2022 NTT IndyCar Series (NaBB737)

The 2022 NTT IndyCar Series is set to be the 111th official championship season of American open wheel racing and the 27th season under IndyCar Series sanction. The premier event will be the 2022 Indianapolis 500. It will be the third year under Penske management after they took over in late 2019.

Contracted teams and drivers
The following teams, entries and drivers have been announced to compete in the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season. All teams use a spec Dallara IR18 chassis with universal aero kit and Firestone tires. Driver Moves


 * AJ Foyt Enterprises sponsor ROKiT, who sponsored the #14 of Sebastien Bourdais full-time in 2021, returns and adds an additional race despire Bourdais not being re-signed for the full season. Fellow ROKiT sponsored driver Tatiana Calderon enters the series after previously racing in the Japanese Super Formula; she also raced for IndyCar team Juncos Racing for 2 seasons in what is now the Indy Pro 2000 Championship. Each driver races in 9 events, with Calderon doing 8 in the #14 and the Indy 500 in the third car #11 (the additional race for ROKiT), and Bourdais entering the 9 rounds that do not conflict with his full-time IMSA schedule with Chip Ganassi Racing.
 * Romain Grosjean, who entered all the road/street course events plus the Gateway round in 2021 for Dale Coyne Racing w/ RWR, signs with Andretti Autosport to replace Ryan Hunter-Reay in the #28 Honda. RHR departs Andretti after racing full-time with the team for over a decade. As for sponsorship aboard the #28, DHL stays on with Grosjean (after backing RHR for the whole schedule since 2014 and select races for a few years prior) for 11 of the 17 races, reducing their sponsorship having been with the #28 for almost a decade but gaining an internationally known driver in Grosjean to complement their international business. The other 6 races see sponsorship from Capstone Turbine, which moves over from the now fully-backed #29.
 * Devlin DeFrancesco graduates from the Indy Lights series to replace James Hinchcliffe in the #29 Honda. While DeFrancesco only managed 5th place in the standings in his lone Indy Lights year, he brings a copious amount of sponsorship to the team with sponsor PowerTap, a hydrogen fuel solutions company which coincidentally can use their product in the products made by fellow Andretti sponsor Capstone.
 * Arrow McLaren SP expands the schedule of its third car to six races ahead of its full-time entry for 2023. Juan Pablo Montoya returns for the Indy GP and the Indianapolis 500, while ex-McLaren F1 driver and current Mercedes Formula E driver (also a reserve for both McLaren and Mercedes in F1) Stoffel Vandoorne races in 4 events where his FE schedule does not have a conflict. Vandoorne is expected to get the nod for the full-time seat the following season. AMSP also forms a nice number pattern, with the 5, 7, 55, and the Juncos 77 which enters into somewhat of a technical alliance with the team.
 * Carlin Motorsport forms a partnership with Indy Lights team HMD Motorsports to expand to a two-car team under the Carlin-HMD Motorsports banner. Conor Daly moves over from ECR for all but the Indy 500, where Max Chilton enters his only race of the season in the revived #31 car. David Malukas moves up from HMD's Lights team to drive the 2nd car, the current Carlin #59 (which HMD also used in Lights for one of Malukas' teammates).
 * Jimmie Johnson adds the Indy 500 to his schedule in the #48 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. In order to fulfill Tony Kanaan's ovals contract, CGR runs a 5th car (the #84) for Kanaan at Indy. This likely wouldn't have been possible without the team selling its NASCAR operations, as the pit crews and other employees would be stretched too thin.
 * Ryan Hunter-Reay moves to ECR for the road/street courses from his longtime home at Andretti Autosport. RHR does not run the Indy 500 as Carpenter wants to race it one more time before retiring after 2022, and the team is already running a 3rd car for Conor Daly at the event. Following Ed's retirement, RHR is expected to run the car for the majority of the schedule before a young driver will take the reins as teammate to Rinus VeeKay.
 * The Coyne team sees another season in which both of its drivers exit, as Ed Jones and Romain Grosjean are replaced by Kyle Kirkwood and Takuma Sato, respectively. Sato, who saw some reduction in sponsorship from Honda, joins the #51 Coyne/Ware team which already has some backing. He provides a good veteran presence for the oft-underfunded DCR entries to continue to improve. He especially will have a big impact on Kyle Kirkwood, who enters the #18 Coyne/Vasser-Sullivan car as the Indy Lights champion. With Vasser-Sullivan set to field their own independent entry from 2023, Kirkwood is a solid foundation while Coyne will need to find yet another driver. Enter 2021 Lights 3rd-placer Linus Lundqvist, who enters 6 events in the second Coyne/Ware car. With Kirkwood and Malukas gone, Lundqvist becomes the favorite for the 2022 championship of the drivers who were in the series in 2021, and he's a young driver with some sponsorship that Coyne could use as a building block. Lundqvist is expected to drive the non-Sato full-time Coyne entry (likely in an expanded partnership or even co-ownership with Ware) in 2023 unless Kirkwood somehow remains and Vasser-Sullivan departs, which is unlikely because Kirkwood races for VS in IMSA.
 * The now full-time Juncos Hollinger Racing squad retains Callum Ilott after he drove for the team in the last 3 races of the season. Sponsorship is solidified with backing from DYNAMOEDGE and longtime Team Penske NASCAR sponsor SKF. Additionally, the JHR team begins a technical alliance with Arrow McLaren SP, one that likely isn't made to be too strenuous on AMSP given the expansion to 3 cars for 2023, but that could start to pay dividends down the line like the Andretti-Shank relationship. While Ilott probably remains part of the Ferrari Driver Academy, he could be on his way to joining McLaren's reserve driver lineup or "Young Drivers Programme."

Schedule


 * 1) St. Petersburg (street circuit)
 * 2) Texas (oval)
 * 3) Long Beach (street circuit)
 * 4) Barber (road course)
 * 5) Indy GP 1 (road course)
 * 6) Indy 500 (oval)
 * 7) Detroit Belle Isle (street circuit)
 * 8) Road America (road course)
 * 9) Mid-Ohio (road course)
 * 10) Toronto (street circuit)
 * 11) Iowa 1 (oval)
 * 12) Iowa 2 (oval)
 * 13) Nashville (street circuit)
 * 14) Indy GP 2 (road course)
 * 15) Gateway (oval)
 * 16) Portland (road course)
 * 17) Laguna Seca (road course)