Armstrong "building momentum" at Meyer Shank after first oval podium

Written by Morgan Holiday

Credit: Aaron Skillman

With five races left in the year, Marcus Armstrong sits seventh in the 2025 IndyCar standings.

Armstrong finished 20th with Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) in his debut road/street circuits only campaign in 2023, coming over to the States from Formula 2. For 2024 he picked up a full schedule, graduating to take on oval circuits as well and finished 24th overall and grabbing his maiden podium in Detroit.

For 2025 Armstrong made the switch to Meyer Shank Racing (MSR), a team with a newly-formed technical alliance to CGR. With his new team, he’s been able to achieve new levels of consistency, taking six straight top 10 finishes and topping it off most recently with his first oval podium in Race 2 at the Iowa Speedway this past weekend.

Iowa double-header weekend

Armstrong had already been on a career-best run of form coming into the weekend at Iowa: sixth place in Detroit, ninth place at Gateway (his best result so far on an oval), fifth place at Road America, and seventh place at Mid-Ohio.

On Saturday he qualified 11th for Race 1 and 12th for Race 2, putting him towards the front for both races but still with ground to make up if he wanted to continue his streak. And he did just that, gaining two places in Race 1 for a ninth place finish.

In Race 2, Armstrong stayed on form and stayed solidly within the top 10 as the chaotic race went on. On Lap 197 of 275, the restart after a caution caused trouble for Armstrong and fellow New Zealander Scott Dixon, the pair making contact and dropping a few places down the field as a result.

When asked after the race what happened between the pair, Dixon joked: “I don't know. He just drove into me.”

Sitting next to him, Armstrong interjected: “He just drove into me. He always drives into me, this guy.”

“No, it was racing tight, man,” Dixon added. “And I haven't looked at the replay, but we definitely hit pretty hard, and my front wing came up. I could see it come up, so I'm like, man, I think my front wing is done, and there was quite a bit of smoke too. So I figured we'd maybe cut his tire down as well, which wouldn't have been so great. But luckily we were both okay.”

Credit: Travis Hinkle

The pair recovered from their contact well, and made their way up to second and third after the final caution of the race. On the last restart, Dixon was able to pass Armstrong to secure second place in the race, finishing behind his teammate Álex Palou.

“To be fair, I struggled a lot on new tires at the beginning of every single stint today,” Armstrong said as he discussed the pass by Dixon. 

“Also Álex, I was joking with Álex earlier because he went to block me, high line sort of took the air away from me a bit. Scott just committed to the low line and off he went. But he had more pace than me for sure at that stage, and those two were quality laps basically to the end.

“I was, as well, to be fair, but I just didn't feel that comfortable with the car on new tires. I always felt better towards the end of a stint for whatever reason. Yeah, it is what it is.”

In the end Armstrong finished third and secured his first podium on an oval track, which he’s only been racing on for not quite two years now.

Oval racing is a different beast than any other kind of racing, as any driver who has tried it (and many who refuse to try it) can attest to. For Armstrong, his first year doing ovals last year was a “baptism of fire” trying to get up to speed with the more experienced drivers in the field and trying to make it through an oval weekend without crashing. Fortunately, he feels like he’s been steadily improving every weekend.

“Yeah, there's a lot to learn about oval racing, and it was sort of a baptism of fire last year,” Armstrong said. “Having not done the 500 with the engine failure obviously, and then this event was my actual first oval race.

“I mean, there's so much to learn. There's so many nuances. Luckily I've got loads of data and video to dive through. Every single event I feel like I'm improving.

“Qualifying this week was a bit of a disappointment. I thought we were going to be a bit quicker than we were, but ultimately we had a strong car in the races and I felt comfortable, most importantly.”

Consistency with Meyer Shank (and Chip Ganassi)

Armstrong now sits seventh in the IndyCar standings after the Iowa double-header weekend, just 31 points behind his much more experienced teammate Felix Rosenqvist. 

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Despite joining a new team with MSR this year, Armstrong kept his race engineer from CGR, and he feels that the similarities between his crew last year and this year have been a huge help to the level of consistency he’s been able to achieve.

“Yeah, I mean, the most important thing for me is the continuity from last year. I've kept my race engineer, Angela Ashmore, and that's a real help because we know each other very well. The majority of the engineering crew is similar, as well.

“Obviously it is a very different crew. The Meyer Shank crew have done an amazing job so far. They were especially good on pit lane today.”

Armstrong also cited the help the team has received from their partnership with CGR in his success, especially being able to learn from their drivers as well as his teammate.  He had high praise for Dixon especially, despite their little incident in the race.

“It's great to be able to learn from Álex and Scott and Felix as well, and Kyffin [Simpson] has been great lately too,” he said. “We're all pushing each other forward, which is awesome.

“There's always something to learn from Scott. Every day is a school day for me. Mid-Ohio was a proper schooling. Raced him all day, and he ended up finishing like half a minute ahead of me. There's always something to learn, which is so cool.

“But I think six top 10s, I think you said, we're starting to build momentum, and I think that we're just getting better every single race weekend.”

With the closeness in performance between teams and drivers in the IndyCar field, it can be much harder to achieve consistent results. Tight margins leave no room for error. Who better for Armstrong to learn from than the championship leader Palou?

“I think Mid-Ohio qualifying was probably the best example of how close it is nowadays,” commented Armstrong. “It's very fine margins with the car and just maximizing what you have underneath you.

“Yeah, every single day you've got to do your absolute best around here. I know it sounds very generic, but you can't really have a bad day. Álex is a great example. He never really has a bad day, nor does he have a bad lap, I don't think. That's the blueprint.”

Armstrong’s switch to MSR is proving to be a fruitful one, as he's on track to finish a whopping seven places higher than he did last year with CGR. There are five races left in the IndyCar season, but at this rate it doesn't seem like he’ll have much trouble keeping a top 10 spot in the standings.