NTT IndyCar Series: 5 bold predictions for the 2024 season
By Asher Fair
No. 4 - Andretti Global resurgence
I've already unofficially picked Josef Newgarden to win the championship in slide one (despite him not being number one in my championship rankings), so I won't go that far for Andretti Global.
But Michael Andretti's team made the right decision to drop from four cars to three for the 2024 season, and they should once again be a serious threat over the course of a full 17-race season (as opposed to the course of a full weekend from time to time).
There are rarely any points for nice guys in IndyCar, and Devlin DeFrancesco unfortunately found that out the hard way, finishing no higher than 12th place in two seasons for the team.
Aside from the departure of DeFrancesco and his entry, Andretti Global added the uber-consistent Marcus Ericsson as the replacement for Romain Grosjean, whose once promising two-year run with the team ended in disaster.
Ericsson has recorded three straight winning seasons, and all resulted in sixth place points finishes (better than anything at Andretti Global in 2022 or 2023). He also won the Indy 500 during that stretch, something the five-time Indy 500-winning organization hasn't done in seven years.
Kyle Kirkwood was one of the breakout stars in 2023, winning twice and running as high as second place in the Indy 500 in his first year with the team.
And as much as Colton Herta gets criticized for his inconsistency and sometimes unnecessarily bold moves, he remains one of the quickest drivers on the grid and figures to be an ideal bounce-back candidate after his first winless season. He has won as many as three races in a season before and has finished as high as third place in the standings.
It may also be worth mentioning that the last time Andretti entered three entries instead of four or more was in 2012, when Ryan Hunter-Reay won what remains the organization's most recent IndyCar title.