It’s been a wild season for IndyCar rookies. Some have been hired, fired and re-hired, one lost his spot entirely and another managed a pole position and a podium finish.
With 12 of 17 races completed and the season resuming with its final sprint at Gateway this weekend, we have a large enough sample size to effectively evaluate most of these drivers.
Here’s our ranking of this season’s rookies, from worst to best.
We’ve excluded drivers who have competed in four or fewer races to ensure we have enough data to judge them, but stay tuned to the end to learn more about a driver we couldn’t rank but who impressed.
6 Tom Blomqvist
Age: 30
Team: shaft
Points: 46 (28.)
Starts: 5
Best start: 12.
Best result: 15.
Tom Blomqvist hasn’t had the best start to his guest appearances in the IndyCar Series in 2023, but for someone who beat Max Verstappen in a Formula 3 season in 2014, we expected a stronger start this year.
Maybe he would eventually return to the single-seater form he once enjoyed, but Meyer Shank Racing couldn’t afford to wait.
The signing of David Malukas – after Blomqvist was dropped following his crash at the Indianapolis 500 – has given the team an immediate and huge boost, with the team battling for a top-22 spot in the Leaders’ Circle that will earn them $1 million from the IndyCar league at the end of the year.
Blomqvist needed more time, but given his form and Shanks’ fears of not finishing in the top 22, he would never get it.
He is so good in sports cars and will undoubtedly find his place there when Meyer Shank competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship next year for the Honda factory team with the Acura brand.
5 Kyffin Simpson
Age: 19
Team: Ganassi
Points: 133 (20.)
Starts: 12
Best start: 12.
Best result: 12.
Ultimately, even now, there are many drivers on the Silly Season market that one would prefer over Kyffin Simpson, and the family support he has brought to Ganassi is what keeps him in his seat.
But this rookie year has been better than many expected of him. His qualifying form leaves a lot to be desired, but Simpson doesn’t have the worst finish average on this list and is ahead of Indy NXT Champion Christian Rasmussen in the points standings.
Coincidentally, Simpson was driving one of his best races at Road America when Rasmussen spun him out. Had he continued there, he would have moved up even further in the points standings.
How harshly we judge Simpson and another Ganassi rookie joining the team later in the day will depend in part on how good their equipment is compared to what their winning teammates Alex Palou and Scott Dixon have at their disposal. Is the team spread too thin? Can it provide the same equipment for five cars? Should we be lenient with the drivers not named Palou or Dixon?
Regardless of these questions, Simpson wasn’t the best in his class, but he’s also not the worst rookie to enter the IndyCar racing series in recent years. And in terms of age and racing experience, he’s well behind many others on this list.
Simpson is nearly six years younger than the rookie championship leader, so while he may not grow into a future champion, he still has plenty of time to grow.
His racing skills and instinct to see the races through to the end have given him a great start, and he has the 13th highest number of laps completed this year.
4 Christian Rasmussen
Old: 24
Team: Carpenter
Points: 109 (23.)
Starts: 10
Best start: 8.
Best result: 9.
If this ranking were based solely on a rider’s impressive pace, Indy NXT Champion Christian Rasmussen would be much higher.
It’s so difficult to judge the Ed Carpenter Racing driver because his race-winning teammate Rinus VeeKay had such a mixed year that it’s hard to make a good enough comparison, but there were still signs that he showed flashes of great potential.
Rasmussen’s poor results
Saint Petersburg: A clutch problem and then a speeding violation in the pit lane set him back a lap. In the end he finished 20th.
barber: Went off the track several times before a spin and a later stall cost him the race. Finished the race in 24th place.
Long Beach: One wall striped, suspension broken
Indy Street Circuit: Pit problems set him back. Finished the race in 20th place.
Detroit: He was in eighth place when he had an engine problem
Street America: Was running 10th before Simpson was penalized for spinning. Finished the race in 20th.
Toronto: Crashed by Marcus Ericsson
A few too many mistakes of his own have put him behind the McLaren drivers on this list, but Rasmussen is definitely struggling with a poorer set-up compared to his rivals here and has done a solid job as a result. He has the second best finishing position of the drivers on this list and was also cheated out of a better one.
His 12th place finish at the Indy 500 was outstanding, and races like the one in Detroit, where he finished eighth before an engine problem, could have given him a closer place in the fight for the rookie championship.
It was a little too chaotic, but Rasmussen showed that he has what it takes to race at this level.
3 Nolan Seal
Age: 19
Team: Coyne, Juncos, McLaren
Points: 88 (25.)
Starts: 7
Best start: 11.
Best result: 12.
Nolan Siegel’s 2024 was a wild one. It started with five scheduled appearances for Dale Coyne Racing, but Siegel ended up securing a great seat at McLaren and putting up decent numbers in that car during the time he was in it.
His Indy 500 is a blot on the record books as he failed to qualify after crashing in practice. It’s clear that the Coyne cars were bad, but teammate Katherine Legge coped well.
But other than that, Siegel is the best driver on this list in terms of oval finishes this season after a strong Iowa weekend.
In comparison, his average results on road and city circuits are not outstanding, but there is no indication that this driver is not suited to this level or that he will not improve significantly with age and experience.
2 Theo Pourchaire
Age: 20
Team: McLaren
Points: 91 (24.)
Starts: 6
Best start: 7.
Best result: 10.
I tried not to be tempted to rate Theo Pourchaire too highly because I cannot give him a seat for the rest of the year.
He leads rookies who have competed in five or more races in average finishes and points per start, including an 11th-place finish at Long Beach when he had never driven the car before and a 14th-place finish at Toronto after traveling 4,000 miles overnight to get in the car for qualifying on a track he had never driven, not even in the simulator.
Whether Pourchaire could take the next step with better preparation and more time in the car is another question, but considering what he did and the circumstances in which he did it, he was very impressive.
His qualifications haven’t always been the best, but he competes and brings home a clean car on race day.
1 Linus Lundqvist
Age: 25
Team: Ganassi
Points: 173 (18.)
Starts: 12
Best start: 1.
Best result: 3.
Where to even begin with Linus Lundqvist’s season?
It looks like he won’t have a spot at Ganassi next year and will struggle to find one elsewhere where there are paying drivers in the market, but it would be a shame if he weren’t back in 2025.
Lundqvist’s poor results
Saint Petersburg: Taken out by Romain Grosjean in 12th place
Indy GP: Didn’t get enough fuel during a pit stop. Finished 24th
Indy500: Taken out in the first corner of the first lap
Detroit: Involved in several crashes. Finished the race in 22nd place.
Iowa, race one: Mechanical problem
His best start was his pole at Road America, and the next best driver on this list can only boast a seventh-place start. He has one podium finish, and the next best driver’s best finish is ninth.
The only real question is whether he has reached the maximum of what this car and this team are capable of.
There have been mistakes, but anyone who believes Lundqvist doesn’t deserve another chance in IndyCar should take a closer look at his form.
The wildcard candidate who would be at the top
Toby Sowery has only started in two IndyCar races, so we don’t have a huge data set, but joining the worst-performing team of 2024 and finishing 13th and 15th is certainly no small feat.
This makes you wonder: Did Coyne make good decisions about his driver line-up at the start of the season? Are these the results the team has been able to achieve from the start?
Of course, two races are not a sufficient sample size to decide that. But Sowery had only tested with another team in an IndyCar once, with Rahal at Sebring last year, before joining Coyne at Mid-Ohio.
Luca Ghiotto drove this car earlier this year and had a preferably He finished 21st and is a very skilled rider.
There is only one road race left, so Sowery may not have enough of a chance to secure a full-time spot next year unless he rides with Coyne. Sowery is also one of the riders on the market who cannot command a huge budget.
But his performances have certainly attracted attention, especially given the episodic nature of his career in single-seaters. And they are a reminder of the strong impression the now 28-year-old made in the junior ranks in Great Britain in the mid-2010s.
