The winners and losers of IndyCar 2021 so far

Patricio O'Ward leads the IndyCar points standings after becoming the first double winner of the season with a late charge to victory on the streets of Detroit last weekend.

The Arrow McLaren SP driver is one of four first drivers who have made their first trips to victory lane this year - Chip Ganassi Racing twins Alex Palou (at Barber) and Marcus Ericsson (at Detroit) and Ed Carpenter Racing's Rinus VeeKay (the Indianapolis Grand Prix) also taking their maiden spoils - while Helio Castroneves' record-equalling fourth Indianapolis 500 victory on his only appearance of the season to date with Meyer Shank Racing came four years after his previous series win at Iowa in 2017.

Amid all the unpredictability, which shows little sign in letting up anytime soon, a few patterns have started to emerge. Here's how each of the teams has fared so far.

Patricio O'Ward celebrates his second win of the year in the famous Detroit fountain

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet

For a couple of years we’ve been quizzing Sam Schmidt about the chances that the team he founded with Ric Peterson - and boosted by partnering with McLaren - would turn IndyCar’s top echelon into a 'Big Four', or replace Andretti Autosport in the 'Big Three'. He wisely stayed modest on the subject, but believed the team was “getting there” in terms of being consistently strong enough across a variety of tracks.

Modesty be damned: this squad is right there. O’Ward has racked up two wins, two poles, two thirds, two fourths and is now leading the championship. He's basically continuing on the good work from last year – fast, decisive, confident and composed in a manner belying his 22 years – but in a car that is au point more often than not.

The baseline setup at Arrow McLaren SP ‘turns on’ the tyres more rapidly than that of any other team, as Palou observed at Detroit, noting O’Ward’s scintillating restarts and qualifying laps. This can have its downside in terms of excessive tyre wear over a race stint [think Barber, St. Petersburg, GP Indy], as Palou also noted. Consider that as very much the McLaren influence which has now truly kicked in, having started to flex itself last year. Formula 1 teams are well used to grid position defining finishing position, after all...

But it does create slightly peculiar handling traits in both formulas, and just as Daniel Ricciardo is struggling to match Lando Norris as he grapples with the alien handling of his McLaren MCL35 after joining from Renault, so former Ganassi driver Felix Rosenqvist has been disappointing compared with O’Ward in qualifying. At the slightly slower pace of race days he’s been absolutely fine in terms of speed, but mistakes and misfortunes have been piling on the pressure.

Rosenqvist could have feasibly had a podium and a win by now, but instead the Swede languishes 24th in points, having missed the second Detroit race following his huge shunt in race one. Now he’s going to miss Road America, the venue where he scored his first win last year - ironically by beating O’Ward…

Alex Palou took victory in the Barber season opener

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda

Three of Chip Ganassi’s drivers have won races this year, and they currently lie second, third and seventh in the championship in the order Palou (just one point behind O’Ward), Scott Dixon (-36) and Ericsson (-88). On its best days, Ganassi looks as strong as ever, and as usual with this team, it tends to capitalise on those days. When it doesn’t, as with Dixon at Indy, it’s been through no fault of its own.

The polesitter that day had wisely saved fuel behind a couple of other cars through the first stint, had made his fuel last longer than most, and yet suffered from the pit-closed-under-caution rule, ran out of fuel and then had the engine fail to fire. Until that point, most believed Dixon would have been the runaway winner, appearing to have the same edge over the opposition as he’d enjoyed on his way to victory in the first Texas race.

That in turn was similar to Palou’s edge at the season-opener in Barber, in which the Spaniard had Will Power and Dixon handled in terms of pace/fuel-mileage. Some have described Palou as a revelation this year, but in fact he showed similar pace in his rookie season with Dale Coyne Racing; it’s just that now his understanding of IndyCar allows him to show his racecraft too. Only inexperience of being at the front of an oval race – and facing an old master like Castroneves – prevented him from winning the 500. Like Dixon, Palou should arrive at the Long Beach finale firmly in the championship hunt.

PLUS: How good is Palou - and can he be Dixon's main IndyCar title rival?

Dixon has his toughest intra-team rival since Dario Franchitti, but over the course of the season, who would be surprised if the six-time champ prevailed? Only the foolhardy would underestimate him.

Ericsson’s victory at Detroit owed something to luck because of Power’s ECU failure during the second red flag, but at the start of stints on a full fuel load, he actually looked the stronger of the pair. It will be interesting to see if the confidence-booster of getting his first win will elevate the ex-F1 driver to the status of consistent challenger.

Jimmie Johnson in the fourth Ganassi entry has faced the uphill struggle that most predicted, and Detroit inevitably messed with his head at first. But then the seven-time NASCAR Cup champion dug deep, like all champions do, and got better in the second race. It’s good to have him around and he is making impressive progress. If – as we suspect – he starts racing ovals next year, he will be closer to the pace and capable of scoring top fives.

On his return to the team for an oval-only schedule in the #48 car vacated by Johnson, Tony Kanaan could have done just that in any of the three oval races held so far this year, but has just been shockingly unlucky. Don’t count the 2004 champion out of signing off with victory at Gateway in August.

Josef Newgarden dominated the second Detroit race, but was caught before the end by a flying O'Ward

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Team Penske-Chevrolet

Seven podiums but no wins doesn’t quite tell the full story of Penske in 2021, as fate has slapped the team upside the head a couple of times. But not once in the opening eight races has Roger Penske's team appeared to have the best cars, and that is unusual by this illustrious squad’s high standards.

True, the Chevrolet engine is not as strong as the Honda at low boost levels, but that isn’t a complete explanation, either. For instance, Josef Newgarden looked completely puzzled after the second Texas race – he thought he had a fast car, a winner, in that closing stint but felt impotent when attacked by O’Ward with the same powerplant. And the team was quite anonymous at one of its traditional strongholds, the Indianapolis road course – a race won by VeeKay in another Chevy-powered car.

Indy 500 qualifying was quite frankly an embarrassment, especially when the team had supposedly focused on improving on ovals in the offseason – despite there being only four of them on this year’s schedule. When your fastest car qualifies mid-grid (Scott McLaughlin in 17th) and one of your former winners is in a nail-biting battle to even make the field (Power in 32nd), you have a fundamental engineering problem, and Ed Carpenter Racing’s pace proved that the blame couldn’t be laid at Chevrolet’s door.

The team got horribly unlucky in Detroit: Power should have won the first race, and a 50/50 tactical misstep saw Newgarden miss out on victory in race two because he had to run the red tyres for too long in the final stint. (His pole position, incidentally, was from the very top drawer.) But the tightness of the field means that to get into victory lane you need to be up there, beating on the door at every race until hopefully it opens, and right now one can’t predict that of Team Penske.

Newgarden, Power, Simon Pagenaud and even the impressive rookie McLaughlin are all capable of winning races, but the opposition is too fierce for any of them to carry a good-but-not-great car for long enough to deliver the championship.

VeeKay broke his duck with a superb drive on the Indy road course

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet

In VeeKay, Ed Carpenter has found his new Newgarden – a super fast, super aggressive, super-quick learner. And it is maddening to think that this will probably not be reflected in the end-of-year points table, since the 20-year-old Dutchman is being forced to miss this weekend’s round at Road America after breaking his clavicle in a fall from a bike.

But the team has made a strong impression, and while it hasn’t yet proven to be consistent enough to challenge for a title, it’s high points are extremely high – notably, VeeKay’s victory in the Indy GP, and podium finish in the first Detroit race. Until Sunday evening, he lies a well-deserved fifth place in the championship.

In the face of one of those special talents, Conor Daly has looked a little overwhelmed at times, but in fact he’s outqualified VeeKay for a couple of races and he led more laps than anyone at Indy (40, double that of winner Castroneves). Sure, he got lucky in the first pit sequence to vault from midfield into the top three, but he showed adequate aggression once there and was unlucky to have his race ruined by Graham Rahal’s flying wheel landing on the nose of the U.S. Air Force-backed car.

As for the proprietor himself, one can’t help wondering where Carpenter might have finished at Indy had he not stalled during a pitstop. He clearly had potential race-winning pace, given that he clawed his way up to a fifth place finish.

Graham Rahal's best finish so far came with third at Texas

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda

Most seasons, scoring five top-fives including a podium in the first eight races would be enough to lift a driver higher than eighth in the points table. However, Graham Rahal’s shunt in the 500 – in which he was blameless, as a wheel fell off as he rejoined from a pitstop – meant he was classified only 32nd in a double-points race, so he now lies 90 points off the points lead.

Rahal doesn’t make many errors, either while running on the limit solo, nor while jousting with rivals. He is a truly mature racer who, next time he finds his way to victory lane, will not cause ripples of surprise because he’s such a regular top-five contender. The problem is, we’ve just passed the fourth anniversary of Rahal’s last win, which suggests that either he or the team has reached a plateau, and with Arrow McLaren SP now a championship contender, it’s getting ever tougher to prevail.

Team-mate Takuma Sato, has of course won for the team more recently than that. But while the two-time Indy 500 winner's peaks are higher, the valleys between them are long. There are too many days where he’s lukewarm.

Santino Ferrucci meanwhile did a fine job for RLL at Indy (sixth) after shunting, and at Detroit (two top-10 finishes) both before and after shunting. If he could only rein in his exuberance, he’d be in demand in the IndyCar paddock.

Herta's St. Petersburg victory has been a rare bright spot for Andretti Autosport

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Andretti Autosport-Honda

It's been another frustrating year for Michael Andretti’s squad so far, the one high point being Colton Herta’s dominance at St. Petersburg. This year, the pitstops can’t be blamed, even if they’re still not up there with the best Penske and Ganassi stops.

Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay seem to be doing everything right, but their poor starts to the season then snowballed. RHR was wiped out on the opening lap of the season by Newgarden’s error, having only been at the tail-end of the grid because of a Honda issue in qualifying. Rossi was at the right end of the grid, but was stymied by being committed pre-race to a three-stop strategy on a day when two stops was the way to go.

Two mediocre races later, at Texas when both grids were set by championship position, they were further screwed over – particularly Rossi, who was knocked out of the second race at the start by Pietro Fittipaldi triggering a multi-car shunt.

Most damaging of all was Indy, of course, being a double-points race. Rossi was doing fine on fuel until the pitlane was closed for Stefan Wilson’s shunt and then his car failed to restart for agonising minutes, while Hunter-Reay should have at least finished in the top three but had the worst of the braking disasters entering pitroad and was pinged for breaking the pitroad speed limit.

Contact with other cars (Rossi) and walls (Hunter-Reay) removed their chances of podiums at Detroit, pointing to signs of increasing desperation to end their respective droughts. One hasn’t won for two years, the other for almost three…

Herta has been inconsistent, or rather, his car’s performance has been. He had a vibration issue with one set of tyres at Indy but didn’t dare come in and lose track position/ go off-strategy on a day when there were so few caution periods, so finished a desultory 13th after earlier running in the top three.

PLUS: How Herta's aversion to complacency spells bad news for his IndyCar rivals

He was hard on himself for fouling up a retaliatory pass on his old Indy Lights teammate O’Ward in the second Detroit race, but he was unlikely to keep up with him. All he really lost was a chance to pass Newgarden for second, and those mistakes from Herta are rare.

James Hinchcliffe has been barely visible this year, and one wonders how much longer even this perennially enthusiastic driver and pleasant man can go on being fourth best in a four-car team, even if that worked for Marco Andretti for many a season.

Jack Harvey has often been short of luck, but shown promise once again

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Meyer Shank Racing-Honda

We’ve used up our superlatives on Castroneves’ brilliant drive to victory in the Indianapolis 500, and we wait with bated breath to see how he’ll perform in his five remaining events with Meyer Shank Racing this season. If he can recapture the old magic on road and street courses, then that will be no less than team owners Mike Shank and Jim Meyer deserve, for again their full-timer Jack Harvey seems to be stuck somewhere in Unlucky Cul-de-sac.

PLUS: How Castroneves kept it under control to make Indy 500 history

Of course, part of Harvey’s problem is the engineering tie-up with Andretti Autosport, which is going through a flaky period, but that link also reaps its rewards on the good days. Right now, Harvey’s best result is converting a front-row start into a fourth-place finish at St. Pete, but he also again shone on the GP Indy road course with a third place grid position.

Thus, we expect him to be a potential race-winner – along with semi-team-mates Rossi and Hunter-Reay – on any weekend when AA and MSR get it right. That could be as soon as this weekend at Road America.

Sebastien Bourdais has had a disappointing return to full-time competition

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet

All that pre-season promise seems an awfully distant now, as Sebastien Bourdais’ fifth place finish in the season-opener at Barber – with a damaged car – remains far and away the best result of the season so far for the icon’s team. There are simply too many races where Bourdais goes unnoticed, submerged in a tidal wave of young blood in faster cars. Going off-strategy at the Indy 500 proved to be a huge mistake.

Team-mate Dalton Kellett pays his way, occasionally shows surprisingly well, and gives Johnson something to aim at.

Romain Grosjean has quickly got on terms with the skills needed in IndyCar

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

Dale Coyne Racing-Honda

It was fun at Detroit to see Ed Jones in the DCR with Vasser-Sullivan car and rookie Romain Grosjean in the DCR with RWR car both qualifying in the top six. But it was too good to last.

After the excitement of pole and a second place finish for Grosjean at the Indy GP, the rest of the season has looked a bit scrappy for the Frenchman. But it’s never a surprise to see him near the top in qualifying, and it wouldn’t surprise us to see him claim a victory this year.

PLUS: Why IndyCar is satisfying Grosjean’s appetite for his second life

Jones has looked mediocre at times, but there have also been days where he’s been startlingly good – Indy and Detroit in qualifying, for example – and compared with an ex-F1 veteran of high renown, that’s a feather in his cap.

Chilton and Carlin have struggled with a one-car setup

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Carlin-Chevrolet

No finishes inside the Top 20? This is not the Carlin we’ve admired for some 25 years now, and it’s hard to know if this is Max Chilton underperforming, the natural inhibiting factor of being a one-car team, or the engineering department losing its way. The lap one shunt at Barber and refuelling issue at St. Petersburg certainly left Chilton’s oval sub, Daly, with too much to do at Texas where grids were decided by championship positions – and of course he got caught up in Fittipaldi’s lap one misdemeanour in the second of those races.

Natural road courses are usually Chilton’s forte, so his performances at Road America and Mid-Ohio may provide a clearer picture of whether the team needs a reboot or whether Max just needs a team-mate.

Chilton's season got off to a bad start when he was embroiled in the pileup triggered by Newgarden's spin at Barber

Photo by: Art Fleischmann