The top 10 IndyCar drivers of 2017

Team Penske scored 10 wins in the 17 races that comprised the 2017 IndyCar Series, but remarkably there were still 10 different race winners and the Sonoma finale featured several potential winners of the championship - four realistic, six altogether.

We saw a win for Dale Coyne Racing from Sebastien Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe's first victory since his life-threatening shunt at Indy two years ago, the first road-course win for Alexander Rossi, Takuma Sato scoring the first Indy 500 victory for a Japanese driver and the first win in three years for Helio Castroneves.

This was also the year when criticism of race control seemed to almost disappear, when Curtis Francois proved at Gateway Motorsports Park that IndyCar's oval races can be successful, and when two teams (Juncos Racing and Harding Racing) and several aspiring full-time IndyCar drivers (Zach Veach, Jack Harvey, Esteban Gutierrez, Ed Jones and Zachary Claman DeMelo) made their series debuts, although Jones was the only full-season rookie in 2017.

Actually, there were six IndyCar race debutants this year, but one of these - a guy named Fernando Alonso - has not yet decided where to race in 2018. It would be great to see him back.

Alonso looked truly promising, but here are the best season-long performers.

10. James Hinchcliffe

Team: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda
Starts: 17
Wins: 1
Championship position: 14th

Hinch started the season looking like he'd taken a step forward in pace over the previous winter. In the first eight races, he qualified on the first three rows five times and, more importantly, he converted one of those efforts into victory at Long Beach.

He also cast team-mate Mikhail Aleshin, increasingly impressive in 2016, into the shadows, where his erratic performances led to an early split from SPM. That may have ultimately cost Hinchcliffe, however, because journeyman part-timer Sebastian Saavedra and rookie Jack Harvey were of limited use as team-mates once SPM began to struggle on road courses.

To flourish, both Hinchcliffe and his team need a fast and experienced driver in car #7 next year.

9. Takuma Sato

Team: Andretti Autosport-Honda
Starts: 17
Wins: 1
Championship position: 8th

Taku's results are dominated by his brilliant Indianapolis 500 victory, where he held off three-time Indy-winning master Helio Castroneves. The shunt at Texas Motor Speedway just two weeks later was a reminder that even in his eighth season of IndyCar racing, Sato's overexcitement can lead to errors with huge consequences.

That said, there were fewer shunts and unnecessary incidents this year, suggesting he knew when to consolidate what he had rather than strive for half-chances, and he regularly competed for the very unofficial title of fastest Andretti Autosport driver in qualifying.

It's sad that this partnership had to end after just a year, but Michael Andretti's loss is Bobby Rahal's gain.

8. Ryan Hunter-Reay

Team: Andretti Autosport-Honda
Starts: 17
Best finish: 3rd
Championship position: 9th

For the second straight year RHR went winless, had to console himself with three third places and was a favourite to win the Indy 500 until a situation outside his control (on this occasion, mechanical) took him out.

Andretti Autosport as a team did move forward and Hunter-Reay has cause to be excited about the next three years, as he remains one of IndyCar's elite. His recovery from the painful Pocono shunt also proved his iron will. But for the first time in his eight years at Andretti Autosport, RHR had to share the team's spotlight as Alexander Rossi came on increasingly strong.

Together they should accelerate the team's resurgence - so long as their rivalry remains friendly.

7. Graham Rahal

Team: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda
Starts: 17
Wins: 2
Championship position: 6th

Rahal himself is probably annoyed that according to the championship positions, he's slipped from fourth to fifth to sixth over the past three seasons, but actually, this was probably the most convincing of the three.

Finding the last scintilla of speed in the third year of the manufacturer aerokits was a job for multi-car teams, especially considering practice sessions on road/street courses were reduced to 45 minutes, so single-car RLLR was on the back foot. But when the right set-up was nailed - as at Detroit - Rahal flew and dominated.

Sato's arrival in 2018 should provide Rahal with a very useful personal gauge and also push the team forward. No more 'small-team' excuses.

6. Alexander Rossi

Team: Andretti-Herta Autosport-Honda
Starts: 17
Wins: 1
Championship position: 7th

Without electrical issues in the finale at Sonoma, Rossi would have been sixth in the title race; had his engine not blown while stalking Hinchcliffe for the win at Long Beach, he might have been fifth.

In his sophomore season, this intelligent and swift former GP2 ace was moulding his talent to IndyCar, and it paid off with pole and victory at Watkins Glen. That was Rossi's fifth straight top-six finish, and his third podium in six races.

He's not yet comfortable on short ovals and still needs to find that final tenth to constantly match Hunter-Reay in qualifying. But Rossi's weaknesses are disappearing as rapidly as his self-belief is increasing.

5. Helio Castroneves

Team: Penske-Chevrolet
Starts: 17
Wins: 1
Championship position: 4th

After six rounds of the season, Castroneves led the championship. Five races later, he scored his first win in three years, after leading 217 of the 300 laps of Iowa Speedway.

He arrived at Sonoma just 22 points from leader Josef Newgarden, and his undistinguished run to fifth was partly due to the unambitious strategy of trying to keep Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon at bay.

While Castroneves definitely had days where he was fourth best of the Penske quartet, his team-mates had days like that too and, even aside from Iowa, there were times when the Brazilian veteran was Roger's best driver - Indy, Watkins Glen, qualifying at Road America...

He deserves another full season.

4. Simon Pagenaud

Team: Penske-Chevrolet
Starts: 17
Wins: 2
Championship position: 2nd

The man who took five wins and seven poles last year thought the off-season aerokit freeze would bring more of the same kind of results in 2017. But Firestone's compound tweaks, and his early issues with brakes, resulted in a fractional loss of confidence for Pagenaud and he had an undistinguished year overall, despite completing every lap.

The way the yellow fell at Phoenix benefited the #1 car alone, although that fortunate win was balanced by Pagenaud losing out under yellow at Toronto when he was the fastest of all.

His pole there - half a second faster than his Penske team-mates on a 60s track! - as well as his charge from the rear at Long Beach and flat-out drive at Sonoma, prove he's still got an inner fire. But he needs to show it more often.

3. Will Power

Team: Penske-Chevrolet
Starts: 17
Wins: 3
Championship position: 5th

The fastest driver in the series needs to start races on lap two.

He had only himself to blame for the flat-spotting of his tyre at Turn 1 at St Pete, and the Turn 1 spin at Gateway, but the first-lap collisions with Charlie Kimball at Long Beach and Scott Dixon at Toronto weren't his fault.

He was also wiped out in a multi-car shunt in the double-points Indy 500, got a puncture while leading 14 laps from home at Barber, saw a caution period put him behind Pagenaud after leading at Phoenix, and was then told to stay behind Josef Newgarden at Sonoma.

Not even three excellent wins, nor leading more laps than his rivals, could overcome all that and bring a second championship.

2. Scott Dixon

Team: Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda
Starts: 17
Wins: 1
Championship position: 3rd

Dixon gets the nod over Power because, unlike Will, Scott was having to both learn and use the more draggy Honda aerokit without consistent help from ace team-mates.

Generally, he and race engineer Chris Simmons had to work from instinct and intellect, and they only missed a couple of times - Mid-Ohio and Pocono.

At most races they wrung everything they could from the #9 car and in addition to his solitary victory at Road America, Dixon should probably have won both St Petersburg and Long Beach, but missed out through no fault of his own. He was also innocent in his Indy 500 and Texas disasters.

Dixon didn't win the championship, but his consistent excellence reminded everyone why he has four titles to his name already.

1. Josef Newgarden

Team: Penske-Chevrolet
Starts: 17
Wins: 4
Championship position: 1st

OK, so he made a couple of high-profile mistakes at Texas and Watkins Glen. And OK, his first two wins for Penske were gifts from team-mates (Power at Barber, Castroneves and Pagenaud at Toronto), but Newgarden was in close enough proximity to take full advantage of both opportunities.

To score his other two wins he outduelled Power at Mid-Ohio and Pagenaud at Gateway, he simply outpaced all his team-mates on raceday at Road America and in both Detroit races, and who knows how he might have tackled Pagenaud and Power had all three been off the leash at Sonoma?

He was also unlucky to lose so many points at Indy in May, with an electronic glitch in the GP and getting caught up in someone else's mess in the 500.

The previous three seasons proved Newgarden deserved a ride with a top team. This year, he proved he deserves to keep it.

He is a very worthy champion.

The nearly men

Just three other drivers were considered for inclusion here. Sebastien Bourdais, had he not eliminated himself from eight races with his monstrous crash in Indy 500 practice, would surely have been in the running for our top 10. His win in St Petersburg and second at Long Beach appeared to herald one of Dale Coyne Racing's greatest ever seasons, but missing half the races meant a fair assessment couldn't be made.

For a similar reason Spencer Pigot was ineligible for this list since his deal with Ed Carpenter Racing meant he gave up the #20 ECR-Chevy to his team boss for all the left-turn-only tracks. He did help his old Indy Lights team Juncos Racing make its IndyCar Series debut at the Indy 500, but following a shunt in practice, that performance would remain inconclusive; Pigot was focused on just bringing the car home.

However, Pigot's good judgement, speed and rediscovered aggression promise great things for 2018, as he replaces JR Hildebrand as the full-timer in the #21 ECR car.

Finally, a special shout-out to Ed Jones who so nearly grabbed our P10 spot from Hinchcliffe. Not only did he learn well from Bourdais, he effectively carried the Coyne team during the Frenchman's convalescence, while the #18 DCR machine was passing through the hands of James Davison, Tristan Vautier and Esteban Gutierrez.

Jones not only grabbed a brilliant third place in the Indy 500, he was also able to produce enough consistency over the course of the season to beat a Carpenter driver, both AJ Foyt Racing drivers, and a Ganassi driver in the points standings.

For a rookie who was missing his team leader for half the season, that was impressive.