Pruett Says: 2012 was the year of the asterisk for Katherine Legge.

She worked her way back into Indy car racing after turning her final laps in Champ Car in 2007, and despite signing a deal early in the new year, a variety of issues prevented her from getting more than a half-day in Dragon Racing’s Lotus-powered Dallara DW12 prior to the season opener.

The combination of four seasons away from open-wheel and a half-day refresher was never going to be a recipe for success, and as she admits, it meant she’d spend most of the year learning on the job.

Legge demonstrated incredible poise and resolve when the season started off poorly with Lotus, and again when the switch to Chevy meant her full-season ride disappeared; she and teammate Sebastien Bourdais would be forced to split a single entry after Round 5 at the Indy 500, which torpedoed any chances she had of cracking the Top-20 in points.

More than any other round, her mettle was tested at Indy when Dragon’s protracted release from Lotus meant the Indy 500 rookie would miss the first four days of practice. And with a single weekend of qualifying ahead to make the race, Legge, with minimal oval experience to draw from, was given brief windows before and after Thursday’s running to complete all phases of her rookie test. It was a baptism by napalm.

She’d qualify 30th and finish a respectable 22nd after dealing with one of the most pressure-packed months of her life. Relegated to the ovals while Bourdais drove on the road courses, Legge did a respectable job for the team.

Her first chance to conduct an in-season test came at Sonoma, where the team procured a second Chevy to field Legge, and the extra time on the track showed as she was far more competitive during the race weekend before a gearbox issue ended her day prematurely.

Legge saved her best performance for last, running a number of competitive stints at Fontana on her way to ninth.

Remove the asterisks—the Lotus power, late start, minimal testing, partial season—and Legge would have given a stronger representation of what she can achieve.

Looking ahead, it still leaves more questions than answers for Legge to provide. Her deal to return to Dragon Racing isn’t done yet, but provided it happens, can she make a significant jump in the final stands without the asterisks?

Hopefully, she’ll reach her potential as an IndyCar driver in 2013.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.