by As Will Power, Alex Palou, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing vie for a chance to win the Astor Cup, 25 other cars will be on track among them, many of which will have other major assets at stake in their performance in the 2024 IndyCar season finale.
While Rookie of the Year honors (kudos to Linus Lundqvist) and the Manufacturers’ Championship (hats off to Chevrolet and Ilmor) were clinched with 206 laps remaining, there’s plenty more to watch in Sunday afternoon’s race at Nashville Superspeedway (3:30 p.m. ET, green flag on NBC).
From what has largely become a five-team battle for the final four spots in IndyCar’s Leaders Circle — each worth about $1 million to teams in 2025 — to a string of accolades within reach for Santino Ferrucci and AJ Foyt Racing and drivers still chasing their first oval wins, here’s what to watch for in the 2024 IndyCar finale.
A tense battle in the back for $1 million
Outside of the championship, this season-long battle at the back of the grid is as crucial as anything teams fight for throughout an IndyCar season. IndyCar’s Leaders Circle program is a roster of 22 entrants that evolves each year, drawn from the top two points-scoring entrants from the previous season among those eligible (this year, it’s the Nos. 8, 9 and 10 Ganassi cars and the other 22 on the grid). Of those 25 entrants, the top 22 will each receive just over $1 million in prize money directly from the series next season.
IndyCar Points Image: Series Championship Points Standings After Race 2 in Milwaukee
The top 18 spots have been locked up for weeks now, but heading into the final race of the year, those final four spots are still up for grabs, with the 19th-23rd-place cars separated by just 15 points. Barring a huge surprise from Dale Coyne Racing – owners of the 24th and 25th-place cars at the moment – only one of those cars will be on the outside waiting for the checkered flag.
Here’s where those bottom entries are currently located:
19. Juncos Hollinger Racing No. 78: 189 points
20. Meyer Shank Racing No. 66: 187 points
21. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing No. 30: 177 points
22. AJ Foyt Racing No. 41: 175 points
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23. Ed Carpenter Racing No. 20: 174 points
24. Dale Coyne Racing No. 160: 160 points
25. Dale Coyne Racing No. 18: 137 points
Beyond 10th place, which is worth 20 points, IndyCar’s points system awards one point less for each successive position in the finishing order, up to five points for 25th place. Cars that finish 26th and 27th also receive five points. But even with that in mind, positions 21st through 23rd are separated by only three points, meaning every place will count for those seven cars on Sunday.
Foyt and Ferrucci on the rise
Since posting four top-10 finishes in his first six starts of the year in the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing car, 2024 has been a breakout season for Ferrucci. And to the surprise of many, the trend hasn’t stopped. Last year, a team and driver who shone on the IMS oval but didn’t do much else became a midfield tandem among IndyCar’s best.
“This is not my ultimate goal”: Santino Ferrucci eyes new deal with Foyt and even more success in 2025
With a strong performance in Nashville, here’s what the driver and team could have within their reach:
∎ After two fourth-place finishes in the Milwaukee Mile doubleheader, a top-five finish for the No. 14 Chevrolet would give Foyt three straight wins for the first time since a streak that spanned the 2001-02 IRL seasons.
∎ A top-10 finish would mark Ferrucci’s 11th place finish this season, which would be a team record.
∎ A fact that Alexander Rossi mentioned outright on his podcast last week and is eager to keep at bay, Ferrucci is 11 points behind Rossi in the standings. If the Foyt driver finishes far enough ahead of Rossi on Sunday to overtake the Arrow McLaren driver in the championship, a ninth-place finish would mark the team’s best result since 2002, when Airton Dare tied it.
Save the 2024 roller coaster for Newgarden
A win for Josef Newgarden, the IndyCar oval master who won at World Wide Technology Raceway last month and qualified first and second at The Mile last weekend before disaster struck twice, would move the Team Penske driver into 10th place on the series’ career win list. He’s tied with Helio Castroneves, another Penske legend, Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy.
Another win would also give the two-time champion and two-time 500 winner a chance to claim the No. 9 (Al Unser Jr., 34 wins) and No. 8 (Bobby Unser, 35 wins) finishes in 2025.
Milestone wins on the line
Several drivers are looking for their first IndyCar victory: Ferrucci, Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist of Ganassi and Romain Grosjean and Conor Daly of Juncos Hollinger Racing.
A win at the D-shaped oval, 40 minutes from Nashville, would also represent the first oval victory for Palou, Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood, Christian Lundgaard, Felix Rosenqvist and Rinus VeeKay.
Power and Dixon want to keep their streak intact
Not only would it set Power up for his final battle with Palou, but it would also earn him a crucial point for the weekend, but a pole position for the Team Penske veteran would have added significance. En route to 70 career pole positions, Power has won at least one pole in each of the last 15 years, but he has yet to earn one in 2024.
This year, Power has started eight times (in half of the 16 races) on the front two rows (fourth or better) and qualified second four times. If he misses the pole Sunday, it would be his first season without a pole since 2008 and his second full-time season without a pole. A winless season last year ended Power’s 16-year streak with at least one victory.
“He has only himself to blame”: Palou on Power’s turnaround and Milwaukee’s wild ride with title lead on the line
One of Power’s contemporaries, six-time champion Scott Dixon, also has a winning streak on the line. The Ganassi veteran sits fifth in the championship, 19 points behind fourth-place Colton Herta, with a whopping 54 points on the line. If Dixon can’t catch the Andretti Global driver (and also can’t catch Scott McLaughlin, who has a 32-point lead in third), Dixon would finish outside the top four in the championship for just the second time in 19 seasons.
During that span, Dixon won five of his six IndyCar titles, finished second three times and finished third in the championship six times.
Herta and McLaughlin in search of their best results
If they shine on Sunday, Herta and McLaughlin have a chance of climbing the championship to second place. They currently occupy fourth and third place respectively, with a gap of 30 and 17 points to Power in second.
Both drivers have never finished higher than third in the championship this season, with Herta’s personal best coming in 2020 and McLaughlin’s a year ago. Catching Power and finishing behind Palou would be a personal best.
Insider: Here’s how Palou and Power can clinch the 2024 IndyCar title in Nashville
Palou and Ganassi could be in a class of their own
For Palou and Power, a title would be their third, a record that only five other drivers have surpassed in American open-wheel racing history. But there are other important historical stakes for the Ganassi driver, including:
∎ He became the first to win back-to-back IndyCar titles since Dario Franchitti, now a driver coach at CGR, won three straight from 2009 to 2011. It has only happened three other times this century: Sébastien Bourdais’ quadruple in Champ Car (2004-2007), Sam Hornish Jr.’s quadruple in IRL (2001-2002) and Gil de Ferran’s quadruple in CART (2000-2001).
∎ Of the drivers who have won at least three U.S. open-wheel championships, only Bourdais has done it this quickly early in his career. Palou did it in his fifth IndyCar season, while Bourdais has done it in four seasons. However, it’s fair to say that with Bourdais doing it in the Champ Car split—and with IndyCar fields deeper than ever—Palou’s feat is slightly more impressive.
∎ With a top-nine finish, Palou would secure a title. A fifth-place finish or better in Nashville would be the Spaniard’s 14th-place finish this year, the most in a single season since Castroneves recorded 15 in 2008.
∎ For the past 15 years, IndyCar has been called a two-team, high-level sport, but when it comes to championships, Chip Ganassi Racing has no equal. A title for Palou would give his team 11 titles in the last 17 seasons; Team Penske has won five and Andretti Global has won just one.
This article was originally published on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: What to See During IndyCar’s Visit to Nashville Superspeedway
