Can Penske redress the balance in IndyCar's battle of the titans?

"We did everything we could and it wasn’t enough. We didn’t do a heck of a lot wrong this season."

Those words came from Team Penske’s two-time champion, Josef Newgarden, as he reflected on 2020, a year in which he delivered his most consistent run of performances yet somehow failed to claim a third title. Citing Scott Dixon’s season-opening run of three wins – and Penske misfortunes – as a hammerblow, Newgarden continued: "You can’t let someone like Scott keep finishing ahead of you and get that much of a run going in the championship. They were taking advantage of every situation that was negative for us. To have one single car doing that and for that car to be Dixon’s [is] a recipe for disaster for us and everyone else!"

As he said, he barely put a wheel wrong in 2020, and yet Newgarden was well aware of where he and Penske need to up their game for this season.

"I know personally I have improvements to make – in qualifying, and maybe one or two other areas," he says. "And as a team we have to make some gains too, like at Texas. Ganassi was at a different level than us in race set-up, and remember [in 2021] we have two races there. 

PLUS: Why Newgarden's best IndyCar season yet wasn't enough 

"I think we have to look at the tyre situation too. One of the reasons we finally got that win on the Indy road course was because our car was just so solid on both of Firestone’s compounds, where I think our main rivals were good on one and not so good on the other. Well, trying to get that consistency across reds and blacks for all road and street tracks would obviously be ideal because it would be good to widen that gap over Ganassi, who I think had more tyre struggles than we did this year…"

Josef Newgarden, 2020 Harvest GP

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

That they did. Take, for example, Dixon’s descriptions of Chip Ganassi Racing’s struggles at the double-header Harvest Grand Prix on the Indianapolis road course, where he’d run and hid in the second half of the Indianapolis Grand Prix just a few months earlier.  

"It was crazy because we had good pace on the Firestone reds in the race but we couldn’t hit our own backsides on blacks… and I have no definitive answer as to why,” says Dixon. “We typically have pretty good tyre deg. But that weekend even our tyre deg was crap: it was OK on reds, but on blacks it was horrendous."

Asked last month whether he felt the team had addressed those issues in the off-season, the reigning champion started off with a caveat: "We have some ideas. The problem we’ve faced in recent years is when you do this testing, especially in winter months, the tracks are cold and the conditions are different to what you get [in the season]. And what at least we’ve found is the tyres are quite sensitive even just to ambient conditions or UV on the track."

An off-season shuffle in crew line-ups has left Power extremely confident that, for the first time in a long time, he’ll consistently have pit service to match the gold standard set by Dixon’s and Newgarden’s crews. If that’s the case, there should be fewer mental boiling-point moments

Regarding where he saw areas for improvement, the six-time champion – about to enter his 21st season at this level – admits that he, like the team, needs to keep evolving.

"I think there’s definitely some things I needed to change and apply differently, which I’m pretty cognisant of and have tried to apply to some of our testing thus far, even though we’ve only had two or three days," he says. "The preparation that we do as a team set-up-wise, I think, and definitely some driving style things that I think I need to adjust. 

"With the team-mates it’s been really interesting. A lot of those things take a lot of time to try and analyse. You’re doing a lot of data mining to make sure you can find specific things, and then you’ve got to test whether those actually really apply. 

"The addition of Alex [Palou, IndyCar sophomore entering his first season at Ganassi] and his driving style has been quite different. So even that, at some low-grip circuits, has been really interesting to kind of focus on what works and what’s different, whether it’s a bit of what Marcus [Ericsson] and I do or what Alex does. Having team-mates is always key to try and understand and try and dig deep into how you can change and better yourself." 

Marcus Ericsson, Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: IndyCar Series

Certainly Newgarden has benefited over the past four years from being team-mates with Will Power, who continues to be one of IndyCar’s forces of nature most weekends, but has a few weekends spoiled by the force of his own nature. The 2014 IndyCar champion remains sensationally fast, but the frustrations when bad pitstops or caution periods/closed pitlanes neuter his on-track efforts can cause him to compound the problem with an error, which then makes him mad at himself, which then… You get the picture.  

Generally, however, Power’s just unlucky, and last year his issue in the first third of the season was some rough pitstops, the most severe of which saw him sent out into the fray at Iowa Speedway with only three wheels properly attached, which of course meant he ended up in the wall.

An off-season shuffle in crew line-ups has left Power extremely confident that, for the first time in a long time, he’ll consistently have pit service to match the gold standard set by Dixon’s and Newgarden’s crews. If that’s the case, there should be fewer mental boiling-point moments. For that reason, he’s Autosport’s tip for the 2021 IndyCar title. 

Scott McLaughlin is the intriguing joker in the pack arriving from Supercars and his rate of progress may apply pressure to Simon Pagenaud, who has blown hot and cold ever since winning his 2016 championship. At his best, Pagenaud’s one of the best, no question. But his off days – usually in qualifying – can be absolute shockers, and his problems tend to be exaggerated by not only the pace of Power and Newgarden, but also the densely packed times in the chasing field. Pagenaud can be just half a second slower than Power in qualifying and be separated from him on the grid by 12 cars.

It’s something he’ll need to address in this, his contract year. Pagenaud’s qualifying problems bring to mind a remark made by one engineer when describing the difference between set-up approaches: "Some drivers out there think that if they feel the car’s handling is secure then they’ll get the most out of themselves and will be fast. And yes, sometimes it works out… but only if you have the best car. The quickest guys are prepared to be uncomfortable and deal with the car being tricky on the limit if it means it’s faster." 

It’s difficult to know where Palou might fall on that scale, but we believe that in terms of one-lap pace he should at least be the equal of the #10 Ganassi Dallara-Honda’s previous occupant, Felix Rosenqvist - now at Arrow McLaren SP. No less interesting is what Dixon alluded to: that Palou’s driving style is different enough that he may help steer the team in a new direction on set-up when seeking to remedy their qualifying issues on road courses.

If that is the case, we can be sure that Dixon will adapt – he always does! – and the whole team could make progress as a result. In other words, Palou could be Ganassi’s secret weapon in more ways than one. Staying ahead of Dixon on race days is the tricky part, as any number of the Kiwi’s former team-mates can tell you, but it would be far from surprising to see the Spaniard win a race or two this year. 

Álex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: IndyCar Series

For many the big question is whether the Andretti Autosport team can get back to being title contenders. Ryan Hunter-Reay was the last driver to win it for the team (back in 2012), while Alexander Rossi came close in both 2018 and 2019. But neither made it to victory lane in 2020, and finished ninth and 10th in the points race. Their team-mate Colton Herta, by contrast, finished third through a blend of consistency and searing pace, showing remarkable maturity in only his second full season. 

Palou’s driving style is different enough that he may help steer the team in a new direction on set-up when seeking to remedy their qualifying issues on road courses. If that is the case, we can be sure that Dixon will adapt and the whole team could make progress as a result

That said, both Rossi and Hunter-Reay have the inherent speed to regain pre-eminence in the Andretti Autosport stable, and it’s understood that both made their… er, let’s say ‘extreme disappointment’ with their pitcrews’ performances in 2020 very well known behind closed doors, hence their revitalisation in the final third of last season. 

"I think we’re operating at a really high level right now," says Rossi. "Testing has been good. I think that the last 20 per cent of last year, things had turned a corner and we had identified a lot of issues and had a lot of tough conversations and made some changes, so I think we went into the off-season with quite a bit of optimism, and we’ve continued that progression all the way through the winter."

Rossi surely has a championship in him, while Hunter-Reay – with his DHL sponsorship and future with Andretti Autosport rumoured to be hanging in the balance again – still has the pace to beat anyone on a given day. Their 2021 destinies largely depend on the team maintaining the form we saw in the latter section of the 2020 championship. But even then, Herta will have access to the same equipment.

Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: IndyCar Series