IndyCar season review: Carlos Munoz

By Marshall Pruett, Robin Miller and Mark Glendenning | November 16, 2015 7:12 PM ET

What will you remember the 2015 IndyCar season for? Juan Pablo Montoya’s teflon coating wearing off right at the time he needed it most? The introduction of the aero kits, several years after they were first mooted? Rocky Moran Jr.’s inspiring hour of track time at Long Beach?

To try to make sense of it all, RACER‘s Marshall Pruett, Robin Miller and Mark Glendenning asked each other some searching questions about all of 2015’s regulars, which for the purpose of this review, includes anyone who started a minimum of half the races. Look for new installments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

CARLOS MUNOZ

Andretti Autosport
2015 starts: 16
2015 best finish: 1st (Detroit, Saturday race)
2015 championship position: 13th; 349pts

One big high; a lot of weekends of anonymity. Which should we focus on?

ROBIN MILLER: Considering how quick Munoz came out of the gate (four podiums in his first 14 races), one would have to look at 2015 as a mixed bag. On one hand the 23-year-old Colombian scored his initial IndyCar victory at Detroit and finally gave Andretti Autosport something to cheer about halfway through the season. But the road racing whiz never got a handle on his bread and butter in 2015 because of his team’s overall problems getting a grip on the Honda aero kit. Even his win (from 22nd) was all about strategy as he struggled with qualifying on road and street circuits. It says something that his only Top 10 qualifying performances were on ovals, but it was more about the package than the driver.

Euro-trained Munoz is stronger on ovals than road and street courses. What’s missing on the tracks that complement his background?

MARSHALL PRUETT: That’s one of the great mysteries with Munoz. The kid’s car control must be seen to be believed; his hands are a blur and there’s no such thing as a slide he cannot catch. The 2015 IndyCar champion Scott Dixon is the same way, which makes Munoz’s fluctuating output on road and street courses hard to understand. He’s built to attack the types of tracks he grew up on, yet excels on ovals where slow, precise hands are the key to success.

It’s a treat to watch Carlos on a flying lap at Long Beach or Mid-Ohio, but I wonder if the key to unlocking better finishes on more road/street courses can be found by applying some of his oval approach. Dixon has the talent to drift an IndyCar to pole at Sonoma, but he reserves the red mist and oversteer for when it’s truly needed. I’d bet Carlos would have fewer mid-field finishes if he relied less on opposite lock and more on tidy navigation.

Did Munoz show progress this year?

MARK GLENDENNING: I honestly don’t know. OK, he finished five places lower in the points than he did in 2014, which obviously isn’t ideal. But how much of that was down to the team? Whatever inherent disadvantages the Honda package had this year, it clearly had the potential to be reasonably competitive over the balance of the season: RLL proved that. So the fact that Andretti Autosport did all of the pre-season testing with the Honda kit and then spent the first half of the year totally confusing themselves with it was one of the great mysteries of 2015.

Munoz is clearly better than his raw results showed this season. His amazing debut run at Indy in 2013 is still his career highlight, but I was just as impressed by his composure when he was parachuted into the Panther cockpit as the replacement to the injured Ryan Briscoe halfway through the Toronto weekend that same year. He spent the entire race in the midfield, but up to that point he’d never turned a single lap in an IndyCar in road/street trim.

His maiden victory in Detroit was the clear highlight and it was nice to see him check off that career milestone. And while even he would probably prefer to win in a straight fight rather than a rain-shortened lottery, you’ve got to take the lucky breaks when they come your way. But at the same time, a driver needs more in their arsenal than that. I’m probably not alone in having expected a little more from Munoz than we got this year, but for now, I’m still going to give him the benefit of the doubt.