This is part four in a 12-part series previewing every team set to compete in the 2019 IndyCar season. I will be previewing two teams per week on Push2Pass leading up to the season opener in St. Petersburg on March 10. Today’s team: Arrow Schmidt Peterson
The 2018 season was full of highs and lows for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, who now will be known as Arrow Schmidt Peterson after the tech company Arrow Electronics became the title sponsor for the team last week.
James Hinchcliffe started the season solidly before the disaster at the Indy 500 where he failed to qualify on the first true bump day in years. Hinchcliffe and Pippa Mann were the only cars to not qualify for the 33-car field, creating a major setback for his season in the double-points race of the Indy 500.
Hinchcliffe had his fellow Canadian and close friend Robert Wickens along with him in 2018, and the 29-year-old former DTM driver impressed in his first season in IndyCar. The rookie of the year finished on four podiums in his first 13 races before suffering a massive crash at Pocono where he suffered spinal damage that left him paralyzed.
Wickens is currently working to regain full movement of his legs and wants to return to the series one day. The team confirmed that the #6 car will still be open for Wickens to race in once he is fully healthy. Team boss Sam Schmidt is a quadriplegic after a crashing during an IndyCar test 19 years ago, so he seems to have more sympathy and patience than most teams would be able to have in this difficult situation.
Schmidt had a team involved in the Indy Racing League as early as 2001 but had his first full-time entry with Alex Tagliani in 2011. Schmidt brought in rookie Simon Pagenaud in 2012 after a successful career of endurance racing, and the move instantly paid off as Pagenaud picked up four podiums and finished fifth in the series. The following season he gave Schmidt his first two wins as a team boss and a third place finish in the 2013 driver’s standings. Pagenaud picked up two more wins in 2014 before departing for Team Penske, who helped him win his first IndyCar title in 2016. The team also completed its first ever 1-2 finish that season in Houston with Pagenaud taking the win and Mikhail Aleshin finishing second.
The Drivers
James Hinchcliffe (#5)
Career: 122 starts, 6 wins, 1 pole, 15 podiums, 61 top-10 finishes
2018: Avg. Qualifying 11.0 (9th), Avg. Finish 10.1 (8th), 10th overall
Hinchliffe recorded five top-10 finishes before the disaster at Indy created a major setback for his 2018 season. He responded by winning at Iowa before finishing outside the top-10 in his last five races to finish the season tied with Wickens for 10th place at 391 points, even though Wickens missed the final three races after his injury. Wickens qualified better than Hinchcliffe in 10 of the 14 races they both entered and had a better result in eight of the 13 events.
The “Mayor of Hinchtown” had his highest championship finish since his 2013 season with Andretti that saw him capture three victories. He joined Schmidt Peterson in 2015 and won in only his second start at New Orleans. His season was cut short when a crash in practice after Indy 500 qualifying nearly cost him his life and forced him to miss the rest of 2015. He responded the following year by claiming the first Indy 500 pole of his career.
Marcus Ericsson (#7): IndyCar Rookie
The Swede will be in a car that has a chance for race wins for the first time since his time with the DAMS team in the 2013 GP2 Series. Ericsson spent his last five seasons in Formula 1 with teams that usually viewed top-10 finishes as victories. He finished in the top-10 in 11 of his 97 races in F1, but the Alfa Romeo Sauber team came a long way in his four seasons. After serious budget problems in 2017, the team rebounded with a competitive car in 2018 and had Ericsson’s teammate Charles LeClerc make the jump to second place Ferrari in the offseason.
This gave Ericsson the chance for his first top-10 performances since 2015, ending his record of 49 consecutive races without finishing in the top-10. Ericsson finished in the points paying positions six times in 2018, more than the previous four years combined. This shows he might be hitting his stride at 28 years old, and the spec-series nature of IndyCar will give him a much better chance to compete.
Jack Harvey (#60)
Career: Nine starts, Best Finish: 12th (Long Beach)
2018: Avg. Qualifying 19.3 (26th), Avg. Finish 17.3 (23rd), 24th overall
Harvey announced on Tuesday that he will return for his second season as an associated driver with Meyer Shank Racing. The British driver competed in five road courses and the Indy 500 last season in the first year of a partnership with Schmidt Peterson. This season he will compete in nine road courses and the Indy 500 as Meyer Shank works towards supporting a full-time entry. Harvey also stepped in for Schmidt Peterson for the final two races of 2017 and raced in the 2017 Indy 500 with Micheal Shank Racing in association with Andretti.
Outlook for 2019
Early reactions from the drivers after the new sponsorship from Arrow is that they want Schmidt Peterson to join the ranks as a big-three team. No driver from Schmidt has finished higher than Hinchliffe’s 10th last season since Pagenaud finished fifth in 2014. With two fully-supported cars by Arrow this season and two proven drivers, now is the time to make a run at the top teams in the series. The last time a driver from a team other than Penske, Ganassi or Andretti won the championship was in 2002.
The Verdict
Expect Hinchcliffe to secure his highest overall finish in the series at seventh overall and pick up a win or two along the way. Ericsson will be hungry to prove himself as a top rookie in a strong class of newcomers this season. Ovals are going to be tricky for him in his first season, but I could see him sneaking his way onto a podium at a track like Circuit of the Americas. He will have more experience than the rest of the field after racing at COTA the last four years in Formula 1. I think he will finish 11th in the driver’s standings with a decent gap between him and the top-10 drivers. Harvey should be able to secure his first top-10 race in IndyCar after more sponsorship support in 2019.
Next Week- Preview #5: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Push2Pass 