It’s that time of the year, when everyone puts together a bunch of “best of” lists. Whether it’s music, movies – or racing – everyone is looking back before looking forward, and then making a list about it.
If you ever read my 15 Days in May blog, which you can still find here, in the past I would hand out my end-of-season IndyCar awards, where I’d recognize the best and brightest among us in the IndyCar world.
So given the fact that I am starting fresh here at FCFG in 2024, I thought I would look back at the year it was in IndyCar and revive my tradition.
By the time I finished this post, it was pretty wordy, so I’m dropping it in two parts, which also means that I already have that whole Christmas-to-New-Years blah week covered. So check back for the rest of the story next week!
Let’s get started.
Race of the Year: Indianapolis 500
Come on, the Indy 500 is our Christmas, would there be any other race that can top it?
Lots of arguments can be made about the red flags and everything that went into the final 20 laps of the race, and I do have my feelings about it. But in the end, it was a great day and a great race, and one helluva finish.
Winless in his first 11 tries and without a podium since 2016, we were starting to reach the is-it-ever-going-to-happen stage with Josef Newgarden, but when presented with an opportunity to win, he took it. That’s what you have to do.
Even before that, it was an incredible couple of weeks, with Alex Palou turning a 235-mph lap in qualifying (the first ever 235 lap I’ve ever seen at IMS), and Graham Rahal being bumped out of the field by teammate Jack Harvey by .0046 seconds.
Personally, I was fortunate to be in Indy for most of the month and had a great race day with my boys, Matt and Kevin, which included time in the Snake Pit getting our EDM on.
One bit of trivia about me: I am an OG EDM guy, going all the way back to the house music days of the early 1990s.
An unforgettable day, and a worthy winner. Just how it’s supposed to be.
Driver of the Year: Alex Palou
Is there really anybody else?
Five wins, including three in a row in an early-summer blitz. Ten Podiums. Twelve top-5 finishes.
In an eight-race stretch between Texas and Toronto, the 26-year-old Spaniard ever finished worse than fifth, and on the season, his worst finish was P8, which came in the opening race of the season at St. Pete.
Very rarely do we see what happens when a driver at the top of their game has a season where almost nothing goes wrong – at least on the track (!) – but we saw it in Palou in 2023. As the summer went on, we were hearing that Palou was doing things we hadn’t seen in decades in IndyCar, and he became the first driver in almost a generation to clinch the title before the last race of the season.
It’s probably going to take a while, but down the road Palou’s run will be recognized as one of the best seasons we’ve seen in a long time.
Drive of the Year: Pato O’Ward, Texas
Lost in the Year of Palou was the effort from O’Ward in 2023. I think he drove one of the best seasons of his career, but back luck at Long Beach, Indy and Detroit where he finished P17, P24 and P25 made his P4 finish in the points a bit frustrating.
Pato definitely deserved better than that, but for how everything went Palou’s way in 2023, it didn’t for O’Ward. Things break a couple of different ways here and there, and he has multiple wins and maybe even poses a challenge to Palou.
But if you are looking for an example of Pato’s tough luck, look no further than Texas. O’Ward led 91 laps and dominated the middle-third of the race. Then a yellow fell.
At the time, Pato and Josef Newgarden were the only drivers on the lead lap, but with a wave-around (which is a bullshit rule with over 100 miles of racing left) a slew of cars were able to get back on the lead lap. While it did provide some of the best racing seen all year, the result for O’Ward was a second frustrating runner-up finish coming on the heels of a plenum issue (what the hell – his engine burped at a bad time) at St. Pete which saw him give up the lead with the checkers in sight.
Does a win at either of the first two races make a difference in the championship? Who knows, but it seemed like as the season went on Pato became more frustrated at not winning. Besides poor finishes at Long Beach, the 500 and Detroit, he overall had one of the most consistent seasons of his career, and finished fourth or better in the points for the third time in four years.
That’s racing, he just happened to have his most consistent season during the Summer of Palou and the resurgence of Scott Dixon, who had a red-hot finish to his season with three wins and four podiums.
What O’Ward can look back at is the fact that it was a season of change at McLaren, with a lot of pieces moving around. One year you don’t win a lot, the next you do. It happens, and a 2024 super breakout is something that we might see from Pato.
To be continued!
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