I’m back!
I hope you had a great Christmas (or whatever holiday traditions you and your family celebrate), and are doing absolutely nothing this week. And if you are, hey, big weekend coming up!
As promised, here’s the second half of my “Best of 2023”.
Rookie of the Year: Marcus Armstrong
On paper, a 20th-place finish and just 214 total points in the championship doesn’t jump out at you, but let’s remember…Armstrong didn’t drive the ovals.
With six finishes of P11 or better in his 12 races, Armstrong qualified and ran well on several race weekends, and showed Chip Ganassi enough to give him a multi-year extension, and the soft-spoken 23-year-old will be a full-time participant in 2024.
It’ll definitely be interesting to see how well he does on the ovals next year, but he does have two pretty good guys in his shop as mentors. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win on a non-oval, though.
Most Improved Driver: Christian Lundgaard
What Lundgaard did this year might be what we see from Armstrong next year. After winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2022, the 22-year-old Dane took it up a notch this year, improving from P14 in the points last year to P8 in 2023.
While he was still figuring out the ovals, with his best finish of P13 at the second Iowa race, he was part of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan strugglebus at Indy and qualified 31st but drove an impressive race to finish in 19th place. Yeah, given all they went through just to make the race, that was a solid result.
Of course, he was great on the non-ovals, and after winning the pole for the GMR Grand Prix at Indy and putting together some good results as part of a revived RLL team effort, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before he broke through and won, which he did with a dominant effort at Toronto.
He later finished P4 on the Indy road course in August and came home 6th in the finale at Laguna. Better performances on ovals are needed if he wants to improve his standing in the season points, but he’s really young and has tons of potential.
Most Disappointing Driver: Colton Herta
Look, I love the guy and I think he’s doing the best with what he has, because Andretti Autosport has definitely regressed the last couple of years. And yeah, he got screwed when the decision was made to move his dad, Bryan, off his pit stand after the first race of the year.
Still, when you are the highest-paid driver in the series (allegedly) and you are on a few Formula 1 (sorta) short lists, sometimes you have to find another level, and back-to-back P10 finishes in the points is a disappointment for a guy with his talent.
You can blame the team or cartoon anvils or whatever you want, but in the end the story is told in the standings. Ball don’t lie, and three top-5 finishes and a 29-race winless streak from a driver of his caliber is, well, disappointing.
Still The GOAT: Scott Dixon
I realized putting this list together that the drivers I have listed are really…freaking…young. Palou is the “old man” of the group at 26, but the rest are just babies. Well, relatively speaking to me.
So, I have to close by paying homage to the GOAT. Back in August I argued that he was the greatest IndyCar driver of all time. You can read my whys right here. No disrespect to Mario and A.J. – especially Mario, who I think is the overall Greatest of All Time – but Dixon has been great in an era of crazy-good drivers and lots of parity, at least when it comes to the opportunities for drivers from multiple teams to win races.
His 2023 was scary good. Other than his O’Ward-induced P27 finish at Long Beach, he never finished worse than seventh and found his way to the podium six times. And just as we were thinking Palou was the end-all, be-all, the Kiwi rips off and incredible five-race run to the end of the season.
I’m all-in on the youth of the IndyCar Series, but Dixon still has his fastball, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
As we careen on towards 2024, more of the off-season is behind us than what is left in front of us. In the meantime, have a safe and Happy New Year!
Your INDYCAR Experience 