We are less than a month away from the start of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season. A mere 26 days, to be precise, and at the end of those 26 days will come a new opportunity for several of the series’ drivers to finally put 2023 behind them and to actively turn their efforts to this year’s campaign.
For some of these drivers, 2024 will hopefully be just a step along the way in a much, much longer and storied career. For others, this may be the season of truth. What’s more, some drivers have not just something to prove, but everything to prove as they look to firmly establish themselves as names to remember in the IndyCar garage.
Marcus Armstrong
Armstrong’s rookie season was a quiet one, but don’t let that convince you that the young New Zealander didn’t make an outstanding impression in his freshman campaign.
No driver enters the season with their ambitions set at a top-20 points finish – at least, none of them would admit it. However, Armstrong did just that and did so with one very meaningful caveat: he was only in his No. 11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda for 12 of the season’s 17 races. Splitting duties with two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato, Armstrong made the most of his time in the car on road and street courses, chalking up five top-10 results in 12 entries, with a best finish of sixth on the streets of Toronto.
Armstrong will be manning the No. 11 Honda full-time for 2024, joining a heavy-handed squad for CGR alongside rookie Kyffin Simpson, fellow sophomore Linus Lundqvist, the omnipresent Scott Dixon and defending champion Alex Palou.
Take Armstrong’s performance from 2023 to a full-time scale in 2024, factoring in two doubleheaders in Iowa and Milwaukee, and the CGR team could be looking at a big points haul this season.
Kyffin Simpson
Why waste time? Simpson didn’t light the world on fire in his Indy NXT. Two podiums (Indy road course and Mid-Ohio) in 2023 were commendable performances, but from across the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the young Caymanian only netted a ninth and 10th-place finish in the standings, respectively.
As such, talk has floated around that Ganassi is more interested in Simpson’s budget than Simpson himself. Simpson’s father, David, has had a working relationship with CGR since 2022, when his company, Ridgeline Lubricants, began sponsoring multiple Ganassi entries.
That said, Ganassi snagged one of IndyCar’s most iconic sponsors over the offseason and we will soon see the iconic red and yellow DHL scheme on Palou’s No. 10 Honda, so it’s hard to imagine Ganassi is purely looking to Simpson and his father for cash. Simpson has shown himself to have serious teeth in sports car racing, and he’s certainly not hurting for an array of company to find his feet with in the series.
Now, however, it’s coming time for Simpson to put all of us, supporters and detractors, in our appropriate places and prove that he deserves a spot not only in IndyCar, but with one of its powerhouse teams as well.
Romain Grosjean
It really does seem like just yesterday that the racing world held its breath and watched as Grosjean’s Haas F1 machine pierced the barriers at turn 3 of the Bahrain International Circuit and erupted in flames with its driver still in the cockpit. By the time Grosjean made a miraculous climb from the flaming car, some had caught their breath enough to wonder if the Frenchman would still be able to make his rumored move to IndyCar for the 2021 season.
But he did. Grosjean signed on for a joint deal between Dale Coyne Racing and Rick Ware Racing for 2021, contesting only street and road courses. His rookie season featured one pole position, three podiums, and seriously high hopes for success once it was announced that he would partner with Andretti Global from 2022.
Everyone, including Grosjean, was disappointed by what followed in 2022 and 2023.
The potential was clear and present when Grosjean took a second-place result at Long Beach in 2022, barely being held off by Josef Newgarden. In 2023, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was all but in his grasp before a collision with an out-of-control Scott McLaughlin ended his race prematurely.
Fate repeated itself the next week at Barber, except McLaughlin bounced back to win that race, certainly adding to what had to be a sour taste in Grosjean’s mouth. From there, 2023 more or less imploded for the Frenchman. There was obvious tension between the team and himself, which spilled over in front of the cameras more than once. Grosjean later pursued legal action against the team after Andretti allegedly backpedaled on an expected contract extension.
Now, Grosjean has signed to drive the Juncos Hollinger Racing, replacing Callum Ilott, who brought the only top-5 finishes in the team’s history last season. Even as a Formula 1 veteran and multiple podium winner in IndyCar, Juncos has clearly taken a gamble on Grosjean, dropping their de facto top driver in his favor.
The pressure is on for Grosjean to prove he belongs, to break through and find that first win, if not keep up the podiums, which would be a win for his new boss.
Graham Rahal
The 2023 season was bittersweet for Rahal. The definition of bittersweet, in fact.
Most notably, at least for the casual fan, was his shocking, almost cinematic elimination from the Indy 500 at the hands of his then-teammate Jack Harvey. Harvey, facing elimination from the race after the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing stable had been down on pace, pulled a run out of his pocket that knocked Rahal out of the race by only 0.007 seconds.
Fortune intervened to give Rahal his shot in the race when Stefan Wilson was injured in a practice crash, allowing Rahal to sub into the No. 24 entry, but surely the damage was done in that moment. Racing is an extremely taxing sport, and the emotional toll that moment must have taken on the Ohioan is not to be underestimated.
Nonetheless, Rahal and company returned to Indianapolis with a vengeance in August, where he earned his first pole position and nearly his first win since 2017. Off his second-place result in Indy, he took pole in Portland, but lost control of the race over pit strategy and rode out a bumpy conclusion to the year, crashing out on the first lap at Laguna Seca.
Driving for the family business, Rahal isn’t going anywhere. Despite whatever the rumor mill may have said in 2023, logic dictates that he has his ride at RLL for as long as he wants it. His performances in 2023 showed us that, on his day, he can be among the class of the IndyCar field. All that’s left to do now is to turn his focus ahead and use 2024 to show that 2023 wasn’t a fluke.
Colton Herta
Herta is a star in IndyCar, and the time to debate this passed just about four years ago, when he became the youngest winner in series history in only his third start.
That said, the past few seasons have been rough for Andretti’s most senior driver.
Two wins in 2019, one in 2020, three in 2021 and one more in 2022 led Herta into the 2023 season riding a nice win streak, but the cracks had already began to appear. The 23-year old’s raw speed has never been in question but his control of that speed has been, at times.
Herta crashed out of contention for the win at Long Beach – a track where he’s been consistently fast – in 2022. In 2023, after taking the pole at Mid-Ohio, he again lost a shot at solid finish, this time due to a pit road speeding penalty. At Road America, again in 2023, Herta was dominant, controlling the race up until lap 49 of 55, when he was overtaken by Palou for the win. This loss was particularly frustrating as Herta’s only fault was being given a daunting fuel number to hit by his team. Had fuel mileage not been a concern, had Herta been free to drive at his own pace, the win likely would have gone to the No. 26.
After going winless in 2023, while teammate Kyle Kirkwood took Andretti’s only two wins of the year, Herta will be looking to get his head down and reestablish his presence as a force to be reckoned with week-in and week-out.
Herta’s status as senior driver in the team is certainly important, but before anything, he needs to reassert his status as a threat on the track in 2024.
Alex is the IndyCar Content Director at Frontstretch, having initially joined as an entry-level contributor in 2021. He also serves as Managing Director of The Asia Cable, a publication focused on the international affairs and politics of the Asia-Pacific region which he co-founded in 2023. With previous experience in China, Japan and Poland, Alex is particularly passionate about the international realm of motorsport and the politics that make the wheels turn - literally - behind the scenes.