Nine different winners from six countries. Seventeen races saw 5,881 passes produced. There were 98,145 laps turned and 186,224 miles of racing covered, with a 41-year-old champion crowned: Team Penske’s Will Power.
The 2022 edition of the IndyCar Series was a wild affair filled with some of the best racing in motorsport, and after a five-month slumber, the American open-wheel championship is ready to return this weekend and launch its new season on the Floridian streets of St. Petersburg. Topping last year’s numbers will be hard, but with the biggest full-time field in more than a decade, 27 drivers across 10 teams will have 17 races to stake their claim to the next IndyCar title as the calendar runs from March through the September season finale at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.
IndyCar’s youth revolution ready to take down the old guard
“I think it’s going to be the year of the driver,” 1986 Indy 500 winner and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing co-owner Bobby Rahal told ESPN. “You’ve got a crop of young drivers who are really exciting and really starting to show the old guard that a new generation is here and ready to be heard. We’ve got a young guy on our team, Christian Lundgaard, who is pretty special. Pato O’Ward, he isn’t a new guy, but he’s still a very young guy and he’s already been challenging the best in the series.
“There’s a kid like Callum Ilott, who came from the Ferrari Formula One development team, and then there’s the young American kid Kyle Kirkwood, who’s with Michael Andretti and he’s certainly shown pace. The new generation, they’re gonna be a threat.”
Rahal was in a similar situation when he arrived on the IndyCar scene in the early 1980s. Pitted against the series’ long-established heroes like A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti, the Ohioan would go on to earn three IndyCar championships while establishing himself as one of the greatest drivers of his era. By the time he retired in 1998, he was being hunted by the O’Wards and Kirkwoods of the day.
“It’s a customary thing for the ‘senior citizens’ to reach a point in their careers like I did where the new generation wants to take over, and you get these great years where the established guys aren’t ready to hand over the keys to the kingdom so there’s this generational divide that clashes,” said Rahal, who has a documentary on his career in…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – RPM…