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There are just three races left in the 2022 IndyCar season, which is tough to believe, and the championship fight is really close.
It’s been a rollercoaster season and as many as seven drivers have a realistic shot at taking the title.
How realistic are those shots? That’s the question we’re going to try to answer. The Race has scoured 2022 stats and the drivers’ results from the races we have remaining in previous years to try to predict some sort of order. Be sure to let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments.
Will Power
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 1st | n/a | 9.0 (6th-best) | 6.4 (best) | 180 (3rd-best) | 156 (3rd-best) | 150 (2nd-best) | 1 | 6 |
Stats at remaining circuits
| Last race at Gateway | Gateway average | Last race at Portland | Portland average | Last race at Laguna | Laguna average |
| 3rd | 11.0 | 13th | 11.7 | 26th | 15.0 |
While he might not be top in every important category, Will Power’s record across the board looks very strong indeed.
He’s leading the championship, and every time something seems to go wrong this season he digs deep and pulls out incredible yo-yo results from the back to the front of the field.
Perhaps the only concern here is that he doesn’t have an average finish inside the top 10 for any of the last three races we’re going to. The next one, Gateway, he has won at and his Team Penske crew will be strong there. But Portland and Laguna Seca might be areas of concern when the points are tight.
Power’s tweaked mental approach has certainly helped with fighting adversity this year. But it’s been a while since he’s been in a proper championship fight. He’s won one before of course, but qualifying better and improving at Laguna Seca might be his best chance to seal the deal.
Scott Dixon
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 2 | 6 | 10.9 (10th-best) | 6.5 (2nd-best) | 149 (5th-best) | 193 (best) | 126 (6th-best) | 2 | 1 |
Stats at remaining circuits
| Last race at Gateway | Gateway average | Last race at Portland | Portland average | Last race at Laguna | Laguna average |
| 19th | 9.3 | 3rd | 8.0 | 13th | 8.0 |
Many had written off his season earlier in the year but two wins in the second half and a continued record of just one finish outside the top eight all year make Dixon an interesting prospect for the remainder of the season.
Average finishes in the top 10 at all three tracks offer plenty of hope, and that includes being taken out at Portland with Alex Palou last year.
Outside of the stats, you can point to a real momentum in this part of the Ganassi team with two wins and two top-fives in the last five races. Like Power, Portland and Laguna Seca are not fantastic tracks for Dixon but in his case they aren’t awful either.
Dixon tops the street circuit points but there aren’t any of those left, so if Power or Marcus Ericsson win a race in the final three you’d have to think Dixon will need to as well.
If his main rivals don’t win, his trademark consistency might make him a seven-time champion.
Marcus Ericsson
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 3rd | 12 | 12.1 (12th-best) | 7.9 (3rd-best) | 216 (best) | 102 (11th-best) | 139 (4th-best) | 1 | 2 |
Stats at remaining circuits
| Last race at Gateway | Gateway average | Portland average | Last race at Laguna | Laguna average |
| 9th | 13.3 | 7.0 (only one start) | 6th | 8.5 |
It’s been a weird season for Ericsson where he should have had at least one other win, and his results on street circuits have put him in the position of being the chaser.
Plenty of misfortune in recent weeks including a qualifying engine failure at Indianapolis and another mechanical at Nashville have put him on the back foot when Dixon’s emerged.
Either this bad luck for Ericsson points at it not being his year, or he’s got it out of the way and he’s ready for action. He’s the top points-scorer on ovals so Gateway is a big chance, and good average finishes at Portland and Laguna show some promise, too.
Dario Franchitti in 2012 was the last driver to win the 500 and the title in the same season. Ericsson has the best chance anyone’s had for years, but strong opposition still threatens. Adding a second win would certainly help his cause, and that’s something he managed last year.
Josef Newgarden
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 4th | 22 | 5.5 (best) | 9.1 (5th-best) | 177 (4th best) | 150 (4th-best) | 131 (5th-best) | 4 | 0 |
Stats at remaining circuits
| Last race at Gateway | Gateway average | Last race at Portland | Portland average | Last race at Laguna | Laguna average |
| 1st | 4.8 | 5th | 6.7 | 7th | 7.5 |
Newgarden’s the most interesting driver in the group based on being the best qualifier, the only winner on all three types of tracks, the only driver with more than two wins and the fact that if he isn’t winning he’s often struggling!
The #2 team – shaken up personnel-wise for 2022 – has really struggled for consistency and losing a fifth win at Iowa with a suspected damper failure that led to a crash might prove the pivotal point of the season.
Saying that, he has the best average finish at Laguna and Portland of the drivers that have done more than one race at those tracks, and is second at Gateway – where Pato O’Ward hasn’t finished off the podium in three starts.
So there’s plenty of positives here. Being 22 points behind does likely mean he needs to win one more race to take the title. If he can avoid his poor qualifying at Laguna from last year and find his 2022 peak level, he’ll be tough to stop.
Alex Palou
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 5th | 33 | 8.4 (4th-best) | 8.1 (4th-best) | 147 (6th-best) | 172 (2nd-best) | 118 (9th-best) | 0 | 5 |
Stats at remaining circuits
| Last race Gateway | Gateway average | Portland average | Laguna average |
| 20th | 15.7 | 1.0 (one start only) |
2.0 (one start only)
|
It does feel like the momentum has died in this corner of Ganassi since the shocking revelation of Palou’s contract situation, bid to exit for McLaren and the fact he’s now being sued by the team he’s trying to win with.
He will need to win at least one of the last three races and shorter ovals have not been his forte – although being taken out at Gateway last year meant we didn’t see his potential there – but he won at Portland and was second at Laguna. If he repeats that, he’ll score at least 90 points and he trails by only 33, so it shows there’s a chance.
But given the atmosphere in this team as the end of the season and conclusion of a court case looms, it’s hard to see them being able to overcome the level of competition with all that hanging over them.
If anyone can, it’s Palou, who has so much bandwidth to be thinking about other things than just driving the car, one of the hallmarks of a great and one of the reasons he won last year’s title.
Don’t underestimate the fact that only four drivers on this list have actually taken championships in IndyCar, and Palou is one of them despite only being in his third year.
Scott McLaughlin
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 6th | 58 | 7.5 (3rd-best) | 9.9 (6th-best) | 129 (9th-best) | 145 (5th-best) | 151 (best) | 2 | 3 |
Stats at remaining races
| Gateway average | Portland average | Laguna average |
| 4.0 (one start only) | 9.0 (one start only) |
12.0 (one start only)
|
McLaughlin has the most points scored on road courses this season and there are two of those left, and he also bagged a top five at Gateway last year.
However, his deficit of 58 points means he has to outscore at least Power by 19 points per race to have a chance. It’s a huge ask.
It’s probably too much to overcome, but it’s going to be so fun watching this emerging talent have a crack at it.
The fact that we aren’t ruling out McLaughlin coming from 58 points back to beat Power, Dixon, Ericsson, Newgarden and Palou shows what an outstanding talent the second year IndyCar driver is, and how his progression has skyrocketed.
Pato O’Ward
2022 stats
| Points position | Points behind leader | Average start | Average finish | Points on ovals | Points on street circuits | Points on road courses | Wins | Podiums |
| 7th | 59 | 6.9 (2nd-best) | 11.4 (7th) | 211 (2nd-best) | 104 (10th-best) | 94 (15th-best) | 2 | 2 |
Stats at remaining races
| Last race Gateway | Gateway average | Portland average | Laguna average |
| 2nd | 2.3 | 14 (one start only) |
5 (one start only)
|
Three DNFs through mechanical failure or being hit means the fact that O’Ward is still even in this is bizarre, and a story of what might have been.
McLaughlin has the better stats generally but three podiums in three starts at Gateway means O’Ward could win and get some big momentum as this trio of races kicks off.
He was also fifth at Laguna last year and Arrow McLaren SP seemed to find some pace in the latter half of last season, so with an improved car this year, perhaps there’s a chance to capitalise on that.
Alongside Newgarden he’s the only driver on the list to win at both a road course and an oval this year, and those tracks make up the last three races.
It’s sad to relegate O’Ward to ‘unlikely outsider’ because of all the bad luck he’s had, but he hasn’t ruled himself out (he never would) and neither should we.
Conclusion
Power’s leading the championship, but even though Dixon’s two wins came on street circuits, it really feels like the #9 crew has the momentum heading in.
Newgarden can turn up and win any weekend but might also finish outside of the top 15 at least once owing to inconsistency, and Ericsson is just quietly plugging away and trying to bounce back from a really tough period.
My gut says Dixon gets this one over the line because of the evenness of his stats across the board and that momentum he has. We know he’s basically intolerant to pressure and he’s been in this situation so many times before that if his car allows it, the mere sniff of a title is going to elevate his game to another level others will struggle to match.
I think Power and Ericsson will be very close and Newgarden might just sneak it if he can win one more, but his season’s inconsistency is a real worry.
McLaughlin, Palou and O’Ward have too much to overcome, although watching them try will be almost as entertaining as seeing who comes out on top.
The Race’s predicted finishing order
1 Dixon
2 Ericsson
3 Power
4 Newgarden
5 McLaughlin
6 Palou
7 O’Ward
