The 2019 NTT IndyCar series is set to be one of the most hotly contested motorsport championships of the year. With five-time series champion Scott Dixon looking to retain his championship title for the first time in his career, he will be chased down by some of the most determined and talented drivers in the world, joining the series from the Road to Indy ladder, Formula 1 and even Formula E. Never has a championship opportunity been so open to so many…
New Blood All Round….
Over the past six-months, the IndyCar Series has both changed and grown up even more. On the commercial front, Verizon departed and has since been replaced by the Japanese telecom giant in NTT as the title sponsor. Broadcast rights also took a huge shift around the world with IndyCar now handling it all in-house, instead of through a third-party. A sigh of relief was also breathed when Firestone renewed their exclusive contract with the series until 2025; the tire manufacturer also in the process of building new racing facilities in Akron, Ohio. Plus fuel station giant Speedway also became the first official fuel supplier to the series.
On the racing front, the Circuit of the Americas will join the calendar for the first time with a new race in Texas in April. Obviously, there will be some out there who will try and compare the lap times from Formula 1 to IndyCar when it comes to the race weekend! But it will be irrelevant when it comes to race day and the win is up for grabs. The last time F1 and IndyCar shared a race-track in the same season was 2006 when, a few years before the CART / IRL merger, CART held a meeting at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.
The iconic WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca also makes a very welcome return to the schedule for the first time since 2004, where scenes of the famous pass by Alex Zanardi on Bryan Herta on the final lap of the 1996 race still burn brightly in the memory of those who witnessed it. Wouldn’t we all love to see more daring passes into the Corkscrew..?
And when it comes to the driving talent in NTT IndyCar Series in 2019, it's safe to say the level continues to rise sharply and the challenge of trying to take the drivers’ title becomes ever greater.
“When I would finish like 11th, he would finish fourth. That’s just what he does. He’s won five championships for a reason. He’s one of the best that’s ever done it.” This quote from Alexander Rossi; speaking about Scott Dixon, the reigning champion. Inevitably, it’s a measure of what the rest of the IndyCar drivers will be up against in their quest for the 2019 series title.
It’s Dixon’s consistency that sets him apart from the majority of the field. In 2018, the New Zealander finished just two of the 17 races outside the top ten and finished 13 of the 17 races inside the top five. Dig down into those statistics, into the personality of the man himself, and you’ll find someone who is calm, unflappable and has seen and done it all before, five times in fact!
For rivals hoping that the Kiwi might lack motivation following all this success, he still has plenty of records to chase. Only A.J. Foyt has more titles, with a total of seven, whilst Foyt and Mario Andretti still have more career wins than him. Surely Andretti’s total of 52 victories must be within sight this year with the Kiwi’s current tally standing at 45. Plus of course, Dixon has never won back-to-back championships, a fact he can correct this year!
Of his rivals, perhaps his biggest challenger can be singled out as the man who pushed him hardest last year – the aforementioned Alexander Rossi. Unlike his time trailing around at the back of the field during his brief Formula 1 career, Rossi is now full of the confidence of being in a car, and team, where he feels he can turn up at every race and win. The hunger for success, and for his first major series title, is evident.
Throughout 2018 the 27-year-old Californian drove with an uncompromising determination; allied to consistency in results which has improved year-on-year. On current form, he appears to be the irresistible force to Dixon’s immovable object. And whilst the Kiwi may have come out on top in 2018, late in the season the momentum appeared to be with Rossi. If this continues into 2019, the championship could just be the Californian’s reward.
Amongst the others, 2017 champion Josef Newgarden had a decent season in 2018, with four pole positions and three race wins. But incidents like spinning off the track during the Indy Grand Prix from fourth place after trying to dive up the inside of four-time champion Sébastien Bourdais blotted his copybook. Then, later in the season, running into the outside wall during a restart in Toronto ultimately lost the 2017 champion valuable points in his bid to retain his crown.
But there is no sign Newgarden’s determination has waned from that he showed in winning the 2016 Iowa 300 driving with a broken hand and shoulder, and he’s already demonstrated he has all the talent necessary in order to try and reclaim the number one back on his car.
A few years ago Will Power was regarded as a road course specialist who struggled with oval circuits. Given the championships that slipped through his fingers earlier in his career due to poor performances on the ovals, it was a view that had some merit. One cannot, however, say the same now. Power has slowly exorcised his oval demons, culminating last year in him becoming an Indy 500 winner. He can now be considered an all-round driver, and a repeat of his 2014 championship in 2019 is a distinct possibility.
Neither can we count out Simon Pagenaud, despite a strangely subdued 2018. The resilient Frenchman often struggled with rear-end stability in 2018 and found it difficult to get the car performing to his liking. But Pagenaud has recently said that he believes he has made gains with the car in pre-season testing and is fully focused on claiming back the IndyCar crown to add to his current tally of four.
"It’s a really tough situation for everybody, but that’s what IndyCar is all about,” said Pagenaud last week. "We all have the same cars and the same equipment. You have to find little things. It’s all about the details and getting all of those little things just right. That’s what we plan to do in ‘19."
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports has bought in electronics firm Arrow as title sponsor, and with the ever-present James Hinchcliffe and Formula 1 refugee Marcus Ericsson, they have what should be a strong driver line-up. As a well-run operation, now with extra sponsorship, the team will be hoping that Hinchcliffe can reverse his awful form at the end of 2018 and that Swedish rookie Ericsson can prove that in equal machinery, he can operate at the sharp end of races.
But it is the other Swedish newcomer, Felix Rosenqvist, who is the pick of many pundits as this season’s dark horse. The super talented 27-year-old has won in virtually everything he has ever driven and will compete in 2019 as Dixon’s team-mate at Chip Ganassi Racing. In such well prepared, race-winning machinery, many are tipping the Swede to be this season's Robert Wickens – a newcomer pushing the established drivers from the very first race.
Indeed, if Rosenqvist makes that kind of impact, could the inter-team battle distract Dixon’s focus from the championship? His rivals may hope so, but in truth, both Ganassi drivers come with reputations that are far too unemotional for any kind of intra-team nonsense.
Of course, the big hoopla of the season will see Fernando Alonso making a return the world-famous Brickyard as he continues in his search for motorsport's unofficial 'Triple Crown'. With two Monaco GP wins (and two F1 titles too) and now the Le Mans 24 hours win from 2018, he now has two out of the three races complete and will be looking to come out all guns blazing with McLaren in the Month of May.
Chevrolet is the Woking team's engine supplier after McLaren fell out with Honda due to their F1 partnership breaking down. The British squad, with ex-Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley in charge, will be heading to Indianapolis with a single-car outfit. The Spaniard will also sport the number #66 on his car, sharing the same number as Mark Donohue who won the Indy500 in 1972 with Penske running a McLaren M16-B chassis.
We should have also seen 2018 Indy Lights champion Patricio O'Ward line-up alongside Colton Herta at the Harding-Steinbrenner outfit, but after a heavy falling out with the team, the pair parted ways shortly before the opening test of the season at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. At the time of writing it is yet unclear if we will see the Mexican on the grid at all in 2019!
Formula 2 bad boy Santino Ferrucci will make his full-time debut alongside four-time series champion Sébastien Bourdais at Dale Coyne Racing. Moving across from the F2 paddock to the IndyCar one, after a very contentious weekend in Silverstone, will hopefully give the youngster a fresh start… The Connecticut-born driver has already briefly experienced IndyCar after taking part in the double-header of the 'Dual In Detroit' and the final two rounds of 2018 in Portland and Sonoma. All eyes will be on the youngster to see if he can keep his composure in his first full season.
Meyer Shank Racing's Jack Harvey will see his program expanded to 10 races across the season. Then the experienced sportscar racer Ben Hanley has landed a drive with a new team (DragonSpeed) for five events across 2019 as they look to making it a full-time effort in 2020.
The green flag will fly next Sunday afternoon as the 2019 NTT IndyCar season gets underway on around the streets of Saint Petersburg, Florida for the annual Grand Prix of St.Peterburg. Let battle commence..!
