IndyCar 2019 report card: Part 1

Editor's note: We've done something a little different with this year's IndyCar report card, based on a simple question: How would Robin's grades stack up against the teams' own assessments of their seasons?

We decided to find out. While Robin carried out his grading process as usual, RACER reached out to all of the full-time IndyCar teams and asked them to issue a grade to their own 2019 seasons. Some of the results were predictable; others are surprising.

A couple of caveats. The initial scope was limited to full-time teams, but Robin also wanted to incorporate Meyer Shank Racing, so you'll find a Miller grade for them here, but not one from MSR itself. There were also two full-time teams that did not participate in the self-grading exercise.

We've arranged the teams in alphabetical order. Today's report covers everyone from A.J. Foyt Racing through to DCR, and check back on Monday when we'll round things off with everyone from ECR through to Team Penske.

And now, on to Robin – and the teams...

Funny, it didn’t feel like any one driver or team dominated the 2019 IndyCar season, but the statistics say otherwise: Roger Penske’s talented trio pretty much had their way with the series.

Josef Newgarden scored four wins and his second championship, Simon Pagenaud swept the month of May, and Will Power added a pair of victories as they combined to triumph in nine of 17 races, earn eight pole positions and lead nearly lead half of the 2,029 laps.

Rookie Colton Herta dazzled everyone with two wins for Harding Steinbrenner Racing – tying five-time champ Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato – as IndyCar again featured great racing and some surprises, but wound up the same old story for the 16th time in The Captain’s remarkable run.

A.J. FOYT RACING

MILLER’S GRADE: D

The boss said it was the “worst season he’s had in 50 years” and there’s not much to add because Tony Kanaan and Matheus Leist basically took a knife to a gunfight. T.K. salvaged a third at Gateway, but big changes are coming in 2020 to try and get this once-proud outfit back to being competitive.

TEAM’S GRADE: No Grade

Larry Foyt, team president:

“It's hard. I think it's almost a disservice to my guys to put a grade on the season because... the easy thing to say is definitely an A+ on effort, which everyone will say, but it really was. This is probably the toughest season, certainly that I've had, since I've been here, just pure results-wise and pace-wise. But the thing is, I don't think we've had a mechanical DNF all year. The cars are well-built; we've just lacked... the race pace has been OK; we just lacked that single lap speed for qualifying, and it kills you for these types of circuits. I think Tony finished eighth in the oval championship and obviously had the third at Gateway and top 10 at Indy. Matheus didn’t fare as well on the ovals, but on some of the road courses he showed good pace.

Image by Levitt/LAT

“So definitely, you can say it's been such a hard season results-wise, no doubt about it. Especially qualifying. It's just been unlike anything I've seen for us as a team, that the struggles we've had. But I look at the effort, the one thing that's been awesome is, the crew just kept their head down and kept working.

“The thing is, to me right now, IndyCar is really a people game. And it's how all your people fit together. So how your engineering/driver combination goes together to get the best speed, because it's so close. The parity in IndyCar is awesome, but also if you're missing just that little bit, the penalty is huge. So I think the adversity of it; what I've learned from that is just, man, what a great team we have that they don't give up. You know, it'd be easy for them to just be frustrated and negative all the time, but everyone keeps doing their job.

“So no doubt, we just struggled for pace this year. Our engineer/driving combo, that I put together, did not work, period. And that's on me. So this winter, we have to look at that and see what we need to do to fix that.”

ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT

MILLER’S GRADE: C

For a four-car effort with Andretti’s engineering expertise, it was a below-average campaign. Rossi’s two runaway wins and five podiums kept him in the championship hunt before a late fade and his was a B+ season, but his teammates dragged the overall grade down. Ryan Hunter-Reay only led one race and had two podiums in an otherwise forgettable year, while Marco Andretti managed just a pair of sixth places to wind up 16th in the standings. Zach Veach pressed a little too hard early and couldn’t regain that rookie form to wind up 18th.

[Did not self-grade]

Image by Cantrall/LAT

ARROW SPM

MILLER’S GRADE: C–

Poised to join the Big 3 before Robert Wickens’ injury in 2018, this group took a step backwards in 2019. James Hinchcliffe qualified a lot better than he finished most races and had some sorry luck to wind up 12th in the points with only one podium. Marcus Ericsson had the predictable learning curve of a rookie but turned in some good drives (second at Detroit) that weren’t always rewarded.

TEAM’S GRADE: “On potential, probably a B+. On ultimate execution, probably a C–"

Sam Schmidt, team co-owner:

“We had a clear expectation of winning races this season, so per that goal, we didn’t reach it. With that said I feel we had several races where we didn’t show our true potential, such as Mid-Ohio, Pocono and Portland where we had incidents on the opening lap. So it’s difficult to say where we’d been had it not been for those.

“We’ve made a big step forward in race pace this season, so that was a big positive. However that also highlights our biggest area of weakness, which has been qualifying. If we qualified better throughout the year, we probably wouldn’t have to get as creative with strategy as we’ve had to.

Image by Abbott/LAT

“IndyCar is getting more and more competitive and you need everything to go your way in order to put together race wins consistently. This year was tough in that sense. Whenever we had the pace to contend for the top step of the podium, we didn’t have things fall our way. You have to make your own luck to a certain extent, but whenever we’ve needed a bit of luck, we just didn’t have any.”

CARLIN RACING

MILLER’S GRADE: C–

If Pato O’Ward and Conor Daly ran the full season this team could have made some noise. Both showed their talents but neither was in the seat long enough to make a difference as Max Chilton, Charlie Kimball and Sage Karam also took turns trying to get that first podium. Daly came closest with a charge from 18th to sixth at Gateway, and O’Ward opened 2019 by qualifying and finishing eighth at COTA before the team’s disastrous month of May in which Kimball's was the only car to qualify.

[Did not self-grade]

Image by LePage/LAT

CHIP GANASSI RACING

MILLER’S GRADE: B

Two wins and eight podiums would have been good enough to take the title in many seasons, but Dixie finished fourth because of a pair of mechanical gremlins at Gateway and Portland that ruined his late-season charge. Felix Rosenqvist took Rookie of the Year honors and sixth in the points on the strength of two podiums and four more top five finishes, and showed he will be a factor in the 2020 chase.

TEAM’S GRADE: B

Mike Hull, managing director:

“I don't know how to measure success versus expectation. For years, Chip Ganassi Racing has been able to have those two things cross over, and this year they didn't, in relationship to how we've managed ourselves in the past. We're used to not only contending for championships but winning them, and contending for races. And we did win two races with Scott Dixon. So that's a certainly a validation for how hard everyone works with the results that they've had.

“We had some misfortune toward the end of the year, otherwise I think we would have contended for the championship at Laguna Seca. I think both things that happened to us that put us out of races or put us towards the back the racing order were out totally out of our control. We're the first to admit when something's in our control and we've failed. But that was unfortunate. We bounced back, and and had a really good race at Laguna Seca; more typical of what we do.

Image by LePage/LAT

“In terms of the grading process, I would separate the two drivers in this case rather than calling it ‘Chip Ganassi Racing’. I would say Scott Dixon was certainly a B for the season of work. And certainly, if I was the professor, I would say there's room for improvement. That's how I would write the report card. But anytime you win two out of 17 races, I don't think that's a bad record. We didn't win the big race, which is the Indy 500, and we didn't win the culmination, which is the championship itself, and that's what we're built to do here. So that part of it, if you look at those two things as what were most important, the grade is probably less than a C, but in terms of the team's effort for the entire year, I would call it a B.

“In terms of Felix Rosenqvist... I'm of the opinion that young race drivers who have ability, that have talent, and are hired based on talent – which he is – still take at least one full year of racing IndyCars to where they understand the racecraft of the race itself. And what that is, is the driver has to understand how to start at the very beginning of the race weekend, in the very first session, with their engineer, how to keep the tires under them as the track surface grip level changes during the race, and understand how to create less tire deg than everybody else does in order to not lose track position.

“At the beginning of the year with Felix, he qualified at the front, and finished 10th. Qualified at the front, finished eighth. Qualified at the front, finished 12th. And it was through those segments of the race. The last five races of the year, he started figuring it out and look what happened. So in terms of a report card or progress report card, I would consider that to be overall a very productive season. I would divide the season for him into two-thirds, one-third and say the last third of the season was a B. The first third of the season was maybe a C.

“But he's certainly moving in the right direction, and I think he's proven what people have said about him for a long, long time. Number one, he probably should have been in Formula 1, but that was political. Number two, anything he's ever driven that has four wheels on it, he figures out a way to run at the front of any event and win. And I think he's one step away from that now. And that's because he was patient, he worked really hard with his teammate, he worked hard with the people that work on his car. And he's very direct about trying to find answers, and he does not throw blame in other directions. He accepts responsibility, and accountability comes from that.”

DALE COYNE RACING

MILLER’S GRADE B –

A season that couldn’t end soon enough for four-time champ Sebastien Bourdais, but a refreshing breakout for his rookie teammate. While Seb only mustered one podium and 19 laps led, Santino Ferrucci went from ‘who’s that?’ to a fan favorite with his aggressive style. He scored three fourth places and made some of the best passes of 2019 while never putting a wheel wrong until the last race. He’d have won Gateway were it not for an untimely caution.

TEAM’S GRADE: B

Dale Coyne, team owner:

“I think it was a good year. Santino was a pleasant surprise. The consistency of Sebastien and the newness of Santino made for a good season.

Image by Levitt/LAT

“Santino especially impressed me on the ovals. Ovals are almost a state of mind, and he's got a good mindset for them. He's not afraid to go high, not afraid to stand on the gas. And I don't it was a question of when he's going to crash, because I don't think a crash would slow him down! I think he'd get right back in and say, 'OK, I know what I did, let me go again.' He did a good job.

“If you took the four rookies and looked at the resumes, his was probably the weakest. Or maybe Herta’s, because in Europe his resume wasn't that good. Rosenqvist, you'd expect him to be way up there. And even Marcus Ericsson had a good run in Europe in GP2. So Santino's year was pretty impressive. And across the team, I think we've been dependable. We invested hard in our engineering program over the last two, three years, and it paid off.”