Please note that the drivers that I consider 'Long Shots' in 2015 aren't bad drivers. Three of them have won races (Andretti, Huertas, and Rahal), and others have spent time running at the front of races (Hawksworth and de Silvestro). I simply think that there are too many other drivers with better equipment or more experience for these drivers to have a legitimate shot at a win in 2015.
Marco Andretti
| Oval | Road | Street | |||||||
| Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Average Start | 5 | 2.7 | 10.5 | 11 | 7.3 | 12.8 | 16.4 | 13.1 | 13.8 |
| Average Finish | 13.2 | 9.2 | 12.7 | 14.7 | 6.7 | 11.5 | 15.4 | 9.5 | 12.1 |
Predicted 2015 Average Finish Rank: 8th
Having ‘Andretti’ for your last name is a blessing and a curse for a racecar driver. Family money undoubtedly aided Marco on his way up the open wheel ladder, and his royal (racing) blood gave him a seat with a team he otherwise would not drive for. At the same time, the Unsers are the only other racing family where a third generation driver would be compared to both a legendary father and legendary grandfather.
Having ‘Andretti’ for your last name is a blessing and a curse for a racecar driver. Family money undoubtedly aided Marco on his way up the open wheel ladder, and his royal (racing) blood gave him a seat with a team he otherwise would not drive for. At the same time, the Unsers are the only other racing family where a third generation driver would be compared to both a legendary father and legendary grandfather.
Andretti’s career is similar to Graham Rahal’s.
Both are Americans who started their open wheel careers around the same
time (Andretti in 2006, and Rahal in 2007). Both had to live up to the
reputations of their famous fathers. Both
were unfairly burdened with saving open wheel racing in America, which
had been decimated because of the CART/IRL split, on the first day of
their careers.
Their career results are also fairly similar. The two would have the same number of wins if
either:
1) Rahal hadn’t thrown away a win at Texas in 2012, or
2) Bryan Herta hadn’t spun at Sonoma in 2006 and allowed Andretti to save enough fuel to win. Andretti has 18 podiums to Rahal’s nine, but this is expected because Andretti’s team has been consistently better than the ones Rahal has driven for. Since 2012, Andretti has 5 podiums while Rahal has 3. Marco’s 3 poles have come on ovals, where setup can play a bigger role than driver skill.
1) Rahal hadn’t thrown away a win at Texas in 2012, or
2) Bryan Herta hadn’t spun at Sonoma in 2006 and allowed Andretti to save enough fuel to win. Andretti has 18 podiums to Rahal’s nine, but this is expected because Andretti’s team has been consistently better than the ones Rahal has driven for. Since 2012, Andretti has 5 podiums while Rahal has 3. Marco’s 3 poles have come on ovals, where setup can play a bigger role than driver skill.
Overall, Andretti is much better off with his last name. It funded his path up the development ladder, and has kept him in a ride that he would not have otherwise.
Potential Weakness: Oval qualifying
Andretti's average oval start in 2012 was 5th position, and 2.7 in 2013. His oval qualifying fell of dramatically in 2014, when his average starting spot was 10.5. Despite the fall off, Andretti is still the 2nd best oval qualifier among active 2015 drivers since 2012. I'm curious to see if Andretti will bounce back in 2015.
Recommended Strategy: Return to 2013 form
Andretti's average finishes in 2013 improved to single digit numbers on all three track types compared to 2012, but returned to double digits in 2014. Andretti Autosport needs to look through its notes and revert back to what it did in 2013.
Luca Filippi
| Road | Street | ||
| Year | 2013 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Average Start | 24 | 14.3 | 11.3 |
| Average Finish | 16 | 17 | 18.5 |
Filippi joins the new Carpenter Fisher Hartman team as the road and street course driver for the #20 car, replacing Toyota's new World Endurance Championship driver Mike Conway. Filippi will step out of the cockpit for Ed Carpenter to drive the ovals.
Filippi started 4 races in 2013 with Bryan Herta Autosport, and 4 races with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2014. His best finish was 10th at Houston #1 in 2013. His average starting position ranks impressively high (14th overall since 2012) considering he has always been a part time driver. I suspect his average finishes aren't reflective of his actual skill. Teams knew he was only joining them for a few races, so they probably tested 'crazy' setups and took strategy gambles.
Potential Weakness: Crashes
Filippi crashed out of 2 of his 2014 starts. I don't remember the crashes, but I would expect a driver without a full time ride to do everything in his power to finish races without tearing up equipment. It's also possible he was taken out by an incident that was not his fault.
Recommended Strategy: Be aggressive
Filippi will step out of the car on ovals, so he has absolutely no chance to have a high points finish. Filippi has nothing to lose by gambling on setup and pit strategy whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Jack Hawksworth
| 2014 | |||
| Oval | Road | Street | |
| Average Start | 17.4 | 15 | 14 |
| Average Finish | 15 | 12.5 | 12.1 |
Hawksworth had a solid, quietly impressive 2014 season. While driving for one of the series' smallest teams and missing the race at Pocono because of a practice crash, he still managed to earn more points than 4 drivers, some with much more experience, who started all 18 races (Sato, Rahal, Huertas, and Saavedra). More impressively, Hawksworth has the 10th best average finish on road courses for active 2015 drivers going back to 2012, and the 11th best average finish on street courses over the same time period.
Hawksworth moves to AJ Foyt Racing for 2015, where he will partner with Takuma Sato. Even though Sato spends most of his time in the bottom half of the field, a second car will provide Hawksworth with additional data that he can use when setting up his car. It wouldn't be surprising to see Hawksworth finish ahead of Sato in points for 2015.
Potential Weakness: Ovals
His oval results leave a lot to be desired, but that is expected for a rookie with a small team. Sato should be able to tutor Hawksworth on ovals. Remember, Sato was going to win the 2012 Indianapolis 500 until another car turned down on him and ruined his day.
Recommended Strategy: Learn Ovals
Hawksworth needs to improve his oval skills if he wants to be a threat to win championships. Moving to a multi-car team will give him more data to analyze and a teammate to test different setup options. He would do well to learn as much from Sato as possible.
Carlos Huertas
| 2014 | |||
| Oval | Road | Street | |
| Average Start | 21.5 | 15.8 | 16.4 |
| Average Finish | 19 | 17 | 13 |
2014 was completely forgettable for Carlos Huertas, with one exception: his upset win in Houston race 1. Sure, several things outside of his control had to occur for him to win, but Huertas and team owner Dale Coyne deserve huge props for putting Huertas in a position to win at all. Huertas had nothing to lose, gambled, and was rewarded with a win.
I don't have much data on Huertas, but Marshall Pruett believes Huertas was fairly competitive in 2014 when racing at tracks after testing at them. If this is the case, 2015 should show improvement over 2014.
Potential Weakness: Intestinal Fortitude
Huertas is alleged to have voluntarily withdrawn from 2 oval races in 2014. If he doesn't want to race ovals, that's his decision, but he shouldn't squander his team's efforts by quitting mid-race.
James Jakes
| Oval | Road | Street | ||||
| Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2012 | 2013 | 2012 | 2013 |
| Average Start | 16.8 | 14 | 21.3 | 13.3 | 18.7 | 14.7 |
| Average Finish | 14.2 | 17 | 15.7 | 20.3 | 18.9 | 13.7 |
Jakes returns to IndyCar after taking 2014 off. His Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports team should be the best he's driven an IndyCar for.
Jakes 2013 average finishes with Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan were primarily worse than his 2012 numbers with Dale Coyne. Schmidt-Peterson should help him return to 2012 form.
Potential Weakness: Road Course Qualifying
Jakes ranks 21st among 2015 IndyCar drivers when qualifying on road courses. Simon Pagenaud had no trouble qualifying in SPM equipment, so 2015 will reveal whether Jakes' issues were equipment or driver related.
Recommended Strategy: Use Your Teammate
Jakes' teammate in 2012 was Justin Wilson, who usually overperformed considering the small team he drove for. Jakes 2013 teammate was Graham Rahal, whose resume isn't nearly as impressive as Wilson's. Jakes' results mirrored the quality of his teammates - better with Wilson than with Rahal. New 2015 teammate James Hinchcliffe should be closer to Wilson than Rahal - will Jakes' 2015 results reflect that?
Graham Rahal
| Oval | Road | Street | |||||||
| Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Average Start | 12.8 | 18.5 | 15.7 | 14 | 17 | 12.8 | 11.4 | 17.5 | 14.4 |
| Average Finish | 7.8 | 16.7 | 17.3 | 6.7 | 16.7 | 15.8 | 15.6 | 13 | 12.9 |
It's been all downhill for Rahal since winning in his first IndyCar start in 2008. Rahal has starts with Newman-Haas-Lanigan, Sarah Fisher Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, and Chip Ganassi's 'B Team' since 2008. During his time in IndyCar, he has also seemingly worked with every engineer in the paddock.
To his credit, he has driven for so many teams because he is willing to drive for any team to race. In 2010 alone he drove for 4 different teams (Fisher, RLL, D&R, and NHL) across 12 races after Newman-Haas-Lanigan was unable to give him a full season ride.
His 2 full seasons with Ganassi resulted in only 4 podiums, and only 1 of these came in his second year with the team. In 2014 the lucrative National Guard sponsorship allowed his father's team to hire a legion of engineering staff, but this only resulted in 1 podium.
The story is always the same: this is the team/engineer/sponsor/whatever that will finally allow Rahal to reach his potential. The only constant in Rahal's career is the one thing that is not on his long list of excuses: the person in the cockpit.
Non-Weakness that Looks Like a Weakness: Lead lap finishes
Rahal had only 8 lead lap finishes in both 2013 and
2014. If he were a championship contender this would be a problem.
However, Rahal has never been consistent enough to contend for a
championship. I can’t speak to the nature of the
finishes that were off the lead lap, but it’s possible that they were
fuel gambles that didn’t pay off (running out of fuel or having to stop
near the end of a race when needed yellows didn’t materialize). Fuel gambles
are the right strategy for a driver like
Rahal, so he shouldn’t be concerned with finishing off the lead lap
when these don’t pay off.Simona de Silvestro
| 2013 | |||
| Oval | Road | Street | |
| Average Start | 18.8 | 15 | 13.4 |
| Average Finish | 16.2 | 12.7 | 10.4 |
Predicted 2015 Average Finish Rank: 13
de Silvestro is the only driver I made an exception for when calculating average finishes since 2012. Her 2012 season using a woefully underpowered Lotus engine was in no way reflective of her abilities in a race car. Her 2012 data was excluded from her averages because no one would have been able to have good finishes with the terrible Lotus engine.
Her 2013 season with KV Racing Technology was much better than 2012: she has the 5th best average finish on street courses among active IndyCar drivers since 2012. The highlight of 2013 was a 2nd place finish at Houston race #1.
Potential Weakness: Qualifying
Like many drivers from Europe, de Silvestro is unfamiliar with ovals. However, I think a bigger issue for her is qualifying. On average, she finishes over 2 positions better than she starts on road courses, and that figure grows to 3 positions on street courses. de Silvestro will have an easier time earning better finishes if she doesn't start so deep in the field. Hopefully an Andretti car will allow her to do that.
Recommended Strategy: Make the Most of This Opportunity
de Silvestro has spent the majority of her career with smaller teams. Andretti Autosport is by far the largest (and best funded) team she has raced for in IndyCar. She is rumored to have funding for at least the first 5 races of 2015. 2 or 3 podiums would improve her standing in the IndyCar paddock, and might convince sponsors to provide additional funding.
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