Why Andretti's slow start in IndyCar in 2022 raises questions

Not for the first time, many of us made pre-season predictions of Andretti Autosport fighting for the championship. “It will be a shock if [Colton] Herta isn’t in title contention come September’s finale at Laguna Seca,” this writer wrote in February and, in time, that form may emerge.

But right now, after two rounds, Herta lies seventh in the points table, 47 points off the lead – and he’s the best of Michael Andretti’s drivers. Series sophomore Romain Grosjean is 10th, 62 points down on championship leader Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske. Alexander Rossi, a driver who has seven race wins to his name and has twice fought for the IndyCar title, is 27th and rookie Devlin DeFrancesco 28th. Yes, Rossi sits behind four drivers who have only started one of the two races held so far.

It’s too early to suggest Andretti Autosport is in crisis: after all, thanks to Herta’s California sweep at Laguna Seca and Long Beach at the tail-end of 2021, it has won more recently than any IndyCar squad other than Penske. But for the last several years the Andretti squad has been on the pace or setting it at street courses, and went into the most recent off-season vowing to focus on ovals, and yet the team’s paltry points haul so far has come from one street course and one oval.

Had Grosjean not lost track time at St. Pete after running into the back of Takuma Sato in practice, he might have started a little higher there, which could have shaped his race somewhat differently. Instead he came home a somewhat muted fifth, just behind team-mate Herta whose pit strategy was compromised by a fuelling issue and who also found he was among the many to use up the new-spec Firestone ‘reds’ too rapidly in the opening stint.

At Texas, Herta had a bad