Marcus Armstrong is entering his fourth full IndyCar season in 2026 after completing one year with Meyer Shank Racing. After his move from Chip Ganassi Racing, the New Zealander had his best season to date. The 25-year-old finished 2025 8th in the championship with a podium in Iowa and a total of 10 Top 10 finishes.
Armstrong showed his potential for the 2026 season after topping the charts at the Sebring Test. The MSR Driver finished the test first with the best time of 52.372 seconds.
However, before the Sebring test, Armstrong shared his determination for the 2026 season during the IndyCar content days with Pit Debrief and other media outlets. Although he had his best season so far, the 25-year-old knew he could have placed higher.
When asked how Armstrong was looking to improve in IndyCar for 2026, he answered, “Well, yeah, I think we finished eighth in the championship last year. I feel like eighth wasn’t — if we didn’t make a mistake in Nashville, I think we would have finished sixth, which is not exactly where we want to be, but I feel like we had potential because we were consistent.”
Although the MSR driver was consistent in the Top 10 in 2025, he noted that consistency needs to be placed in the higher finishing positions to be a genuine force.
“We were consistently finishing inside the Top 10. We weren’t doing anything spectacular, which kind of hurts a bit. I think in order to actually fight for the championship, you need to have more podiums and just have more pace in general to be fighting right at the pointy end to win races, have more podiums, have those big points as opposed to just consistently six, seven, eight, nine, which is basically where we were.”
Armstrong continuing with Meyer Shank for the 2026 IndyCar season
Armstrong has a year under his belt with Meyer Shank Racing and communicates well with the team heading into the 2026 IndyCar season. During the Media Day Press Conference, the New Zealander shared that the team has “a hunger just to deliver” for the 2025 IndyCar season.
“Yeah, we understand each other pretty well. I’ve been working with the same engineers now for quite a while, which is very helpful. There’s a sense of continuity. We understand what we need to do. We’ve certainly analyzed a lot over the off-season. My lead engineer Angela has been working very hard, as well, and along with the entire Ganassi organization, I think it’s one of our strengths as a whole. No matter what the organization has achieved the previous year, there’s still a hunger just to deliver, deliver more. There’s a lot of determination inside that building.”
The 25-year-old shared that he is “pointing in the same direction” with MSR. Armstrong hopes to contuine the postive work from 2025 into 2026.
“I feel like we’re all pointing in the same direction. I think we’re in a very fortunate position where we get to, like I said, have continuity, so we know each other very well at this point.”
Armstrong’s hopes for the Top 3
To continue his success in 2025, Marcus Armstrong hopes to grow with a Top 3 finish in 2026. With his consistency in 2025, the 25-year-old sees it as an attainable yet challenging goal.
“I would be satisfied with a top three in the championship. That would be great. I think that, like I said, we kind of understand where we need to improve. It’s not as if it’s a million miles away, but certainly we need to make some gains in all areas, frankly.”
Armstrong noted that there is more he needs to achieve before fighting to the Top 3.
“In order to be inside the top three, you need to be almost perfect. Even to finish inside the top three in a preseason test at Sebring, you need to be near perfect. It’s just the level is very high. But we understand that. I feel like we’re certainly capable of it. We all want it. We’ve all got so much determination to go ahead and do it.”
Pushing each other as teammates
Although he completed the first part by finishing fastest during the Sebring test, there is the rest of the season to figure out the Top 3. However, with his MSR teammates and the drivers at CGR with his team’s technical partnership, there are driver’s in his circle pushing eachother to come out on top.
“I’ve got some very strong teammates as well. Ultimately we’re all competing against each other right at the pointy end, which is quite cool. If you look within our technical collaboration with Ganassi, Alex, Scott, Felix, and myself, there’s four of us inside the top 8 in the championship last year.
“You could argue that inside those engineering meetings we’re also fighting against each other, which is great. We’re pushing each other to further limits, which I think is an important ingredient when it comes to success. We’re going to fight real hard for that.”
Cleaning up on Street Courses
Even though he had a great 2025 season, Armstrong needs to improve his performance on street courses, especially at the start of the season. With two out of the first three races occurring at street courses, needs to fix his earlier mistakes at St. Pete
“Well, St. Pete has been strong until it wasn’t the previous two years, actually. That’s on me. I’ve made mistakes there during the race two years in a row now when we were in a strong position. I’ve always had a very strong car there, which is great. It’s typically very warm, and for whatever reason, that place really suits us, I think.”
For the 2026 season, Armstrong hopes to carry the consistency of 2025 to “start the year off strong.”
With a triple-header to start off the season, the MSR driver hopes the momentum does not fall quickly.
“In saying that, I think we need to find a little bit more in order to be fighting for pole, but it’s important to start the year off strong, I think, especially with three races back-to-back. You kind of want to have a bit of momentum going from the first race.
“Last year was a real average way to start really, and without that poor result, it could have been a very different season. But yeah, momentum, I think, is the key word there.”
