Gateway win a year ago, he clearly did not have the strongest car, and the attrition throughout the rest of the field paved the way for him to capitalize.
"A lot of good things happening in the team," Ericsson continued. "Moving to a new shop here in Indianapolis has been really cool as well, and there’s a lot of positive momentum. We have also been looking at ourselves throughout the last year and where we need to improve, and ovals and road courses have been the biggest areas where we need to focus on."
Given the fact that Will Power was in contention for the win at Phoenix, even after starting in the back following a qualifying crash, Kirkwood's effort was clearly no fluke.
But it's arguably Kirkwood's worst result of the year, a fifth place finish at Barber Motorsports Park, that indicates the team might truly be here to play in 2026.
For as much as they've struggled on short ovals, Andretti Global have arguably struggled even more on road courses. Yet Kirkwood qualified fifth and finished fifth, and Ericsson was in the top 10 all weekend en route to a ninth place finish. Power rallied from the back to finish 12th after crashing in qualifying.
"Phoenix was a strong weekend for us as a team, and now Barber was strong weekend for us as a team, so that really makes me excited for the rest of the year," Ericsson, winner of the 2022 Indy 500, said. "We know we have a good street course package, but I think we’ve improved that even more because I think we’re even stronger now. It’s a very encouraging start of the year."
Ericsson believes that the addition of Power to the team has been a net positive for everybody, even though Power himself is currently outside the top 12 in points. The 35-year-old Swede noted the technical expertise that the fourth winningest driver in IndyCar history has brought to the table so far.
"He’s one of the best and fastest ever in IndyCar racing; there’s no doubt about that," Ericsson said of Power. "For him to come over here with all of this experience, it’s been really good to just sort of pick his brain on different things, and I’ve learned a lot from him already.
"Obviously for me being a teammate, you can look at a lot of his driving data and videos and see interesting things there. But something that’s really caught me, not quite by surprise, but I’ve been impressed with just his technical knowledge and how involved he is with the technical side of things and the setups and stuff like that. That’s been really cool to see that learn from him there."
Sure, it's hard to argue that the four-time series champion Palou doesn't still deserve to be the championship favorite; it's been four years since anybody else won one.
But even after four races, it's clear that Andretti Global are strong everywhere, and that's something that hasn't truly been the case for close to a decade.
Perhaps we're not kidding ourselves any longer.
"Just looking back at Barber, I think that was a big one for us as well, just to have a solid weekend there on a track where we were struggling on road courses last year as a team, and especially for me in the No. 28 car," Ericsson said.
"I was really struggling to get a good feel. I felt like we did a big step in the right direction there, solidly in the top 10 all weekend and a ninth place finish at the checkered flag. It’s promising. ... a lot of positives."
Race number five on the schedule is the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, a race won by Kirkwood from pole in both 2023 and 2025. Fox's live coverage from the streets of Long Beach, California is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 19. Start a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action from IndyCar's crown jewel street race!