IndyCar 2022 preview: ‘Big Three’ will face stiffer competition for the championship

The driver who nearly dethroned the championship run of the “Big Three” in the NTT IndyCar Series isn’t quite ready to decree the balance of power has shifted.

Pato O’Ward won twice and finished third in the 2022 standings for Arrow McLaren SP, leading the points with three races remaining.

But yet …

“I don’t think it’s a ‘Big Four’ yet,” O’Ward told NBC Sports. “I do think McLaren — the name, the prestige, the history — brings a lot of hype with it. But we don’t have our car performance up to that level where we want to be.

“We’re definitely working hard in order to get there, but we are not quite there.”

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The 2022 season marks two decades since a champion has come from outside Andretti Autosport, Chip Ganassi Racing or Team Penske in the series that has included the Indy 500. The most recent was Sam Hornish Jr., whose 2002 title for Panther Racing came in a pre-merger Indy Racing League (with Penske in its first year on the circuit, and Ganassi and Andretti still on the CART circuit).

But there were signs beyond O’Ward’s emergence last season that the narrative finally could be changing. Meyer Shank Racing, which will expand to two full-time cars in 2022, won the Indy 500 with Helio Castroneves. With his first career victory, Rinus VeeKay ended a five-year winless streak for Ed Carpenter Racing.

And though Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing was without a victory for the first time since 2014, the team will enter 2022 with a new third car and shop that will open this year.

“There’s been a pretty level playing field for teams to win races, but to win championships is kind of a different format,” six-time