With 14 race winners on the regular season grid and a single-make series with a sometimes unpredictable format, it’s never easy to pick a pre-season IndyCar title winner and this one is no different.
In fact, it’s one of the reasons fans love the series so much; its ability to provide so much entertainment without compromising the purity of the product too much.
We’ve asked our experts – in and out of IndyCar for perspective – alongside some big guest names to try and predict a favourite.
We’ve failed to come up with a single name, but that would have made a boring feature. So take a look at what our experts have surmised and let us know in the comments and on social media who you think is the most likely 2021 champion.
A familiar favourite, an impressive outsider
JR Hildebrand (@JRHildebrand)
The Race IndyCar podcast host
If I’m making the odds? Newgarden. If I’m laying down money? Colton Herta.
Newgarden’s incredibly strong right now and without a weak point on the schedule. Dixon and the #9 crew are always there but their dominant form faded slightly by the end of the 2020 season and I wonder whether there’ll be a breaking-in period with the new faces at CGR.
Will Power definitely still has the juice but it feels like he’ll need to go on a spree to offset Newgarden’s consistency in the same car.
The schedule returning to a more normal look helps the drivers at Andretti Autosport. Alexander Rossi is certainly the one that stands to be the most consistent contender out of that group, but Herta has shown that he has all the tools. If Andretti is in the window and Colton is locked in, I think he’s got what it takes to go the distance and close the deal. So he’s my taking-the-odds pick.
Prop bets: Pato O’Ward wins a race, Sebastien Bourdais wins a race, Newgarden wins the Indy 500.
The 2021 champion is…Will Power?!
Val Khorounzhiy (@vkhorounzhiy)
The Race Deputy Editor
Given how the latter stages of 2020 unfolded, it’s really hard to see past Newgarden as the obvious favourite for 2021, and past Dixon as the man who will be there to pounce on the opportunity in the points if Newgarden starts to err.
But allow me to indulge myself and put Will Power’s candidacy forward, on the simple basis that the Australian is still quick enough to win another IndyCar title.
Even in what felt like a pretty subpar 2020, Power put up five poles on the board. That counts for much less in IndyCar than it counts in most other open-wheel series, but it’s got to count for something.
Yeah, he just doesn’t seem as comfortable in wheel-to-wheel and overall race trim right now as his fellow IndyCar frontrunners, and yeah, there were way too many unforced errors on his side and the team’s side in ’20 and the seasons prior. And yeah, I’ve been known to show up to a few F1 drivers’ media sessions in a Will Power shirt, so I can be credibly accused of not being a beacon of objectivity.
But it’s not about any of that, really. It’s just the simple argument that, if you’re this reliably quick over one lap, that’s a hell of a foundation to build upon even if there are cracks elsewhere.
It’s all a bit odd for Newgarden
Matt Beer
The Race Editor
As wide open and crazily competitive as IndyCar is, Newgarden’s form since he arrived on the grid has marked him out as Dixon’s successor as the series’ ultimate benchmark.
His late – and ultimately unsuccessful – charge towards the 2020 crown did owe as much to Dixon and Ganassi’s form collapse as it did to Newgarden and Penske’s surge but it felt inevitable that if anyone was going to claw back Dixon’s huge early margin, it was going to be Newgarden.
Plus statistically speaking he’s in the habit of winning the title in odd-numbered years since joining Penske!
Bank on the nine
Edd Straw (@eddstrawF1)
Formula 1 correspondent
History tells us that answering this question with ‘Scott Dixon’ has a good probability of proving right. As he showed last year, once he’s in control of a championship he won’t let go, even though results were harder to come by in the second half of the season.
While there are question marks over whether the changes at Ganassi could prove a distraction, he remains a class act. He has the air of Alain Prost, unflappable and utterly in control, and if he can get anywhere near repeating his great start to last season – not always a Dixon trait – he will have the foundations of yet another title bid
At 40, it’s legitimate to ask if time will catch up with him eventually and if his powers may wane. But given his excellence isn’t based on spectacular, on-the-edge speed – quick as he is – and more about having a fully rounded skill set, there’s no reason why he can’t win a seventh title.
Consulting the numbers
Nathan Brown (@By_NathanBrown)
Indy Star
The first chunk of last season was about who could adapt best against very, very uncertain circumstances. Scott Dixon and Chip Ganassi Racing do that better than anyone. But with a couple of race weekends’ worth of data on the aeroscreen’s affect on the car, no one raced better or more consistently than Josef Newgarden in 2020.
Over the final 11 races, the Team Penske driver bested Dixon by 55 points, Pato O’Ward by 87 points and the rest of the paddock by more than 100. Over those 11 races, Newgarden finished outside the top-5 just three times and won four races.
I believe that’s indicative of the Newgarden we’ll see this year: Fast, dominant, consistent and hungry, in a field that’s set to be as competitive as ever. We could see double-digit race winners in 2021, so the ability to stick your car inside the top-5 week after week – while getting three or four wins along the way – will be the playbook. That’s Newgarden’s MO when at his best.
A champion who’s winless so far…
Josh Suttil (@JoshuaSuttill)
Special contributor
Choosing a driver who is yet to win an IndyCar race as the champion might be a bold prediction, but O’Ward has repeatedly shown he can defy expectations. The 21-year-old Mexican led Arrow McLaren SP last year despite it marking his first full season in the championship and he came within touching distance of a maiden win on multiple occasions.
There were errors from both team and driver and the issues with getting the win over the line cannot continue into this year if O’Ward is to challenge for the title.
I think the arrival of Felix Rosenqvist into the team can only be of benefit to O’Ward’s chances, the two went toe-to-toe for the victory at Road America last year and although Rosenqvist triumphed on that occasion, O’Ward proved he was the more complete package across the season. Having the edge on Rosenqvist considering the Swede’s sublime European racing pedigree is impressive in itself.
Expect Arrow McLaren SP to be the leading dark horse fighting the “big three” and for O’Ward to nick the drivers’ crown.
A Villeneuve-style trajectory
Sam Smith (@sniffermedia)
The Race – Formula E correspondent
Colton Herta was the youngest ever IndyCar race winner and he will become its youngest ever champion!
He’s improved by the season and by each race finding impressive consistency in 2020 to net third.
A couple of more wins this season and he’s a real contender. He has to deal with Alexander Rossi to some degree but to use my obligatory Formula E assimilation, I reckon he can easily do what Antonio Felix da Costa did in 2020 and destabilise his team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne via some deft iron fist in velvet glove blindsides.
Should he do it, and make no mistake it will be a massive achievement, it will send shockwaves through global motorsport. This could be when Herta’s stock goes stratospheric and a possible Jacques Villeneuve-style 1995/96 trajectory momentum begins to kick in.
An outside bet that could go either way
Jack Benyon (@jackbenyon)
The Race American Editor
You don’t want to read another Josef Newgarden entry – even if I want to give you one – so I’ll go out on a limb and say Felix Rosenqvist.
Ovals have been Rosenqvist’s biggest challenge so far in IndyCar and there’s fewer than ever in his tenure with two Texas races – where Rosenqvist was set to win before making a mistake last year – and the short oval at Gateway alongside the Indy 500.
AMSP was great on short ovals last year and didn’t have the qualifying tyre temperature issue Ganassi appeared to struggle with on road courses while Rosenqvist was there last year.
I think emerging from Scott Dixon’s shadow and harnessing the resources of McLaren is going to give Rosenqvist the tools he needs ahead of 2021.
As a driver, he is so talented. Hopefully, he’s adapted to American racing enough now that he can emerge a contender, and he can score a good enough result at the double-points Indy 500 to stay in contention in a road-course-heavy schedule.
It’s definitely a very outside chance and many things need to go his way, but it’s a bit frustrating that a driver that has beaten the likes of Charles Leclerc and George Russell over a season and has excelled in a championship as competitive as Formula E hasn’t been a real contender in IndyCar yet.
Let us know which of our writers got it right in the comments below and on social media…
