Is there life on Mars? Will we ever be able to travel through time? If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
All of these questions feel roughly x1,000,000 easier to answer than ‘who will win the 2022 IndyCar championship?’.
Of course, Alex Palou will be out to defend his title and he’s likely to face strong competition from youngsters Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward.
But it’s not time to rule out established drivers like Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon yet either before you even think about each team’s capable supporting casts.
The Race and some of its trusted allies have come together to give their thoughts on who has the best chance to take the glory this year.
Alex Palou
Valentin Khorounzhiy – The Race Deputy Editor
I suspect the fact that IndyCar hasn’t seen a successful drivers’ title defence since Dario Franchitti in 2011 is a big part of why I stand alone in this feature as picking Alex Palou to repeat, but it’s not as if Palou was an unconvincing champion last year.
Yes, the Indy 500 double points were a big help, but in the title run-in he weathered significant engine penalties, an engine failure at Indy and being collected in a multi-car shunt at Gateway to still win the championship in a relatively comfortable manner.
I can’t help but mention I backed him before that run-in (go me!), and I see little reason to change course now. He was Ganassi’s undeniable flagship man in 2021, an excellent qualifier and a super-canny racer, and has proven super-adept at bringing home the points.
And he’s only heading into his third year!
Colton Herta
JR Hildebrand – Driver and The Race IndyCar Podcast co-host
The IndyCar series is more stacked than it’s ever been, especially at the top.
Picking this year’s champ from Palou, Dixon, Newgarden, O’Ward, Herta, Rossi, and even Grosjean feels like an exercise in futility – any of them could mount a charge, and any of them could rise or fall by the volatility of IndyCar’s diverse and tight brand of racing.
But I think it’s Herta’s time. He was my dark horse last year, proved he had all the tools, and was the only driver to produce multiple truly dominating performances in 2021.
He seemed impervious to any dramas or chaos around him, and he’s coming back with the same group, as motivated as ever. The moment is now. It’s going to be fun to watch, no matter what.
Josef Newgarden
Nate Ryan – NBC Sports writer
Rarely does anything seem out of place for the strapping, well-coiffed and always eloquent Josef Newgarden.
But the Team Penske driver says the years in which chaos consumes his life also tend to be his best seasons in IndyCar – so we’re buying that as the mantra for a third championship in 2022.
With the offseason loss of savvy engineer Gavin Ward, Newgarden already was heading into St Petersburg outside his comfort zone, but things will get more hectic when he becomes a first-time father sometime this spring.
That’ll be just ahead of the Indy 500, the event that has hamstrung his championship bids the past two seasons.
Those are many indicators that could point to this being a transitional rather than a title year. But Newgarden seems as ebullient as ever when sizing up his season with a new team that is eager to leave no stone unturned for fresh speed. And he sounds as focused as ever about changing his fortunes at the double-points Brickyard and his hometown race in Nashville.
If he can do that while embracing the chaos (and let’s remember he is right that some things were a little unsettled about his 2017 and ’19 campaigns), it’ll be back to the top step – with the balance and harmony the championship brings.
Felix Rosenqvist
Sam Smith – The Race Formula E correspondent
You always wake up from a nightmare, and sometimes they can even be good for you in ensuring they don’t become recurring.
That’s what Felix Rosenqvist will be hoping for this year after what he himself described as a “nightmare” year in 2021 and one his team elaborated on with words such as “frustrating, upsetting and embarrassing”.
That all constitutes a shower shock for the prodigiously talented Swede, one which should trigger a compelling fightback this season.
You get the feeling that it is much more than mere pride with Rosenqvist and that, in fact, he appreciates 2022 for being by far the most important season of his career.
The reason why I think Rosenqvist will shock all before him and take the title is that he will further adapt to the car, fully understand where he was losing out to team-mate O’Ward and come back swinging.
There is little work to do in his clearly-excellent relationship with the team and his engineering cell. That should be a natural point to resetting, not panicking and showing his true merits.
He’s right when he says he has to start well, right from the first test. That’s imperative, and I fully believe he will garner that early momentum to mount a title campaign that will banish the memory of finishing 21st in his annus horribilis of 2021.
Colton Herta
Nathan Brown – IndyStar correspondent
No driver won more times during the 2021 IndyCar season, and none looked stronger at the end of the year than the 21-year-old Andretti Autosport driver Herta.
Bad luck on-track – Newgarden’s season-opening crash at Barber, mechanical issues at Texas and Gateway, a flurry of team pitstop mistakes at Mid-Ohio and a dismal Indy 500 – more than made up the separation that kept Herta out of the down-to-the-wire title race where he finished 5th, 94 points back from champion Palou.
Perhaps his only major blunder was wanting to win too badly at Nashville, sending his #26 car into the wall with just a couple laps to go instead of settling for 2nd-place.
When Herta’s ‘on’, it’s clear he may be the best the series has to offer. In 2021, he and engineer Nathan O’Rourke made big strides at delivering that more often.
Herta’s 2020 showed us he can be near the top constantly, and ‘21 showed his competitors what to fear on his best days. I expect Herta to put those two parts of his driving together and deliver Andretti its first series title in a decade.
Pato O’Ward
Josh Suttill – The Race Assistant Editor
For the second successive year, I’m going with Pato O’Ward as my pick for champion.
This time last year he was without an IndyCar victory to his name and a bit of an outsider amid pre-season title contender talk.
Fast forward to 2022, and he’s firmly in the conversation – and for good reason.
Not only has his Arrow McLaren SP team – along with Rahal Letterman Lanigan – broken up IndyCar’s old ‘big three’, but O’Ward annihilated his more experienced team-mate Rosenqvist and has established himself as one of the series’ leading drivers.
In 2021, he proved he has the consistency to build a title challenge as well as the gritty racecraft that has been evident since his maiden IndyCar outing.
I believe a combination of an ever-improving team and driver will spell a first IndyCar title for McLaren and a well-deserved crown for O’Ward.
Scott Dixon
Jack Benyon – American Editor
How often is it that it feels like Scott Dixon isn’t a regular threat for victory?
Not very often is the answer, and I’m going with 2021 being the exception rather than the new rule.
Dixon’s average finish last year was 0.13 worse than eventual champion Alex Palou’s, and he knows where his weaknesses lie with switching on his tyres. With a few tracks set to resurface this year creating higher-grip environments, Dixon should struggle less.
He’s another driver hoping for his Indy 500 bad luck to end too as we’ve learned it’s near impossible to win the title without a top-10 there, or even a top-six.
Typically Dixon has come back rejuvenated from ‘off’ years, and I expect the same in 2022.
