One thing that’s certain in 2025 is that it’s been anything but a normal IndyCar season. While Alex Palou has been putting the rest of the racing world on notice that he truly is one of the planet’s best racing drivers, Team Penske has been looking lost almost the entire season.
Each Penske driver has only one podium finish to their name after 10 races and Will Power is the highest Penske driver in points in ninth place. Scott McLaughlin is two spots back from Power while Josef Newgarden is 19th in points, two behind Conor Daly and one ahead of Marcus Ericsson.
Try predicting that scenario back in February, and one’s head might spontaneously combust.
To put Newgarden’s season in perspective, the Tennessee native has five finishes of 22nd or worse so far this year, four of them in the most recent five races. One would have to go back to Newgarden’s rookie year of 2012 to see a year this bad for the two-time IndyCar Series champion.
Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of an interesting, silly season involving Team Penske. While Power is the highest placed Penske driver in points, he’s currently 44 years old, and Father Time is currently undefeated unless Scott Dixon found a youth elixir somewhere near Mid-Ohio.
If the past is any indication of what is coming up next, Team Penske is unlikely to sign Power to a long-term contract extension. Helio Castroneves was 42 when he moved over to the IMSA side of the organization, but that was also on the heels of the Brazilian having a three year winless streak from June 2014 to July 2017.
Power followed up a championship-winning season in 2022 with a winless year in 2023 owing to some significant off-track drama with his wife’s health. However, the 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner followed that up with three wins in 2024 to finish fourth in points.
With Power performing the best of the team so far this year, getting rid of the two-time IndyCar Series champion will be difficult to justify. But let’s look closer at what other options are available for the team.
McLaughlin turned 32 years old barely a month ago and has a lengthy future with the team, having signed a contract extension back in February. Newgarden signed his own multi-year extension with the team in 2024 that seemingly has the Tennessee native locked down.
However, 2025 has proven to be a massive brick wall for Newgarden to try and crack. After a podium finish in the season-opening race in St. Petersburg, Newgarden had an anonymous race at Thermal, finished last at Long Beach due to his seatbelts coming loose, and finished 10th at Barber.
A hybrid issue at the IMS road course dropped Newgarden to the back of the grid before the start of the race. He fought back to finish 12th and then there was the attenuator technical inspection fiasco that dropped Newgarden to the last row of the grid for the Indy 500.
Newgarden’s race ended after 135 laps with mechanical trouble and he finished 22nd.
A ninth-place finish at Detroit led to a pair of 25th-place finishes due to accidents at World Wide Technology Raceway and at Road America.
Things could only get better, right? That was before Mid-Ohio this past weekend.
While Newgarden has made some mistakes in 2025, not all of Newgarden’s bad results are his fault. No driver can predict a fuel system failure or seat belts coming loose and sometimes drivers pick the wrong way to go in a split-second decision when trying to avoid an accident.
But with other factors outside the car coming into play, there might need to be a difficult conversation about Team Penske replacing a different two-time IndyCar champion than Power.
Or maybe replacing both two-time champions.
Even if Power gets replaced, the facts simply have to be looked at in totality. With Penske having a technical alliance with A. J. Foyt Racing, David Malukas and Santino Ferrucci are prime candidates to join the North Carolina-based squad.
And who could blame the Foyt drivers for the speculation around them? Malukas might only be 12th in IndyCar points, but he has had flashes of brilliance behind the wheel, including a podium finish at the Indianapolis 500 and coming from the gravel trap in turn 3 on the first lap at Road America to finish in seventh place on a very hot day.
However, Frontstretch understands that Malukas has a multi-year deal to remain at A. J. Foyt Racing, so it might be unlikely for the Chicago native to move to Penske in 2026.
But what of Ferrucci? His season didn’t start off on the best foot, but the Connecticut native scored four top-five finishes in a row and is currently 10th in points, sandwiched between Power and McLaughlin.
There are questions about bringing Ferrucci to the team. There are character concerns from his Formula 2 days or the “boyfriend teammate” remarks last year from Detroit. While there are screenshots from a 2019 article about Ferrucci not regretting his past, there is a concern if those views are still consistent.
In the race car, however, consistency has not been at a Penske level. While Ferrucci recorded 11 top-10 finishes in 2024, there were also four finishes of 15th or worse. In 2025, Ferrucci has five finishes of 14th or worse out of 10 races.
Which means he’s either had top five finishes or finishes outside the top 10, the outlying race being an 11th place finish at Long Beach.
There’s a lot of moving pieces in the silly season puzzle with Team Penske. Drivers don’t want to leave the most successful team in IndyCar racing, but the organization will have to make a move in the coming years.
And if a driver doesn’t want to leave, they might need to take up the advice of former AFL commissioner and NFL team owner Al Davis to keep their spot on the roster.
“Just win, baby!”
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.