A third championship for Alex Palou and Will Power’s seat belt issues headlined a wild IndyCar race at Nashville won by Colton Herta.
Those were the obvious stories getting the attention in the aftermath, but what of the rest of the field which had plenty to fight for in the last race of the season?
And what about an event that was never supposed to be on this oval after its controversial move from a downtown street circuit?
We assess the winners and losers from the Nashville IndyCar weekend.
Loser - Scott Dixon
With 17th in the season finale, Dixon dropped a place to sixth in the standings, his worst finish in eight years.
Dixon was pinned a lap down early on and struggled to get his lap back, and that result sums up a year where he started looking like he could fight for the title, but struggles at Barber and Road America, a hybrid issue at Mid-Ohio, and being taken out at Portland were a few incidents too many to sustain a charge.
Wins at Long Beach and Detroit showed how he can still be untouchable and do things other drivers can't, but this season will still be one to forget despite many highlights.
Winner - Colton Herta
He’s chased this goal for years, to win on an oval. Growing up in the IndyCar paddock and with his father Bryan achieving the feat, it’s easy to see why it was so important to Herta.
He’s been close before, only to have opportunities slip away. This is a huge achievement for him and there can’t be many things, other than a 500 win or IndyCar title, that you can imagine meaning more to the 24-year-old.
Colton Herta appears to have secured a superlicence that would make him eligible to race in #F1 after finishing second in the #IndyCar championship.
— The Race (@wearetherace) September 16, 2024
He says it “would have been useful a few years ago” after he missed out on an F1 drive previously: pic.twitter.com/ONo68MmMA4
Especially doing it in the season finale in the city he lives in to jump from fourth to second in the standings.
Loser - Marcus Ericsson
Too many people are looking at Marcus Ericsson’s results and not paying the correct amount of attention to the things that have gone against him.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he came to Andretti this year hoping to fight for a top five and maybe even the title, and actually managed 15th.
A frustrating end to the season for Marcus Ericsson. pic.twitter.com/dKHOZd5iqm
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 15, 2024
He ran in the top five at Nashville but crashed out, summing up the season perfectly.
Winner - Christian Rasmussen
Reigning Indy NXT champion Christian Rasmussen has had a rollercoaster first season in IndyCar, but with 14th in the season finale he secured his Ed Carpenter Racing team 22nd in the points and with it $1 million for reaching the Leaders’ Circle.
It’s been a tough year for the rookie where has made mistakes but also has been robbed of multiple strong finishes that would have boosted him up the standings through no fault of his own.
Plus, he finished 12th at the Indy 500, under a different car number with his eponymous team owner in the #20 car for the ovals this year.
Then came one of the most self-aware moments of the year, which can’t have been easy for a multiple Indy 500 polesitter, when Carpenter decided to put Rasmussen in the car and step aside for the last four races.
Three of his results were better than any Carpenter had managed earlier in the season. It’s a move that may have hurt Carpenter’s ego but paid off with a $1 million prize.
Loser - Alexander Rossi
A 15th place finish ends Alexander Rossi’s time at Arrow McLaren, and drops him a position in the championship to 10th.
It’s worth remembering that Rossi missed Toronto after a crash in practice broke his thumb. Before this weekend, he was ahead of Josef Newgarden and Santino Ferrucci in points per race, but dropped behind Newgarden in this race.
So dropping behind Ferrucci maybe isn’t fair in the grand scheme of things. But with his team-mate Pato O’Ward well ahead for a second year, it won’t be the way Rossi will have wanted to end his time at McLaren. Even if taking into account Rossi missing Toronto makes things better than most people will care to pay attention to.
Winners - Ganassi's jettisoned duo
With Chip Ganassi Racing downsizing to three cars next year, the rookies of the year for the last two seasons, Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist respectively, are out on their ears for 2025.
It must hurt knowing that performance-wise they both have a right to the third Ganassi car, but it’s going to Kyffin Simpson who brings a significant budget.
Armstrong appears set to join the Meyer Shank team, which has signed a technical partnership from 2025 with Ganassi, but Lundqvist doesn’t bring a lot of budget to the table and will have to fight for a seat elsewhere.
He’s good enough to take seats at Rahal, Juncos or Coyne, but without budget, there’s a chance he’ll be jumped with two drivers coming up from Indy NXT in the mix alongside the musical chairs already happening in IndyCar.
Lundqvist has a pole and two podiums this season, one on a street circuit and one on an oval. He’s earned a chance but might not get it.
Finishing the season eighth, with Armstrong seventh, can’t have done either any harm.
Loser - Felix Rosenqvist
After the first four races Felix Rosenqvist was fifth in the points, but a rough second half of the season means Rosenqvist finished 12th.
He and the Meyer Shank team were the story of the first few races and his form was excellent, but an extremely high amount of bad luck - like Nashville where his front-right tyre deflated while in the top three - and some small errors on his own side meant a season with so much promise ended with a sense of dissatisfaction.