Written by Archie O’Reilly
While the fight atop the championship sits at the forefront of peoples’ minds heading into IndyCar’s season finale at Nashville Superspeedway, there is another battle yet to be settled at the opposite end of the standings.
For those involved, the duel to get into the Leaders’ Circle - and gain roughly one million dollars with that contract - is just as important.
Leaders’ Circle contracts are awarded to each entry that finishes inside the top 22 in entrant points, discluding Chip Ganassi Racing’s No.4 and No.11 cars due to only three entries per team being eligible. This means three full-season entries will miss out on the Leaders’ Circle, which offers a crucial monetary boost for many lower-funded outfits.
Heading into the final race of the 2024 IndyCar season, it is the No.20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy that sits one point the wrong side of the bubble in 23rd. The No.41 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy is one point ahead on the inside edge in 22nd, with the No.30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda two more points better off.
Both the No.66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda (13 points safe) and the No.78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy (15 points safe) would need something particularly unusual to occur to not make the Leaders’ Circle.
On the flip side, the No.51 Dale Coyne Racing Honda would require an emphatic season-best race to make up a 15-point deficit from 24th. The sister No.18 Coyne entry is a further 23 points back - 38 points from safety.
DIVEBOMB gives some background on and takes a deeper look at the Leaders’ Circle picture…
Rasmussen’s bid to repay Carpenter’s faith
No.20 - Ed Carpenter Racing: 23rd (174 pts)
In terms of performance, Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR)’s No.20 Chevy should not be in trouble of missing out on a Leaders’ Circle contract. But a mixture of misfortune and mistakes leaves the entry sitting precariously.
Rookie Christian Rasmussen was chosen by team owner Ed Carpenter to run the road and street courses, along with the Indianapolis 500 in a third entry. But the reigning Indy NXT champion made a few too many early-season errors, with a 19th-place finish on debut his best inside his first six races in the No.20.
Rasmussen has progressed, with back-to-back Fast 12 qualifying results at Mid-Ohio in and Toronto. He had finished 13th at Laguna Seca and notched a maiden top 10 at Mid-Ohio, and if not for being crashed into at Toronto and Portland, the car would be better-placed.
Stepping in for the oval races, Carpenter did not have the best of times. He started no higher than 21st and found himself caught up in costly incidents in the first three of six late-season shorter oval races.
In the Indy 500, a punchy Rasmussen had finished five places higher than his team owner with a statement 12th-place result in the additional entry.
Concerned about his own performance pre-Milwaukee amid a Leaders’ Circle push, Carpenter took the selfless decision to replace himself with his rookie teammate for the closing three races of the season - all on ovals. And making his IndyCar short oval debut but with pedigree from NXT, Rasmussen impressed in the Milwaukee Mile doubleheader.
His aggressiveness did upset some competitors and that may need to be toned back at Nashville with a crash likely detrimental. But while currently outside the top 22, the Dane may be best-placed to elevate himself to safety after finishing 11th and 16th at the Mile.
Robb in danger after tough Milwaukee
No.41 AJ Foyt Racing: 22nd (175 pts)
Sting Ray Robb has progressed in his sophomore season. He only finished inside the top 20 five times with Dale Coyne Racing as a rookie in 2023 and has bettered that with nine in 2024. But with a more competitive AJ Foyt Racing outfit, he has still only notched two top-15 results - including a first top 10 with ninth at Gateway - after one last year.
After Gateway, Robb looked to be in a good position - safe inside the Leaders’ Circle by 11 points at that stage. But after finishing 18th at Portland, the Milwaukee doubleheader weekend did not go well for Robb.
While teammate Santino finished fourth in both races, Robb was unable to make the same progress through the field.
The opening race saw him running narrowly inside the top 20 before being pegged back by a stop-and-go penalty for hitting a tyre during his final pit stop, leading to a 23rd-place finish. The second race was even worse despite a better finish of 18th, with Robb bringing out a pair of cautions - one for a spin and another as he crashed out with 22 laps remaining.
Through the year, Robb has shown himself to possess potential on ovals. He led laps on an alternate strategy and fought at the front in the Indy 500, as was replicated in the best run of his IndyCar career to date at Gateway.
Given the mere three points between the three cars in the thick of the battle to make the Leaders’ Circle, any errors could prove costly for any of the cars involved. It will be important for Robb to re-find his Gateway form and put the Milwaukee weekend behind him.
Can Fittipaldi and RLL find form again?
No.30 RLL Racing: 21st (177 pts)
Off the back of Milwaukee, there is a valid argument that Pietro Fittipaldi and the No.30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) Honda could be under the greatest threat of missing the Leaders’ Circle cut.
Fittipaldi’s two Milwaukee qualifying laps were both slower than Indy NXT pole-sitter Louis Foster’s two-lap average, meaning he started both races in last. RLL had no car qualify higher than 24th and started the second race from the bottom three positions.
The 2023 season was disastrous for RLL on ovals, headlined by the Indy 500 with all three full-time cars having to return for Last Chance Qualifying and Graham Rahal finding himself bumped.
May was slightly smoother in 2024, albeit Rahal still had to return on Bump Day and qualified 33rd. Fittipaldi crashed out on the opening lap before the remaining three entries, including Fast 12-qualifier Takuma Sato in a one-off entry, finished 13th, 14th and 15th.
The team was then tracking for possible top-10 finishes with Rahal in both Iowa races and at Gateway but saw two of those results quashed by car issues. Christian Lundgaard did finish inside the top 10 in the first Milwaukee race but would be the first to admit he did not pass cars to get to that position as a downturn emerged again.
Rahal described his Milwaukee car as the worst he has driven on an oval and Fittipaldi - in the in-danger entry - circulated to 18th and 21st-place finishes, which near enough matches the results of Robb in the top-22-chasing No.41.
Fittipaldi has finished no higher than 13th in his first complete IndyCar season. And given Rasmussen finished 11th on his short oval debut in Milwaukee, form suggests Fittipaldi and Robb may be in the greatest danger.
RLL will dearly hope they can re-find their Iowa and Gateway competitiveness.
Malukas brings MSR to brink of safety
No.66 Meyer Shank Racing: 20th (187 pts)
Such is the job that David Malukas has done since replacing rookie Tom Blomqvist in Meyer Shank Racing (MSR)’s No.66 Honda, it comes as a surprise that the entry is only 13 points to the good inside the Leaders’ Circle heading into the finale.
But put into context, 13 points is the difference between finishing 25th and 12th. So even an incident for Malukas would still require above-par days from all other top-22 contenders for MSR to come under any jeopardy.
The purpose of bringing Malukas in for the final 11 races of 2024 was to allow MSR to have two equal chargers. In the first six races, Rosenqvist finished inside the top 10 five times and qualified on the front row twice, including Long Beach pole. He also took a podium in the $1 Million Challenge exhibition.
But while Rosenqvist excelled, Blomqvist - a top-level sports car driver switching back to single-seaters - struggled. In his five races in 2024 - after three in 2023 - he finished a best of 15th (on debut) and finished outside the top 20 three times..
A sense appeared to grow that achieving two Leaders’ Circle contracts was not a certainty. And after an Indy 500 crash, with potential for front-running competitiveness on both cars, the choice was taken to draft Malukas in.
Stepping in a car for the first time since a pre-season wrist injury that prevented him from racing for the Arrow McLaren team he joined last September, Malukas qualified 12th at Laguna Seca and third at Mid-Ohio. Top-10 race finishes eluded him for reasons largely out of his control until a sixth-place result in Toronto.
Despite a number of doses of misfortune, Malukas has elevated the No.66 entry to Leaders’ Circle safety. If not for innocent involvement in a collision with Will Power, he could have won at Gateway - from a first front-row start - to cap off an upturn for a team that finished inside the top 10 once in 2023.
Daly’s dream day likely saves JHR
No.78 Juncos Hollinger Racing: 19th (189 pts)
Heading into Milwaukee, the Leaders’ Circle narrative was centred around the battle between the tied No.78 Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) and No.20 ECR entries.
Daly was dismissed by Carpenter from the No.20 Chevy midway through the 2023 season. But an Indy 500 and ‘super sub’ appearances with three teams later, he was recruited by JHR to replace Agustin Canapino from Gateway onwards with the Leaders’ Circle in mind.
The first two of Daly’s five races had doses of misfortune. He spun round both at Gateway and Portland but recovered to a respectable 13th in the former and 22nd in the latter, gaining ground on his former entry.
Milwaukee was initially a struggle in practice but Daly found some speed to qualify in the thick of the pack for both races. A nine-place engine penalty dropped him to 25th for the first race but inspired one of the best drives of the season.
Within two laps, Daly had made up 11 places by boldly running the high line. He was thus opportunely-placed when a caution fell with around 50 laps remaining. But while this allowed him to gain a little more ground to sixth in fortunate fashion, he stormed forward to third after the restart and pulled a 14-second gap to Ferrucci in fourth.
It marked a first podium for Daly in over eight years - the second of his career and first on an oval - in his 113th IndyCar race. And it was fittingly a first for Ricardo Juncos in IndyCar, earned by the same driver that won him his first car championship in Star Mazda in 2010.
This heroic display has all but secured JHR a Leaders’ Circle contract for its second entry and Juncos’ decision to draft Daly in has proven a remarkable one.
Could outsider Coyne entry be a factor?
No.51 Dale Coyne Racing: 24th (160 pts)
Dale Coyne Racing has been on the back foot since before the season commenced. It was a matter of days before the St. Petersburg opener that the team finally announced its lineup - and the No.51 entry has since still had drivers announced largely race-by-race.
Both Coyne cars have a best finish of 13th in any individual race in 2024. And even for the more likely No.51 entry - 15 points from safety - to stand a chance at scraping into the top 22, it would take much more than this and for other cars battling for the Leaders’ Circle to come into strife.
Harvey’s No.18 entry - cut 38 points adrift - would need the most improbable of race victories to stand any sort of chance. This would be one of IndyCar’s greatest shocks given the Coyne team has not won a race in over six years - and not on an oval since 2012 at Texas Motor Speedway.
The team is coming off the back of its best weekend of the season at Milwaukee, where it doubled a prior tally of three top-16 finishes across both cars all season (two achieved by Toby Sowery in three races in the No.51). Harvey started 14th and 13th and finished 16th and 14th at Milwaukee, with Legge bringing home 15th in Race Two.
But even this improved level will not be enough and making the Leaders’ Circle is a very long shot even for the better-placed No.51 entry.
Unfortunately, Coyne faces staying in the vicious cycle triggered by missing out on crucial funding. This could again leave them limited in their future driver options and facing another year of instability with a rotation of drivers having to pay on a race-by-race basis.
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