Jimmie Johnson’s start in IndyCar has been maligned and praised by fans and pundits alike, as he looks to adapt to a new series with little relevant experience in the twilight of his career.
A week ago, in response to a tweet excoriating Johnson’s performances, Indy 500 champions Alexander Rossi and Simon Pagenaud both angrily jumped to his defense, these coincidentally being two drivers that race for Johnson’s team Ganassi’s main rivals.
Totally agree with @AlexanderRossi ! 👎
— Simon Pagenaud (@simonpagenaud) June 14, 2021
I think this driver move has produced so much mixed opinion and feeling because so many people desperately want this to work. Mainly for Johnson to be rewarded for his amazing bravery in making this move, and partly because most motorsport fans would kill to see similar drivers make adjacent switches between series in the future. Imagine Kyle Larson in an IndyCar or Josef Newgarden in a Penske NASCAR. So cool.
However, regardless of his previous performances, Road America was a pointer that we may need to lower our expectations for Johnson and that becoming a regular in the top 15 or so in his IndyCar career might be even more difficult than first thought.
For context, Johnson didn’t come from a single-seater background and doesn’t have a glittering road course record from his NASCAR years where he won seven titles, so adapting to IndyCar was always going to be a struggle.
He’s spun a lot this year – causing five cautions in six races – but he’s continuously reduced the big gap to those at the front during a weekend, to the point where he has been genuinely impressive in his deficit to the fastest cars in arguably the most competitive elite single-seater championship in the world.
Johnson came into Road America arguably with his best chance yet to significantly close the gap to his peers, as he had a pre-event test at the circuit and then three practice sessions for the first time, previously restricted to two. Admittedly, Road America is not an easy track, so that should be considered, too.
He delivered some strong laptimes in practice, but in qualifying, he was beaten by debutant Cody Ware and was two seconds slower than the fastest driver in his group.
Ware’s performance at Road America was outstanding. He’s raced in the Asian Le Mans Series with Rick Ware Racing, so he does have road course experience, but he’s still right at the beginning of his career and in RWR, he’s racing for a small NASCAR team trying to move up from the back.
Ware’s best result in his first full season of Cup competition so far is 21st.
Credit where credit is due though. Ware tested the IndyCar at Sebring earlier in the year and then at Road America, but has nowhere near the experience even Johnson has in the car.
In the race, Ware set a best lap that was one and a half tenths better than Johnson, although it’s worth mentioning the latter spun earlier in the race and therefore was out of contention. At the same time, Johnson had some clear track so should theoretically have had the opportunity to lay down some fast laps.
If we look at this very simply, it was Ware, a less experienced NASCAR driver than seven-time champion Johnson, with less IndyCar experience too, doing a better job in his first IndyCar race than Johnson. Ware didn’t spin and brought the car home 19th, a result Johnson has matched earlier this year but is yet to better.
Up until now, Johnson has looked like a driver out of his depth, but one that you felt could bridge the gap and at least develop into a driver capable of fighting for top-15s, which is no mean feat in the current IndyCar Series. He may start most weekends on the back foot, but there’s enough development by the end of the race that you think, ‘OK, there were plenty of positives there’.
But if Ware can come in and be quicker than Johnson in what you have to presume is a slower car, then that has to be a worry.
Ware has no single-seater experience of note to look back on either.
This is by no means condemning Johnson to the back of the grid for good, but as much as there has been praise for some of his earlier performances, there needs to be a critique of his poorer ones too. After all, he’s holding a seat that would be a title contender in some other driver’s hands.
Trying to find the limit of the car when it comes to braking, and trying to understand a road course IndyCar tyre in terms of getting it in the window, then keeping it alive and predicting its loss of grip, are probably the hardest challenge of all.
If Johnson doesn’t make that step to midfield contender, then we’ll at least know he’s worked as hard as anyone to make that happen. If he does, we may look back on this weekend as a catalyst for turning things around.
Johnson has approached this season with humility and self-awareness. This is the approach of a driver not expecting to win races, but realise a dream of racing in IndyCar and to enjoy the experience. He’s got great partners helping him to make that possible.
Whatever happens, he’ll still be the man who made one of the bravest driver moves in motorsport history, and he can be proud of what he achieves.
It just might not be as much as some people were expecting.
