Driver: Marco Andretti
Car No.: 25
Engine: Chevrolet
Chief Mechanic: Jeff Grahn
Engineer: Blair Perschbacher
2012 Driver’s Championship Finish: 16th

Pruett Says: Marco Andretti enters his eighth year as an IndyCar driver, which seems remarkable for a kid who seemingly just graduated from Indy Lights. At 26, he’s more experienced than half the drivers in the field, and has had a laissez faire attitude for a significant portion of that time.

Coming off his worst IndyCar season to date, Andretti has taken more responsibility for his shortcomings as a driver than ever before. He wants to be a champion, is expected to become a champion and, by his own account, is tired of not living up to those expectations. To those who think he doesn’t feel the sting of criticism, you’d be wrong, and he doesn’t want to feel it any longer.

I’ve seen a noticeable change in how he carries himself—a change for the better—and a willingness to be brutally honest with himself that might not have always been there when it was needed. He’s old enough to know what’s needed from his car and himself.

It would be asking a lot of Andretti to shore up all of his weaknesses and jump from 16th to 1st in the standings in one season, but if this new, self-aware-Marco character shows up at each race this year, expect big things from the No. 25 car.

Miller Says: The mystery that is Marco begins its eighth chapter in IndyCar and clearly it's time to get some results. It makes no sense that an Andretti struggles so with road racing but that's been Marco's malaise and he's vowed to change his over-aggressive driving style. Always near the front on ovals, if he finally figures out how to handle the other two-thirds of the schedule he could be what he should be -- a factor. But no more excuses, no more personnel changes, it's time to deliver.

What Andretti Says Needs Improving This Year: “I’ve been working with guys and they complement my style. They’re like, ‘I've never seen car control like this but the problem is that you use it too much.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You’re creating problems that you don't need. Like where Hunter-Reay’s complaining about one problem, now you're complaining about three problems just because you're over-driving the tires.’ And they make sense, because I come in soaking wet with sweat and I'm 20th. What the hell is going on! So then I drive even harder in qualifying, and sometimes in practice I’m up there, but when it comes to me having to push, I create problems in qualifying that I've never had the whole time. So, I don't know, it's been a little frustrating but I really have a whole new outlook on things and the way to drive the car to where I have front grip that I never had before because I was over the limit of the tires.

“It's just been my street course game in general to me has been just disgusting. I've got it to where my critics are saying that I'm not even a street course driver, which is what I was known for. And so that to me is frustrating in itself. And racing is a very confidence driven sport to where if you show up at a race weekend and people don't expect you to win, it's not fun to begin with. And then you're trying to overcompensate when you're driving: ‘I'll prove them wrong’ and the whole nine. If you go out trying to prove something and not prove it just to yourself, I believe that you’re going about things the wrong way. For example, if I go to a race track that my father and grandfather won, and I say, I have to do it because they did, I believe it's the wrong approach. You have to do it for yourself. You have to put the work in.”

Driver: James Hinchcliffe
Car No.: 27
Engine: Chevrolet
Chief Mechanic: Dave Sharpley
Engineer: Craig Hampson
2012 Driver’s Championship Finish: 8th

Pruett Says: Armed with the engineering talents of ex-Newman/Haas engineer Craig Hampson, James Hinchcliffe should win his first IndyCar race this season. The talent within the No. 27 program could place many drivers in Victory Lane, which makes 2013 a year where Hinch must transition from guy-with-lots-of-potential to guy-who-delivered-on-that-potential.

His progression from a rookie in 2011 to a sophomore in 2012 was nothing short of impressive. He displayed a level of consistency that usually takes much longer to develop—eight finishes inside the top 6 was remarkable.

The boisterous Canadian is now tasked with converting more of those top 6s into podiums, and spending at least one of those podium visits on the top step. He’s right on pace to join IndyCar’s upper echelon, and has all of the tools to make it happen, but the training wheels are off and becoming a winning IndyCar driver is what’s expected of him in Year 3.

Miller Says: If 2011 was an eye-opener then 2012 affirmed that Hinch was not a one-hit wonder. He had the GO DADDY car up near the front the first half of the season before fading to eighth in the standings but he's obviously got the chops to run with the big dogs all year. And now that he's been re-united with engineer Hampson, James figures to be even stronger.

What Hinchcliffe Says Needs Improving This Year: “For me, street course qualifying is one I want to work at a little bit. Some races, we were there thereabouts, but others, we missed it. And whether that’s we've got to focus on setup a bit or that’s I’ve got to focus on how I’m using the Firestone Reds. But there was always a little bit, I felt, of a gap there and Ryan [Hunter-Reay] usually led the team in that department. And so, for me, I'm lucky because I got a really good benchmark there, Ryan’s a bit of a street course specialist and I've got someone who I can learn off of.

“So that's one area. The other one is just for the team in general is being better in Q3. Being better in the Fast Six. We got there a lot, but we never managed to get as much out of the tires on the second run as some of the other guys did. And we tried all sorts of different things, we tried doing fewer laps, we tried everything. And neither Ryan or I could really properly get a handle on that, at least not to the extent that some of the Penske guys or the Ganassi guys did.

“There's always areas to improve. If you want to ask about areas to improve, I've got an entire list that I wrote up after the season on what we can do better as a team, me as a driver. It's a game where you can't sit idly by and rest on laurels. You've always got to be pushing for more.”

Team: A.J. Foyt Enterprises
Driver: Takuma Sato
Car No.: 14
Engine: Honda
Chief Mechanic: Tom Howatt
Engineer: Don Halliday
2012 Driver’s Championship Finish: 14th

Pruett Says: Like the “Odd Couple,” IndyCar’s Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison—Takuma Sato and A.J. Foyt—should be a disaster, but in their own way, it kind of works.

Foyt is the cranky patriarch Sato never knew he needed, and Sato is the attacking driver Foyt has been longing for. Sato will help the team to improve, and he has a strong engineer in Don Halliday to make the No. 14 a more frequent visitor to the top 10.

The outgoing Mike Conway did a respectable job on road and street courses, which Sato should match or exceed, but it’s on the ovals where the Sato/Foyt relationship can make the greatest strides. I could see a win for the team this year if the cards really fell in their favor, but the biggest upgrade should come on the ovals.

If I’m A.J., or team director Larry Foyt, I’m feeling pretty good about what’s in store for 2013. If the team can add someone like Ryan Briscoe to the team for the Indy 500, it also becomes a serious player for the month of May.

Miller Says: The Orient Express and the Texas Tornado should be one of the great culture shocks in modern day racing history but they both speak the same language when it comes to IndyCar: they're sick of not winning. It's been a decade since A.J. had a car in victory lane and, despite his raw speed, Sato has yet to win in three seasons of trying. Can veteran engineer Don Halliday calm Taku down and get him to the checkered flag first? Stranger things have happened and the winner's circle interview might be priceless.