Like the title says, 25 drivers have finished in the top 10 of the IndyCar points standings at least one time between 2008 and 2019- I start with 2008 because everything before is a mess and end with 2019 because the 2020 season is still in progress. Big sorry if the bold surnames throw everything off, it's 85% to help me.

Those 25 drivers are (deep breath in): Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Alexander Rossi, Scott Dixon, Will Power, Felix Rosenqvist, Colton Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Takuma Sato, Graham Rahal, Sébastien Bourdais, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Hélio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Juan Pablo Montoya, Charlie Kimball, Carlos Muñoz, Justin Wilson, Dario Franchitti, Ryan Briscoe, Oriol Servià, Danica Patrick, Dan Wheldon, and Hideki Mutoh.

The only one of those 25 without a win in the sport at this point in time is Mutoh, whose best race finish was a P3. I specify "the sport" because technically Servià does not have an IndyCar win, but he did have one in 2005 in Champ Car.

What's more is that the standings didn't give away pity points to mediocre then-upcoming talent; they showed then-current talent. Of those 23 (leaving out Mutoh and Servià), 19 had either already won an IndyCar/IRL race before the first year they finished top 10 in points in that 2008-2019 era or won their first race the first year they achieved a top-10 points result in the era. The other four drivers each won their first race less than a year after their first top-10 points finish, and they aren't exactly pushovers: Pagenaud (5th in 2012 points/first win in 2013), Hinchcliffe (8th in 2012 points/first win in 2013), Muñoz (8th in 2015 points/first win in 2015), and Rosenqvist (6th in 2019/first win in 2020). Additionally, of the 19 who had won by or before the end of their first final standings top 10 in the era: five (Dixon, Castroneves, Kanaan, Montoya, and Franchitti) had each won at least one CART race, three (Power, Hunter-Reay, and Wilson) had each won at least one Champ Car race, and one (Bourdais) had won races in both series in addition to his later IndyCar victories.

Those 23 drivers, along with Mike Conway/Ed Carpenter/Carlos Huertas, comprise the 26 IndyCar winners from 2008 to 2020. The final three never made the top 10 in points for various reasons: Huertas started every race in 2014, won a messy rain Houston event in one of only 3 top 10s in that year's 18 races, and never raced professionally again after three starts in 2015; Conway drove for 6 teams in 5 years and won with 3 of them (totaling 4 wins), but finished 17th in the standings the only two years he attempted to qualify for every race; and we all know Carpenter, who's competed in 18 consecutive IndyCar seasons but only attempted every race in 8 of them with his most recent full season and non-oval race coming in 2013- of his three wins, only one came in a full-time season and resulted in a 18th place points finish (Carpenter's best of any year being 12th in 2009).

If the season were to end now and neither won a race next year, O'Ward (P3) and Ferrucci (P8) would join Mutoh as the only drivers since reunification to record a top 10 points finish without a win, although I'd be flabbergasted if Pato didn't get a win in 2020 or 2021. Other current contenders are Marcus Ericsson (P12, 10 points behind P10), Jack Harvey (P13, 12 points behind P10), and Alex Palou (P15, 30 points behind P10). Zach Veach and Oliver Askew are each only one point behind Palou but I don't see them making a top 10 standings run this year.

What's the point of making this? ^{there's no point I have a serious problem} I think it shows first off who the best of the current IndyCar era have been, and also shows that you need to be excellent, not just consistent, in the series in order to do well.