The 14th round of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season will be the Gallagher Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. This is again the shared weekend for IndyCar and NASCAR's top two series. Over the weekend, 104 cars will start the three races held on the 2.439-mile road course. Just over 558.5 miles worth of racing, 229 laps, is scheduled over these three events. Things are tightening up in each of these series. For NASCAR, the playoffs are approaching. For IndyCar, this is the start of the final quarter of the season with the Lagunea Seca season finale only 29 days after this race.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday August 12 with green flag scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: USA
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
Channel: USA
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 9:00 a.m. ET (90 minutes)
Qualifying: 12:30 p.m. ET
Final Practice: 4:00 p.m. ET (30 minutes)
Saturday:
Race: 2:30 p.m. ET (85 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
The Championship Picture
With four races left in the IndyCar season, only 216 points are left on the table. After Nashville, only eight drivers remain mathematically eligible for the championship.
Álex Palou leads the championship on 513 points. Palou has finished in the top ten of all 13 races this season. He is the first driver to open a season with 13 consecutive top ten finishes since Tony Kanaan finished in the top ten in all 16 races in the 2004 Indy Racing League season. Palou has finished on the podium in six consecutive road/street course races, dating back to his victory in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May.
Josef Newgarden lost four points in the championship, and Newgarden enters Indianapolis 84 points behind Palou with four races remaining. Newgarden has yet to finish ahead of Palou on a road or street course this season. Newgarden has fourth consecutive top five finishes, the first time he has had four consecutive top five finishes since the 2019 season.
Scott Dixon has finished in the top ten in 12 of the first 13 races this season, and over half of those results have been top five finishes, but despite the success Dixon is 126 points behind his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Palou in the championship. Dixon has yet to be the top Ganassi finisher in a race this season, but he has been the second best Ganassi finisher in 11 of the first 13 races, including last week at Nashville.
Scott McLaughlin is on a run of good form with three consecutive top five finishes and seven top ten finishes on the spin, but McLaughlin is 142 points behind Palou. Marcus Ericsson rounds out the top five in the championship, 156 points behind his Ganassi teammate. While Ericsson has 11 top ten finishes this season, the Swede has only one top five finish in the last seven races.
Patricio O'Ward has only two top five finishes in the last eight races, and despite having six consecutive top ten finishes, O'Ward is sixth in the championship, trailing Palou by 160 points. Defending IndyCar champion Will Power is seventh, 176 points off the top spot.
The last driver with a mathematical shot at the championship is Christian Lundgaard, who is exactly 216 pants back. The only way Lundgaard could win the championship is to win the remaining four races with the maximum of 54 points per victory and Palou would have to not start any of the final four races. Unfortunately for Lundgaard, his championship hopes will likely end when the green flag waves on Saturday afternoon.
Five drivers were eliminated from the championship after Nashville. Despite his second victory of the season, Kyle Kirkwood fell seven points shy of being in Lundgaard's position. Colton Herta was also eliminated as was Alexander Rossi. Romain Grosjean made it a hat trick of Andretti Autosport knocked out of the championship fight, and Andretti Autosport's championship slump continues. The team's most recent title remains Ryan Hunter-Reay's 2012 achievement. Felix Rosenqvist made it two Arrow McLaren drivers eliminated at Nashville.
After this race from the IMS road course, only 162 points will remain available over the final three races. Entering this weekend, O'Ward and Power are both on the wrong side of elimination and have ground to make up.
Iceman Becometh Ironman
If Scott Dixon takes the green flag on Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it will be Dixon's 319th consecutive start, giving Dixon the record for most consecutive IndyCar races started. This streak dates back to August 1, 2004, when Dixon started at Michigan in the Indy Racing League. The New Zealander missed the prior race at Milwaukee after a few accidents in practice left him with injuries to his thumb and ankle and kept him from competing.
When this streak started, Dixon had four career victories, 12 podium finishes and he was the 2003 IRL champion. Since then, Dixon has added 49 victories, and he is ranked second all-time. He is also second all-time in podium finishes with 133. His six championships are second only to A.J. Foyt. After finishing fifth last week at Nashville, Dixon now has 199 top five finishes in his IndyCar career, one away from becoming the first driver to 200 top five results.
This record streak has taken place over 40 different circuits, 19 ovals, 11 road courses and ten temporary/street courses. Those tracks range from Indianapolis Motor Speedway's oval and Texas, which have been in each season throughout this streak, to the likes of Circuit of the Americas in Austin, NOLA Motorsports Park and New Hampshire Motor Speedway, all of which appeared only once.
The streak has taken Dixon to 22 different states, two Canadian provinces and four different countries spread over three continents.
Over the last 318 races, Dixon has raced against 169 different drivers. Those drivers have represented 27 different countries. The United States has produced most of Dixon's competitors during this streak (56) while the United Kingdom is second (22). He has raced against three of his fellow New Zealanders, including two that will be on the grid Saturday in Dixon's record breaking attempt.
Dixon has raced against drivers from China (Ho-Pin Tun) and Monaco (Stefano Coletti). He has raced against half the Czech driver in IndyCar history (Tomáš Enge), half the Russian drivers in IndyCar history (Mikhail Aleshin), and half the South African drivers in IndyCar history (Tomas Scheckter). Dixon raced against all three Venezuelans to start an IndyCar race (Milka Duno, E.J. Viso and Rodolfo González).
During this streak, Dixon has competed against three Andrettis, two Foyts, two Hertas, two Laziers, a Brabham, Fittipaldi, Rahal, Villeneuve and an Unser.
Dixon has competed against two World Drivers' Champions, two 24 Hours of Le Mans winners, two NASCAR Cup Series champions, two sons of World Drivers' Champions, three grandsons of World Drivers' Champions, four sons of Indianapolis 500 winners, five Formula One grand prix winners, 19 Indianapolis 500 winners and 19 IndyCar champions.
Of the 169 drivers, Dixon raced against 22 of them just once, but one of those drivers he will get to compete against for a second time as this weekend as he attempts to break the record (Linus Lundqvist, who will make his second start in the #60 Honda for Meyer Shank Racing).
Dixon's streak began in the #1 Target G-Force-Toyota. He has made 311 consecutive starts in car #9. Honda has been the engine behind Dixon in 279 of the last 318 races. Chevrolet powered him 32 times. Toyota was the engine for the first seven races of this streak. He has been in a Dallara chassis for every race since the 2006 season finale at Chicagoland, 281 consecutive races. Dallara has been the chassis for 293 of these 318 races. Eighteen of these races were in a Panoz and seven were in a G-Force badged chassis.
Darren Manning was Dixon's teammate when the streak began at Michigan, one of 20 different teammates Dixon has had during this streak. While Dixon has won 49 times during this streak, his teammates have combined to win 33 races. Dario Franchitti is responsible for most of those victories with 13. Álex Palou has eight of those victories while Dan Wheldon has six. Marcus Ericsson can claim three of those victories. Charlie Kimball, Tony Kanaan and Felix Rosenqvist each won once.
If Dixon starts on Saturday, he will break Tony Kanaan's record, which was set nine years, 11 months and 11 days prior. When Kanaan broke Jimmy Vasser's record with his 212 consecutive start at Baltimore in 2013, Dixon was on 154 consecutive starts. Vasser claimed the record on August 29, 2004 at Montreal when he made his 193rd consecutive start, surpassing Al Unser, Jr. in the process. Vasser's streak began at the 1993 Laguna Seca season finale. Unser, Jr.'s streak began at the 1983 CART season opener at Atlanta and ran through Nazareth on April 23, 1995.
Dixon's 100th consecutive start was July 25, 2010 at Edmonton. He won that race. His 200th consecutive start was June 26, 2016 at Road America. An mechanical failure ended his race after only completing six laps. The 300th consecutive start happened just last year, July 24, 2022, a fourth-place finish at Iowa.
While we are looking at Dixon's streak, the one Milwaukee race Dixon missed is the only time he missed a race in his career. The New Zealander has started 381 of 382 races he has entered since his debut in 2001, and he is ranked fourth all-time in career starts.
Another IMS Road Course Race
IndyCar has become quite familiar with the IMS road course. This weekend will mark the ninth race around the circuit since the start of the 2020 season. During that time, the only other courses to host more than five races is Iowa, which has hosted three doubleheaders and was not on the 2021 calendar. Overall, this will be 15th IndyCar race on the IMS road course.
Through the last eight IMS road course races, there have been seven different winners from four different teams. The one repeat winner is Will Power, who won the second race of the Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader held in October 2020 and the Brickyard weekend race in 2021.
Scott Dixon won the first IMS road course race during the 2020 season while Josef Newgarden won the first race of the Harvest Grand Prix weekend. Rinus VeeKay scored his first career IndyCar victory in May 2021. Andretti Autosport swept the races in 2022 with Colton Herta winning a wet race in May before Alexander Rossi won in July, albeit with a car that violated the minimum weight rule. This past May, Álex Palou scored his first victory of the season at the IMS road course.
Since 2020, Power and Rossi are tied for most podium finishes at the IMS road course with four apiece. Herta has finished on the podium three times during this run. Herta and Rossi each have five top five finishes in the last eight IMS road course events. Newgarden and Power are the only other drivers to finish in the top five in at least half the races.
No driver has finished in the top ten in all eight IMS road course races since 2020. Dixon, Newgarden and Graham Rahal each have seven top ten finishes during that span. Marcus Ericsson, Herta and Rossi each have six. Power has five.
Among the drivers with at least three starts in the last eight IMS road course races, Christian Lundgaard has the best average finish at 6.75 through four starts. Rossi is second with an average finish of seventh, slightly better than Power's 7.125 and Herta's average is 7.5. Newgarden and Rahal are tied on average finish at 7.625 while Dixon has an average of 8.5, just ahead of Marcus Ericsson, who is on 9.125 and Romain Grosjean is the final driver with an average inside the top ten for IMS road course races since 2020. Grosjean's average is 9.6 in five starts.
One name that has yet to be mentioned is Álex Palou. Palou is the most recent winner on the IMS road course, and he has competed in all eight races since 2020. However, things started slow for the Catalan driver. In 2020, while driving for Dale Coyne Racing, he had finishes of 19th, 17th and ninth at the IMS road course. While he was third in the 2021 Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May, Palou suffered an engine failure in the race that August and finished 27th. In May 2022, Palou was 18th after he spun and stalled the car after pulling from the damp grass, trapping him a lap down for the rest of the race. He was tenth last summer in the Brickyard weekend race.
Among all tracks where Palou has made at least three starts, the IMS road course is Palou's second worst on average finish at 13th ahead of just Gateway, where he has an average finish of 14th. The only other track where he has an average finish worse than tenth is the Indianapolis oval, and his average finish there is only 10.75.
Another RLLR Pick-Me-Up
It has been a feast or famine season for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2023. RLLR has experienced the greatest low from having a car miss the Indianapolis 500 while all four of its entries were in danger of missing the race, to the tremendous high of victory at Toronto, and the team technically has a driver mathematically alive for the championship entering the final four races of the season.
The IMS road course has been one of RLLR's better racetracks. In May, Christian Lundgaard won pole position for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, his first career pole position. In that same race weekend, Jack Harvey qualified fourth and Graham Rahal qualified eighth. In the race, Lundgaard ended up fourth while Rahal rounded out the top ten.
Lundgaard has never started worse than eighth on the IMS road course, and he has started in the top six in three of those races. His worst finish here was 12th, which was his IndyCar debut in August 2021. Since then, Lundgaard has three consecutive top ten finishes at this track. The Dane was second last year at the Brickyard weekend, and he led 13 laps in the May race. Lundgaard has finished in the top ten of all four natural-terrain road course races this season.
Rahal has started all 14 races on the IMS road course and he has finished in the top ten on 12 occasions. Twice he has been runner-up, going from 17th to second in 2015 and he went from fourth to second in the July 2020 race. These finishes have come despite poor starting positions. Rahal has started outside the top ten in ten of 14 IMS road course races, and he has finished in the top ten in eight of those races. He has led 48 laps on the IMS road course, tied for the eighth most all-time.
In May, Harvey spun on his own and ended up 20th, his second consecutive 20th-place finish in an IMS road course race. He has finished outside the top ten in the last three IMS road course races. However, prior to this slump, Harvey had four top ten finishes in his first six IMS road course starts, including a third in his IMS road course debut in 2019. Harvey has started in the top ten in eight of nine appearances, including four trips to the Fast Six. His worst starting position was 13th in last year's Brickyard weekend race.
RLLR has had at least one top ten finisher in the last 13 IMS road course races, which includes three runner-up finishes, six top five finishes, and the team has had multiple top ten finishers in five out of ten IMS road course races since the team expanded to two full-time entries in 2018.
The team has not won multiple races in a season since 2019 when Takuma Sato won at Barber Motorsports Park and Gateway. The only time RLLR has had multiple drivers win a season was in 2001 when Kenny Bräck won four races and Max Papis won twice.
Indy Lights
Leading off proceedings from the Speedway on Friday will be Indy Lights, which has its race scheduled for Friday August 11 at 4:50 p.m. ET for 35 laps.
A second consecutive victory at Nashville has extended Christian Rasmussen's lead to 45 points over Nolan Siegel with five races remaining. In the last three races, Rasmussen has an average finish of 1.667 while Siegel's average during that time is 11.667.
Hunter McElrea has five consecutive top five finishes, but McElrea is 59 points behind Rasmussen. McElrea's runner-up finish at Nashville is his best finish this season. Jacob Abel has finished on the podium in three of the last four races, and Abel is 61 points off the championships lead.
Louis Foster rounds out the top five on 256 points, 31 points ahead of Reece Gold. James Roe, Jr. is up to seventh in the championship on 219 points. Danial Frost has dropped to eighth on 207 points after Frost has finished outside the top ten in three consecutive races. Kyffin Simpson has finished outside the top ten in the last two races and he is down to ninth on 191 points. Ernie Francis, Jr. round out the top ten on 194 points.
Rasmus Lindh has three consecutive top ten finishes and he has 179 points, 13 points clear of Jagger Jones. Christian Bogle is 13th on 165 points while Jamie Chadwick is coming off his best finish of the season in eighth, and Chadwick is on 163 points.
Kiko Porto will make his Indy Lights debut this weekend in the #47 Cape Motorsports entry. Porto won the 2021 U.S. F2000 championship, a season where he won a race on the IMS road course, and he is currently second in the USF Pro 2000 championship.
In May, Matteo Nannini won the Indy Lights race on the IMS road course driving for Juncos Hollinger Racing. Foster was second while Simpson was third. McElrea and Rasmussen rounded out the top five in the championship. Siegel was 13th in the May IMS road course race.
NASCAR
For the fourth consecutive year, NASCAR and IndyCar are racing together at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This year, there are only three races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season and we know at least one playoff spot will be available on points.
After missing the playoffs last year despite being ranked in the top five in points, Martin Truex, Jr. leads the championship on 799 points with three victories. Truex, Jr. is 57 points ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin while William Byron, who leads the Cup Series with four victories, is 96 points back. Christopher Bell makes it three Gibbs cars in the top four of the championship, 122 points behind Truex, and Kevin Harvick rounds out the top five despite not having a victory. Harvick is 136 points back.
One point behind Harvick is Kyle Larson, who is six points clear of Ross Chastain. Brad Keselowski sits in eighth, 148 points off the top with Kyle Busch two points behind Keselowski. Ryan Blaney rounds out the top ten on 651 points, two points ahead of Chris Buescher, who has won the last two races. Joey Logano is three points behind Buescher in the championship.
Last year's Indianapolis winner Tyler Reddick is 13th in points, 190 points behind Truex, Jr. Bubba Wallace currently holds the penultimate playoff spot. Wallace is 58 points above the cutline with Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. sandwiched between Wallace and Ty Gibbs in 16th on 486 points.
Gibbs provisionally holds the final playoff spot by three points over Michael McDowell. Daniel Suárez is five points on the outside while 2021 Indianapolis winner A.J. Allmendinger is 24 points out. Alex Bowman is 44 points back with Austin Cindric 53 points behind Gibbs. Chase Elliott is 55 points outside the playoffs with three races remaining.
Besides the playoff picture, Indianapolis will see a number of one-off entries. Shane van Gisbergen returns for his second career start, six weeks after van Gisbergen won on debut in the inaugural Chicago street race. Van Gisbergen will be back in the #91 Chevrolet for Trackhouse.
There will be two debutants in this race. Fellow Supercars competitor Brodie Kostecki will drive the #33 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Le Mans winner and two-time World Endurance Drivers' Champion Kamui Kobayashi will be in the #67 Toyota for 23XI Racing. Jenson Button will be back for his third race of the season. Button continues in the #15 Ford for Rick Ware Racing.
The NASCAR Cup race will be at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday August 13.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will follow IndyCar on Saturday August 12 at 5:30 p.m. ET. NASCAR's second division has five races left in its regular season.
John Hunter Nemechek leads the series in victories with five, the most recent coming at Michigan last weekend. Nemechek leads the championship on tiebreaker, as he and Austin Hill are tied on 811 points, but Hill has only won four times this season.
Justin Allgaier is 34 points back in third while Cole Custer is 106 points back in fourth. Josh Berry is 151 points off the top in fifth. Sam Meyer is 30 points behind his JR Motorsports teammate Berry with Chandler Smith in seventh, 199 points off the top. Daniel Hemric is eighth on 601 points with Riley Herbst in ninth on 574 points with Sammy Smith rounding out the top ten on 558 points. Sheldon Creed is in 11th on 552 points.
Jeb Burton takes the final playoffs despite being 14th in points thanks to his victory at Talladega. Parker Kligerman is the first driver outside the playoffs, 18 points behind Creed for the final spot at this time. Brandon Jones is 45 points outside with Brett Moffitt 86 points out.
Along with the regulars, Allmendinger, Gibbs and Chastain are entered in both races at IMS this weekend. Conor Daly and Sage Karam will be teammates for Alpha Prime Racing in the #44 and #45 Chevrolets respectively.
On Friday night, the NASCAR Truck Series playoffs begin at Indianapolis Raceway Park. That race will start at 9:00 p.m. ET.
Corey Heim leads the championship on 2,030 points, eight points clear of defending Truck Series champion Zane Smith. Carson Hocevar leads the series with three victories this season and he is nine points off Heim. Christian Eckes is in fourth on 2,019 points, two more than Grant Enfinger and five points ahead of Ty Majeski.
The 2021 Truck champion Ben Rhodes is seventh on 2,013 points, eight points ahead of Nick Sanchez in eighth. Matt DiBenedetto and Matt Crafton will start the playoffs as the two drivers below the cutline. Each driver is on 2,002 points, three points below the threshold to make round two.
Shanve van Gisbergen will make his Truck Series debut at IRP driving the #41 Chevrolet for Niece Motorsports.
Fast Facts
This will be the eighth IndyCar race to take place on August 12 and the first since Sébastien Bourdais won at Road America in 2007.
Hélio Castroneves won on August 12, 2001 at Mid-Ohio.
This Saturday's race will fall on Parnelli Jones' 90th birthday.
Nine drivers have won on both the oval and road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They are Alex Lloyd, Jack Harvey, Dean Stoneman, Colton Herta, Will Power, Simon Pagenaud, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi.
A list of possible drivers who could become the tenth driver to win on both the oval and road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend are Hélio Castroneves, Marcus Ericsson, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Justin Allgaier and Tyler Dillon.
Rinus VeeKay, Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta are the only drivers to win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indy Lights and IndyCar. VeeKay and Herta are the only driver to win on the IMS road course in both Indy Lights and IndyCar. Jack Harvey, David Malukas or Linus Lundqvist could join VeeKay and Herta as drivers to win on the IMS road course in Indy Lights and IndyCar.
Rinus VeeKay is the only driver to have a first career IndyCar victory occur on the IMS road course.
Patricio O'Ward or Sting Ray Robb could become the first driver to win on the IMS road course in Indy Pro 2000 and IndyCar.
Kyle Kirkwood could become the first driver to win on the IMS road course in U.S. F2000 and IndyCar.
The average starting position for an Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course winner is 3.857 with a median of second.
Eight of 14 IMS road course races have been won from the front row.
The average number of lead changes in an IMS road course race is 8.642 with a median of tenth.
Eight of 14 IMS road course races have had ten lead changes or more.
Only two IMS road course races have had fewer than five lead changes. The 2017 Grand Prix of Indianapolis had four lead changes and the second race of the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix had zero lead changes. Will Power won both races.
The second race of the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix is the most recent occasion of a driver leading every lap in an IndyCar race.
The average number of cautions in an IMS road course race is 1.928 with a median of 1.5. The average number of caution laps is 7.285 with a median of 4.5.
Only three IMS road course races have had more than two cautions. The inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis had four cautions for 19 laps in 2014 and the 2019 race had three cautions for 12 laps. Simon Pagenaud won both those races. The 2022 Grand Prix of Indianapolis had a record eight cautions for a record 31 laps in mixed conditions, which Colton Herta won.
Predictions
To cap off this historic weekend, Scott Dixon wins in his 319th consecutive start, and his 54th victory will double as his 200th top five finish. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will have only one top ten finisher. Colton Herta will not break down. At least four teams are represented in the Fast Six. The gap between first and second in the championship will be greater than 75 points after this race. At least three of the top five finishers from the May IMS road course race do not finish in the top five this weekend. Linus Lundqvist finishes within two positions of Marcus Armstrong. Sleeper: Graham Rahal.
