The top themes of IndyCar 2014

Nelson Mandela died. So did Lou Reed and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Seattle Seahawks won the Superbowl. The Winter Olympics came and went. There were 10 point-paying NASCAR Sprint Cup races, and five rounds of the F1 world championship. When your off-season lasts 162 days, a lot can happen in the meantime.

This weekend, IndyCar finally turns the lights back on. None of the really big parts of the puzzle have changed: the DW12 is entering its third year of service, Honda and Chevrolet continue to share the responsibility for making the cars noisy, and aero kits are still a year down the road.

It's the little things that are going to provide the early spice, and in true IndyCar style, subplots are already in rich supply.

The two most recent championship-winning teams have spent their off-season learning to work with new engine suppliers, and in Ganassi's case, they're also learning to work with a replacement for Dario Franchitti.

The points system has been tweaked, and the 18 races for which those points will be awarded have been jammed into a tight five-month schedule; the latter forming part of the series' latest plan to reach audience numbers worthy of the quality of the racing.

And then, there's the single-seater comeback for one of the current generation's most enigmatic drivers.

AUTOSPORT digs into some of the themes that will set the tone for the 2014 season.

SWAPPING BADGES

There was palpable shock in the Houston media centre last year when Ganassi made the surprise announcement that it was switching from Honda to Chevrolet from 2014.

Yet for all that his team achieved with Honda, Chip Ganassi was not above slinging a barb at his engine supplier when he felt that it was required. Sharing a supplier with traditional rival Penske eliminates that variable, but it also removes an excuse if Ganassi repeats its early-season wobbles of 12 months ago.

Honda, meanwhile, is moving from a single-turbo layout to the twin-turbo configuration that Chevrolet has been using for two years - a change mandated by rules, but one that the Japanese manufacturer indicated that it had planned to make for 2014 anyway.

And in Ganassi's absence, Andretti Autosport has decamped from Chevrolet to become the only Honda-aligned team with championship-winning credentials.

Other Honda entries can consistently threaten the leaders; a list headed by Schmidt Peterson's Simon Pagenaud. But sheer weight of resources, starting with a five-car stable, mean that Andretti is going to figure heavily in Honda's success this year. Andretti, for its part, is going to be on tenterhooks until it is certain that Honda's confidence in its twin-turbo unit is well-founded. Expectations will be high on both sides.

SECOND-CHANCE SALOON

In crisis lies opportunity, and Dario Franchitti's premature exit from the cockpit delivered an unexpected shot in the arm for a couple of drivers who might still feel they have something to prove.

Tony Kanaan's move to Ganassi had already been confirmed before the accident that ended Franchitti's career, but he was originally hired to drive the fourth car and give the team an extra ace in the hand for the Indy 500.

His promotion to Franchitti's former #10 car on the team's frontline alongside reigning champion Scott Dixon places the Brazilian in one of the most successful entries in the field. It's not an opportunity presented to many 39-year-olds, and it must seem especially surreal for Kanaan considering what he's been through over the past couple of years - it wasn't that long ago that he was almost left without any drive at all.

While his status as a former series champion might seem like a strong qualification for the ride, IndyCar's current emphasis on road and street courses is a world away from the all-oval environment of 2004. Kanaan still prickles slightly at the suggestion that he's not always comfortable turning right; this is the best chance he could wish for to make his point.

Kanaan's nomination as Franchitti's replacement created a vacancy in Ganassi's #8 entry that was eventually filled by Ryan Briscoe, who had been looking for a way back into IndyCar full-time after splitting with Penske at the end of 2012.

Briscoe has priors with Ganassi - he spent his debut season with the team, and made a one-off return for Indy last year. The Australian remains convinced that he has a championship in him, and while he came close once with his former employer, the move to Ganassi represents another chance to prove his point.

DON'T BLINK

If you count the total elapsed days, the 2014 IndyCar season will actually be shorter than the off-season that it is finally emerging from. How often does that happen?

Series boss Mark Miles argues that the tighter, more intense calendar will make the sport easier to follow and encourage casual fan retention; a stance that has been questioned by some in the paddock who are unclear about how making the season shorter will increase visibility.

The other aspect to the shorter season is that it creates lots of space for the non-
championship races that have been talked about for the past 12 months, although this benefit is currently of limited value due to the fact that no such races have actually been confirmed yet.

There are also changes within the confines of that five-month bracket. Brazil and Baltimore are off the table, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's road course will be used by the series for the first time as a curtain-raiser for the Indy 500.

DOUBLE POINTS

Right on the eve of the first race, the series announced that the 500-milers at Indianapolis, Pocono and Fontana will be worth double points right through the field from 2014 onwards.

At first glance, this might seem like overkill. IndyCar's points system was one of the areas that didn't need fixing. The championship already goes down to the wire pretty much every year, and it does it completely organically. NASCAR would kill for that.

But looking purely at the DW12 era, history suggests that if you applied the new double-
points rule retrospectively, not much would have changed. Dario Franchitti, who won the 2012 Indy 500, was not a factor in that year's championship, and neither was Ed Carpenter, who took the honours at Fontana.

Last year, it was the same story. Tony Kanaan won at Indy; Will Power was in Victory Lane at Fontana. Kanaan was never in the title hunt, and while the extra points would have bumped Power slightly higher up the standings, he'd still have been mathematically out of contention prior to the finale. And that's after the latter's Indy and Pocono results have been taken into account.

Indeed, it's when you try to factor Pocono in that it all gets messy. The Tricky Triangle wasn't on the schedule in 2012, and while eventual champion Scott Dixon won last year's race, that was only contested over 400 miles, not 500. Dixon was fast that day, but a lot can happen on that track in 100 miles. Assuming that he had gone 500 miles and earned double-points, and factoring in double-points for Indy as well, AUTOSPORT's potentially wonky maths suggests that Dixon would have gone into Fontana last year with a 36 point lead over Helio Castroneves - 11 more than he had in reality.

(It's worth remembering at this point that Castroneves finishes eight places ahead of Dixon at Indy last year, which limited the advantage that Dixon later earned through winning at Pocono).

Previously, a 36-point deficit would have been almost insurmountable unless Dixon walled it in the opening laps. But with double points on offer, not only would it be achievable, but in relative terms it actually brings Castroneves closer to Dixon: 36 points in a double-points race equals 18 points in a regular race, yet last year he arrived at Fontana 25 points in arrears.

MONTOYA

Juan Pablo Montoya is doing his level best to downplay expectations as he prepares to race a single-seater for the first time since walking away from Formula 1.

Right through pre-season testing, he has been eager to talk up all the reasons why he doesn't expect to be quick right away (hasn't raced on a street course for six years, hasn't tested on the softer red tyres yet, hasn't nailed down all the idiosyncrasies of the car). Indeed, Penske's Tim Cindric admitted to AUTOSPORT earlier this year that even the team expects Montoya to need some time to settle.

The Colombian's own short-term goal is to be up to speed by the Indy 500, which seems reasonable enough. But even if the edge needs a little sharpening, his force of personality and swashbuckling flair means that no matter what he does, it's going to be worth watching.

2014 IndyCar entry list                                                 
                                                                        
#  Name                Team                       Car/Engine            
2  Juan Pablo Montoya  Team Penske                Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
3  Helio Castroneves   Team Penske                Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
4  TBA                 Panther Racing             Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
5  Jacques Villeneuve* Schmidt Peterson Hamilton  Dallara DW12/Honda    
7  Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt Peterson Hamilton  Dallara DW12/Honda    
8  Ryan Briscoe        Chip Ganassi Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
9  Scott Dixon         Chip Ganassi Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
10 Tony Kanaan         Chip Ganassi Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
11 Sebastien Bourdais  KV Racing Technology       Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
12 Will Power          Team Penske Dallara        DW12/Chevrolet        
14 Takuma Sato         AJ Foyt Enterprises        Dallara DW12/Honda    
15 Graham Rahal        Rahal Letterman Lanigan    Dallara DW12/Honda    
16 Oriol Servia*       Rahal Letterman Lanigan    Dallara DW12/Honda    
17 Sebastian Saavedra  KV Racing Technology       Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
18 TBA                 Dale Coyne Racing          Dallara DW12/Honda    
19 Justin Wilson       Dale Coyne Racing          Dallara DW12/Honda    
20 Mike Conway+        Ed Carpenter Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
20 Ed Carpenter++      Ed Carpenter Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
21 JR Hildebrand*      Ed Carpenter Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
25 Marco Andretti      Andretti Autosport         Dallara DW12/Honda    
26 Kurt Busch*         Andretti Autosport         Dallara DW12/Honda    
27 James Hinchcliffe   Andretti Autosport         Dallara DW12/Honda    
28 Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti Autosport         Dallara DW12/Honda    
34 Carlos Munoz        Andretti Autosport         Dallara DW12/Honda    
41 Martin Plowman*     AJ Foyt Enterprises        Dallara DW12/Honda    
67 Josef Newgarden     Sarah Fisher Hartman       Dallara DW12/Honda    
68 Alex Tagliani*      Sarah Fisher Hartman       Dallara DW12/Honda    
77 Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt Peterson Hamilton  Dallara DW12/Honda    
83 Charlie Kimball     Chip Ganassi Racing        Dallara DW12/Chevrolet
98 Jack Hawksworth     Bryan Herta Autosport      Dallara DW12/Honda    
                                                                        
*   Limited Schedule                                                      
+   Road/street only                                                      
++  Ovals only                                                            
                                                                        
2014 IndyCar calendar:                                                  
                                                                        
30 March    St Petersburg (street)                                      
13 April    Long Beach (street)                                         
27 April    Barber (road)                                               
10 May      Indianapolis Motor Speedway (road)                          
25 May      Indianapolis 500 (oval)                                     
31 May      Detroit 1 (street)                                          
1 June      Detroit 2 (street)                                          
7 June      Texas Motor Speedway (oval)                                 
28 June     Houston 1 (street)                                          
29 June     Houston 2 (street)                                          
6 July      Pocono (oval)                                               
12 July     Iowa (oval)                                                 
19 July     Toronto 1 (street)                                          
20 July     Toronto 2 (street)                                          
3 August    Mid-Ohio (road)                                             
17 August   Milwaukee (oval)                                            
24 August   Sonoma (road)                                               
30 August   Fontana (oval)