IndyCar's best driver lineup might not belong to Penske or Ganassi

Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have had a stranglehold on the IndyCar championship for more than a decade, with Andretti Autosport (Andretti Global) still having won the most recent title not won by Penske or Ganassi when Ryan Hunter-Reay won it in 2012.

That streak is more than likely to continue for a 12th consecutive season in 2024, with Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward being the top non-Penske/Ganassi challenger in the championship standings, 70 points out of the lead with eight of 17 races remaining on the 2024 calendar.

Yet despite drivers from IndyCar's "top tier" of two teams having stood atop the podium for 13 straight races, prior to O'Ward victory on Sunday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, the 2024 season has shown that the series' strongest driver lineup might actually belong to somebody else.

Team Penske's driver lineup consists of two two-time series champions in Will Power and Josef Newgarden, along with Scott McLaughlin.

Power has had a solid bounce back season in 2024 after going winless for the first time since 2007 in 2023. But he still only has a single win since June 2022, and that simply doesn't cut it when it comes to competing for a championship. His 2022 title was a bit of an anomaly, as he became the first one-win champion since Tony Stewart won the 1996-97 Indy Racing League title.

Newgarden is the two-time reigning Indy 500 winner, but he continues to struggle on non-ovals. His 15th place standing in the road and street course points trails drivers from eight of the sport's 10 teams.

While nobody wants to count him out from title contention since six of the season's final eight races are scheduled to take place on ovals, a 143-point gap is practically insurmountable. He has three top four finishes and then no other finishes inside the top 15.

McLaughlin looked like a championship threat after his ultra-consistent finish to the 2023 season, yet in addition to three podium finishes, he has recorded four finishes of 20th place or worse this year.

Chip Ganassi Racing are still the team to beat, with reigning series champion Alex Palou again atop the championship standings as he seeks his third title in the last four years and six-time champion Scott Dixon in fourth place with multiple wins as well. Palou and Dixon have combined to win four of the six most recent championships.

But the rest of the lineup leaves a lot to be desired. None of the other three drivers are higher than 15th place. Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist both have podium finishes this year, but lack of consistency has kept them from moving up the standings. Kyffin Simpson sits in 21st with a top finish of 12th. The 2024 season is the first full season for all three.

Then there is Andretti Global.

Despite the fact that they are winless halfway through the 2024 season, and they haven't finished a full season without a win since 2009, their driver lineup has been as stout as any.

The team downsized from four cars to three, and the last time they ran only three cars full-time, they won the championship.

Colton Herta led the championship standings earlier in the season, and he had the car to beat in the Indy 500. Had he and the team realized the No. 26 Honda wasn't nearly as damaged as they thought after his mid-race incident, he probably would have been able to remain on the lead lap and finish inside the top 10.

In the following race on the streets of Detroit, Michigan, his old habits came back to bite him. After dominating the race and looking to be well on his way to a win, he found himself mired back in the pack and made an overaggressive move to take himself out of contention. The apparent desperation was almost a repeat of what took him out in Nashville back in 2021 and then again at Long Beach in 2022.

Then at Road America, in a race he showed he had the pace to win, he was taken out of contention in the first corner and still managed to rally to finish in sixth place.

Take away any two of those three instances, and he's sitting in second place in the championship standings right now instead of fifth.

Then there is Kyle Kirkwood, who has the best worst finish in the series of 11th place. Five of the six most recent championships have been won by the driver with the best worst finish, and all four champions during that six-year stretch, who happen to be the only four active former series champions, won a title after having posted the best worst finish at least once.

Though he hasn't won in 2024, he simply hasn't made any major mistakes, a stark contrast to last year, when his only top 10 finish in the season's first six races was a win.

Finally, there is Marcus Ericsson, whom the team added from Chip Ganassi Racing over the offseason. He was on course for a top five finish to open the season in St. Petersburg before a mechanical failure knocked him out.

A disastrous month of May saw the 2022 Indy 500 winner taken out in an opening lap crash after qualifying on the back row in a backup car, thanks to his own crash in practice. Yet since then, he has managed to claw his way back up to 12th place in the standings on the back of four straight top 10 finishes.

Only O'Ward and Kirkwood are on similar streaks, as the Swede appears to be coming into his own at his new team after an extremely rough start.

Andretti Global aren't yet on the level of Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing when it comes to speed. But it's clear that their decision to downsize and add Marcus Ericsson to a lineup already consisting of Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood is paying off. If they can stick to this trio and avoid doing what they've done in 14 of the last 15 offseasons and making a driver change, that stability could go a long way.