By alley - Nov 25, 2015, 1:46 PM ET

IndyCar season review: Marco Andretti

What will you remember the 2015 IndyCar season for? Juan Pablo Montoya's teflon coating wearing off right at the time he needed it most? The introduction of the aero kits, several years after they were first mooted? Rocky Moran Jr.'s inspiring hour of track time at Long Beach?

To try to make sense of it all, RACER's Marshall Pruett, Robin Miller and Mark Glendenning asked each other some searching questions about all of 2015's regulars, which for the purpose of this review, includes anyone who started a minimum of half the races. Look for new installments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

MARCO ANDRETTI
2015 starts: 16
2015 best finish: 2nd (Detroit, Saturday race)
2015 championship position: ninth; 428pts

How much growth is left in Marco's driving game, and have we seen him settle into a comfortable place as Andretti Autosport's second-best driver on most days?

MARSHALL PRUETT: Looking at Marco's 2015 season as yet another good-but-not-great collection of performances is tempting. He did finish ninth in the standings - just as he did the year before - which suggests there was limited growth on display and, possibly, that there isn't much left for Marco to find in his personal driver development game.

Then I look to Graham Rahal and all he achieved after spending years in the wilderness, and realize Marco is more than capable of having a similar Rahal-esque breakout season in his late 20s. The question is whether he has an extra gear to grab and join Graham at the sharp end of the grid.

Like Rahal, Andretti has been accused of letting malaise - and all the trappings that come with a famous last name - take away from his output inside the race car. It was a fair accusation until recent years when Marco's maturity and intensity began to rise, and on a personal front, his willingness to learn has also seen an increase in consistency.

Marco's finished between fifth and ninth in drivers' standings eight times in 10 seasons, which speaks to his obvious talent. And his 2015 season was another fine example of delivering quality results for his team and sponsors with 11 top-10s from 16 races. Andretti is a finisher, and usually finds himself somewhere among the championship contenders by the end of the race, but it's often on the outskirts of where he should be (he had seven finishes between P7 and P11 last season).

How would Marco go about improving those finishes to a steady diet of top-5s? And how would he move from ninth in the standings to something closer to Rahal's P4? Starting with the former, the greatest growth area Andretti has left to conquer is in his head. Marco's ability to analyze his driving, pick out the deficiencies, and zero in on the necessary changes is especially impressive. He's always thinking about how to improve himself and is highly self-critical, and while constant introspection can be a wonderful thing, it can also take a driver out of his or her rhythm - out of the 'zone'.

If Marco can learn to dial down that self-analysis loop while racing, or at least do a better job of burying it in his subconscious so his natural talent can shine through, he should find more success.

Looking at Andretti's championship performances, he's rarely gotten off to a fast start since joining the series in 2006. Granted, he's done well early and earned a podium or two throughout the years, but we've rarely seen Marco make a statement at the opening race and carry it through the first four or five events - the stretch that can send a driver on their way to an impressive place in the standings. Think of how Juan Montoya started 2015, then rode those results to a near-championship. Marco needs to follow JPM's early-season blueprint once the championship kicks off next year, and if he does, P9 in the standings will be a distant memory.

Provided Marco and his team look at maximizing the first third of the 2016 season as a way to make the rest of the year fall into place, and provided he can do a better job of switching into a more primal mode on race day, there's every reason to believe Marco can challenge Ryan Hunter-Reay for the No. 1 position within Andretti Autosport.

Whether it happens is up to him, but it is good to know Marco has more to offer.

Marco finished P9 this year, and has finished P7, P8, or P9 in the championship seven times in 10 seasons. Was his P5 in 2013 a fluke, and if not, what does he need to do differently to crack the top-five?

ROBIN MILLER: Marco is the most puzzling piece of the IndyCar checkerboard. On any Sunday (or Saturday night) he's as fast as anyone on ovals, but remains a conundrum on the rest of the circuit. After thinking he'd turned corner, literally and figuratively, at the start of 2014 with a new driving style, the third generation of Andretti didn't continue his advancement in 2015.

He qualified alright, especially considering Honda's struggles, but we're still waiting on that family road racing gene to surface. He's going to win the Indy 500 some day but to be a title contender he's got to make that big step where 11 of the 16 races are held. Two wins in 10 years is not acceptable for someone with his pedigree and opportunity, and he knows it.

Marco has one more year of IndyCar experience than Graham Rahal. The two have always been measured against each other, but Rahal finally distanced himself from Andretti in 2015. What, if anything, can Marco learn from Graham's season and to apply to 2016 in the hopes of finding a similar turnaround?

MARK GLENDENNING: I don't think it's as simple as the question makes it sound. Rahal's season was a perfect storm: the right team environment, the right engineering focus, a shared mindset, and a driver who rose to the occasion. Part of the reason that it all clicked for RLL this year was that the team was pulling in a common direction. Marco, as part of a multi-car team, had to deal with compromises that Rahal didn't.

Perhaps one thing that Marco can take from watching Rahal's season applies equally to the rest of Andretti Autosport, and it's not something that they need to be told: if you get lost with the car's set-up, you can waste a lot of races finding your way out of the woods.

RLL got a fair bit of the Honda package unlocked as early as Spring Training at Barber, and the team was in good shape right from the first race. Andretti did all of Honda's manufacturer testing of the aero kit last winter which you'd think would have given it an advantage, but instead it spent the first half of the season confusing itself.

Viewed in the context of the rest of the team, Marco had the kind of season we've come to expect: some great oval races (if the oval trophy still existed, he'd have ended up fourth), some great isolated runs elsewhere – he drove a blinder in tough conditions in the Saturday race at Detroit – and a few weekends where you forgot that he was in the race.

But then you look at some of the other drivers in the field, and consider the sort of season that they had, and you end up with the final – and maybe most intriguing – thing that Marco can take from Rahal's season.

This time 12 months ago, nobody forecast that Graham would have a year like he did in 2015. Whatever you think you know about somebody's prospects, they always have the capacity to surprise. Marco, for all of his experience and home comforts, still gives the impression that he is working as hard as ever to iron out the wrinkles in his game. If he keeps doing that, and the planets align the right way, then Rahal's year serves as an example of just how high his efforts might take him.