A worthwhile gamble? Charting Kyffin Simpson’s IndyCar progress
- Archie O’Reilly
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
There was frustration, naturally. He was adamant he had just secured his second career IndyCar podium. But in any case, it was the weekend his season needed.
“I’d say I’m not totally happy about it, to be honest,” he reflects of his 2026 campaign to date. “I feel like we’ve missed some opportunities and haven’t had the start of the season that we were hoping for. Sometimes it’s one thing; sometimes it’s another. But for whatever reason, I haven’t really had the results that I’ve wanted this season.”
The first half of Kyffin Simpson’s year was hardly a travesty. After Round 9 at World Wide Technology Raceway, his 15th in the standings was two positions improved on his 17th-place sophomore season. But admittedly, with two 10th-place results and one ninth, the peaks to be expected of a third-year Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) driver had evaded him.
At Road America, the breakthrough for his season came. And yet, finishing fourth felt a little bitter, given how the race had ended in idyllic Wisconsin.
“It was tough because we did think we were third,” Simpson insists. “And by everything we could see, we were third because the EM panels came on after I had already passed Power.”
Confusion reigned. After Will Power ran into the block of Graham Rahal in the fight for third place in Turn 12 on the final lap, sending Rahal crashing out, Simpson had found his way past each of the pair and up into the rostrum positions. In the nick of time, he thought - and his team thought - before a race-ending caution was called.
But by the time the podium celebrations were in order, IndyCar had determined a re-order. According to the series, despite Simpson passing Power before the trackside light panels had seemed to indicate a full-course yellow, the race had already been neutralised.
“The way IndyCar explained it to me is the way the system works that determines where we are in the running order works a little bit faster than the EM [Motorsport light] panels do and so that had me still behind Power when the yellow was called,” Simpson discloses, speaking on the DIVEBOMB IndyCar Podcast.
“So a little bit disappointing there but it is what it is. A P4 was still super solid from where we started. The only difference is we weren’t on the podium; we didn’t get some hardware to bring home. But I thought that as a team, we put on a really strong weekend.”
A fourth-place finish still marked Simpson’s best road-course result in IndyCar, eclipsing sixth place at the same track 12 months prior. On that occasion, he had started 23rd and gained 17 positions; it was scarcely easier this year, either, having qualified only 19th.
His route to fourth was one of peaks and troughs. One caution undid his progress; another restored his gains. And when he found himself running inside the top five in the closing stages, he was able to fend off his four-time champion teammate Álex Palou in one of his more statement race-day exchanges in 44 starts.
“We knew we were going to be fast in the race and just had to stick to our strengths,” Simpson assesses. “We did that well and the pace was there. From very early on, I was able to move forward and make progress.
“Even when we look back at the things we think we might’ve done wrong on strategy in the moment, I don’t think it was really a bad call. Staying out the extra lap and then getting caught by the yellow, you could maybe call that a mistake. But early on in the race like that, maybe it’s worth the risk because then you know you’ve got the chance to come back.
“So ultimately, I was really happy by the whole team’s performance and I felt like we just executed a strong clean weekend.”
It is the sort of weekend that evaded Simpson in what was a baptism-of-fire rookie season as a 19-year-old in 2024, when his best result was a 12th-place finish and he only finished inside the top 15 on five occasions. Qualifying was a particular struggle, too; only three times did he start a race any better than 20th, at an average of 22.5.
After finishing 21st in the standings in his debut campaign, a step forward to 17th in 2025 would appear only modest. But in a season where each of the 27 drivers competed full-time and considering he scored 100 more points, it was a marked leap in the right direction.
He recorded his first six top-10 finishes last year - one more than he managed top 15s as a rookie - including three top fives. A maiden podium on the streets of Toronto was the highlight of a campaign where his average finishing position climbed from 19.5 to 15.2.
His raw speed improved, as well, with only five qualifying results of 20th or worse, nine starts inside the top 15 and four inside the top 10, peaking with third at Mid-Ohio.
“In 2024, any time we showed up at a track, there were a couple of times where we started off decent,” Simpson recalls, “but for the most part we would start off pretty slow, just as I’m learning the car, the track and that kind of thing.
“Then as we would build, I would get better and better. It would take time, then by the time we get into the race, I’m up to pace. But by the time quali came around in 2024, I wasn’t really up to pace. I was still learning and getting faster with every lap.
“Then in 2025, coming back, I knew more what to expect and was more prepared for it and knew all the tracks and how the car is at each track. So that was a big help.”
Simpson’s learning curve may have been greater than for most, given he did not graduate from Indy NXT to IndyCar as a series champion or even particularly close to that. He had won the less-favoured Formula Regional Americas title at 16 years old in 2021, but across his 17 NXT races in 2022 and 2023, he recorded only two podiums in the latter of the years.
In reality, another season in the development series would have appeared reasonable. But no secret has been made of the fact that Simpson comes with significant financial backing, which was helpful to a CGR team - of whom Simpson was on the books as a junior - already running four cars and adding a fifth to facilitate the young Caymanian.
Fast-tracking his step up, while still a teenager, was not taken lightly. It was accompanied by a rigorous testing programme of other cars, alongside having already tasted class-winning LMP2 success in the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
While he was thrown in the deep end - not something Simpson shirks, as such - there has also been value in learning by doing and developing through tough experience.
“It’s a bit like playing ifs and buts with that,” he rebuts on the idea of stepping up too early. “It’s one of those things that’s like: ‘Oh, but if I did another year in Indy NXT, would I have been better off?’ and this and that. It’s a lot of hypotheticals. But you never really know.
“Racing IndyCar is very different to racing Indy NXT. Because of that, getting into IndyCar early was helpful - getting to run the laps in the car and getting to be accustomed to how we race and how the strategies play out and how you have to save fuel and save tyres and all those things.
“All of that’s just compounded each year and I keep learning more and keep getting better and better.”
For the greatest team in IndyCar’s modern era, built on winning and with the shared most championships all-time, Simpson’s output so far has not necessarily been aligned with the expected standards of the organisation. So the support and faith of the CGR team for their young driver through his developmental process has been essential.
Across every facet, it is a champion environment at the outfit headed by team owner Chip Ganassi, with particular support of the likes of managing director Mike Hull.
If you walk into their Indianapolis workshop, you may be struck that it is not the grandest of facilities. But there is a close-knittedness that harbours such great success, including the investment in young, unproven talents such as Simpson, who they continue to nurture through their belief that he is more than merely the backing he brings the team.
“Mike and Chip have done a great job from day one of making that ‘one team, one goal’ mentality,” Simpson explains. “We’re three cars but we’re one team.
“Everyone works very well together. The collective work and creativity is always flowing and people sit very close together so they talk about things all the time. In the engineering room, we’re all sat together and we talk about things constantly and different ideas and changes and it just creates a very open working environment, which I think is very helpful.”
The presence of former driving talent such as four-time IndyCar champion and three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti in an advisory, coaching-like capacity has grown an integral part of the team’s framework. This includes in Simpson’s education, particularly in improving upon weaknesses such as on ovals, where he went 12 races without a top-10 finish.
“The team has done a great job helping me learn and figure out the little tips and tricks of ovals and oval racing,” he says. “Dario has been a huge help for that and I thank him a lot for that; he’s been that mentor for me, helping me throughout any race weekend but especially oval race weekends. [But] we still have some progress to go. Our Gateway was subpar.”
But even with World Wide Technology Raceway being tough last month, Simpson has started to show surefire progress on ovals. A 10th-place finish at Phoenix Raceway in March was a stronger display, as was qualifying seventh for the Indy 500.
His breakthrough oval race, though, came in last year’s season finale at Nashville Superspeedway. Missing out on the podium by a mere two-tenths of a second, it was bittersweet, in some ways. But a multi-lap, side-by-side battle at the climax with Scott McLaughlin in a Team Penske machine was meaningful for Simpson.
McLaughlin hailed the scrap as his favourite exchange on an oval, owing to the quality of his opposition’s driving. Simpson proved something to himself that day.
“It felt like we had found my sweet spot in car balance and performance,” he divulges. “From the moment we rolled out of the trucks for the race weekend, we were comfortable and fast. I think that was my best oval qualifying at that point [qualifying 10th] as well and we just ran strong the whole race. Something clicked and it just worked.
“It’s a very different oval compared to the other short ovals we go to; it drives very differently to a Gateway or a Phoenix or a Milwaukee. It’s not really a short oval; it’s more of a superspeedway feeling. So I feel like it doesn’t fully translate but it’s good to know that we figured that one out. Now we just have to make sure that we can repeat it.”
With eight races remaining in 2026, Simpson is now 16th in the standings but already only 103 points off last season’s points tally and 34 points behind ninth place. His average starting position (15) and average finishing position (13.5) mark progress again.
“I do think we’re catching more of a stride in this second half of the season [with] more tracks that we were very good at last year,” he says. “My big season goal since the end of last season is top 10 in the championship. We’re not far off it. So a lot to play for, especially with eight races to go. Other than that, we’ve got to get that first win. That’s the next next goal.
“We’ve shown that the results can be there when we put everything together. We just need to be more consistent, putting everything together, having consistently clean stops, not making little mistakes on track or being more consistent in putting in a good lap and qualifying well, running a strong race.”
Simpson certainly still has ground to gain to become an ultimate IndyCar and Chip Ganassi Racing driver - and he is aware of that fact. It was never going to be easy and he greatly gambled on himself and his ability in 2024.
But still only 21 years old, he continues to advance steadily to establish himself in this field.
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