The third round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series will be at Barber Motorsports Park for the 14th edition of the Grand Prix of Alabama. After 42 days between championship races, IndyCar will have five races over 43 days from Long Beach through Detroit, and there will be seven races over 64 days between Long Beach and IndyCar's second trip to California, Laguna Seca in June. Last year's Barber race was the fastest in the event's history. Scott McLaughlin won with an average speed of 115.019 mph. The previous record was the year prior when Patricio O'Ward won with an average speed of 114.304 mph.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday April 28 with green flag scheduled for 1:40 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 3:40 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 12:15 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 3:00 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-up: 10:15 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 1:40 p.m. ET (90 laps)
Qualifying: 3:00 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-up: 10:15 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 1:40 p.m. ET (90 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
Penske Penalized, Stripped of St. Petersburg Victory
On Wednesday morning, IndyCar announced Team Penske had been penalized for push-to-pass manipulation at the St. Petersburg weekend. It was found all three Penske cars had illegal availability to push-to-pass at the start and on restarts at St. Petersburg, a direct violation of the IndyCar rulebook, which states push-to-pass would not be available during such times of the race. Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin had used the push-to-pass system when neither driver was supposed to. Though Will Power had push-to-pass illegally available to him, Power did not use it at an improper time.
IndyCar disqualified Newgarden and McLaughlin from the St. Petersburg race, stripping each driver of their respective first and third place finishes and all their points earned during the race. Newgarden does keep the point he earned for pole position that weekend. Patricio O'Ward inherited the St. Petersburg victory after the penalty to Newgarden. Power moves up from fourth to second, but Power had a ten-point penalty applied due to the push-to-pass system being illegally enabled though Power did not use it.
All three Team Penske entries have been fined $25,000 and all prize money from St. Petersburg has been forfeited.
With the forfeited victory, Josef Newgarden returns to 29 career victories, tied for 13th all-time with Rick Mears. O'Ward has five career victories, and his winless steak ended at 22 races.
After the points penalties, Scott Dixon is the new championship leader on 79 points. Colton Herta moves up to second in the championship, two points behind Dixon, and Herta will be credited with two podium finishes this season, as he moves up to third in the St. Petersburg results. Álex Palou is now third in the championship, 12 points behind Dixon, and Palou moves up to fourth in the St. Petersburg results.
O'Ward jumps to fourth in the championship on 64 points while Power settles into fifth on 59 points after his two-position promotion combined with the ten-point penalty. Felix Rosenqvist now has credit for fifth at St. Petersburg and he has 54 points, six points clear of Alexander Rossi and seven points ahead of Kyle Kirkwood. Rinus VeeKay and Marcus Ericsson round out the top ten on 40 points and 37 points respectively.
Newgarden drops from the championship lead on 87 points to 11th on 34 points, two points clear of Romain Grosjean and three points ahead of Santino Ferrucci. McLaughlin plummets down to 29th, dead last in the championship, on five points. The New Zealander had been tenth in the championship on 40 points prior to the penalty.
Where Does This Leave McLaren
With one midweek decision, Arrow McLaren goes from entering Barber Motorsports Park having not won in the last 24 races to having only one race between now and its most recent victory. This decision still does not remove the fact that none of the Arrow McLaren drivers have led a lap this season, and the team has led only 50 combined laps in the last 12 races. McLaren led 203 combined laps over the first seven races of the 2023 season.
The penalty does not change that in the two years since O'Ward won the Grand Prix of Alabama after leap-frogging ahead of Rinus VeeKay through pit strategy, the team's only victories are the second race of the 2022 Iowa doubleheader when O'Ward won after Newgarden suffered a right rear suspension failure while leading as the race entered its closing stage, and last month's St. Petersburg race after Newgarden was disqualified.
The revised St. Petersburg results may give McLaren a victory, but it does not cover up an inglorious weekend at Long Beach. None of the team's three entries made it out of the first round of qualifying. O'Ward hasn't started on a pole position since Mid-Ohio in 2022. Rossi has qualified in the top five only three times in 19 races with the team. O'Ward drove into the back of Rossi in the opening stint, puncturing Rossi's left rear tire and drawing O'Ward a penalty. For a moment, Rossi and O'Ward were running 26th and 27th.
There was a slight recovery though. The timing of the Christian Rasmussen caution allowed Rossi to get on a favorable strategy and not attempt to run 33-35 laps on his final stint. With this, Rossi pulled out a top ten finish. Théo Pourchaire made up 11 spots after starting 22nd to finish 11th on debut. Even O'Ward got up to 16th after his penalty, but this result ended a streak of 11 consecutive top ten finishes for the Mexican driver. One top ten finisher isn't what McLaren is looking for, and it is a team that has been a funk even if the results say otherwise.
Any McLaren success has likely come from O'Ward. Since joining the team in 2020, O'Ward accounts for 21 of McLaren's 26 podium finishes, including all five of the team's victories after Team Penske's penalty for St. Petersburg. The last time an Arrow McLaren driver who wasn't named Patricio O'Ward has led the most laps in a race was Robert Wickens in the 2018 St. Petersburg season opener when the team was still Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
If there are any reasons for optimism, it is O'Ward is now ranked fourth in the championship and Rossi is seventh through two races. Pourchaire will be back for his second race with the team in the #6 Chevrolet, and the Frenchman was the best finishing rookie last week at Long Beach despite having no test days prior to the weekend. Also, O'Ward has finished in the top five in three consecutive Barber races, and McLaren put all three cars in the top ten here last year.
Is This Dixon's Year?
After a stunning victory in Long Beach, new championship leader Scott Dixon heads to one of his best tracks, and yet probably the track that haunts him the most.
With an average finish of 3.7692, Barber Motorsports Park ranks as Dixon's fourth best track with a minimum of three starts. It is the second best average finish among drivers with at least three starts here. However, Dixon has yet to win at Barber.
In 13 starts, he has 13 top ten finishes. He has stood on the podium nine times, including six runner-up finishes. The only other track where Dixon has at least five runner-up finishes is Chicagoland. The only tracks where he has made more starts without a victory are St. Petersburg (20) and Iowa (19). Dixon has won at every other circuit where he has made at least ten starts, and Milwaukee is the only of that group where he has only won once.
In 12 Barber races, he has made it to the final round of qualifying. Coincidentally, like a victory, a pole position has eluded Dixon at Barber as well. Pole positions have been eluding Dixon everywhere but Indianapolis lately. His most recent pole position on a road course was at Watkins Glen in 2016.
Dixon hasn't started on the front row in 17 consecutive races and he has never started on a front row at Barber either. He hasn't started on the front row for a road/street course since Toronto 2022. His qualifying form has been spotty lately. In five of his last seven starts, Dixon has started outside the top ten, and he has only one top five start in that stretch. Yet, he has won four times, stood on the podium five times and finished no worse than ninth.
Six times has Dixon entered Barber coming off a result outside the top ten. This will only be the second time he enters Barber fresh off a victory. The other time was after his first Long Beach victory in 2015. He ended up finishing third at Barber that year. But this is more than just one victory. Dixon has won four of the last six races. The only other time he has had four victories in a six-race stretch was in 2007 when he won three consecutive races between Watkins Glen, Nashville and Mid-Ohio and then won at Sonoma three races later. The only time Dixon has won multiple times in the first three races of the season was in 2020 when he won three consecutive races to open the season.
Dixon also carries a top ten finish streak of 16 races into Alabama. This matches the longest top ten streak of his career. He went 16 consecutive from Kansas 2009 through the 2010 São Paulo season opener.
Dixon already has the record for most different circuits with a victory. Laguna Seca became his 27th different track conquered last September. Barber would only extend that streak. The next closest driver is Will Power with 22 circuits. No other driver has won races at 15 different tracks.
The Other Tortured Souls
Scott Dixon gets the attention for being the eternal bridesmaid of Barber Motorsports Park, but he isn't the only one who has been trying for years to win at this track and has left the Yellowhammer State empty-handed each time.
Along with Dixon and two-time Barber winner Will Power, Graham Rahal has started all 13 Barber races. However, Rahal is 0-for-13. This place hasn't been as kind to Rahal as the other two, but he has had his moments. Rahal was runner-up in consecutive years in 2015 and 2016. In the latter year, Rahal was in a tight battle with Simon Pagenaud before suffering front wing damage in the closing laps while battling Pagenaud for the lead. The Ohioan limped home to second. However, he has not finished in the top five here since that 2016 race. Only once has he made it to the final round of qualifying. That was in 2019 when he and Takuma Sato swept the front row for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Sato won the race from pole position. Rahal retired due to an electrical issue.
Alexander Rossi has been in just over half the Barber races. Never professed as one of Rossi's favorite tracks, his results are more pleasing than for most. He has five top ten finishes in seven appearances. This includes a streak of four consecutive races. He has started in the top ten in five consecutive Barber races. However, his best finish is only fifth, and that was in 2017 and 2019. Rossi has only led three laps out of 622 circuits around the 2.38-mile course.
It has been a decade since Andretti Global has won at Barber Motorsports Park. Both Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson have made four starts here. Herta has one top ten finish and an average finish of 17.5. Twice has Herta retired from this race. He has never led a lap and he has never started better than ninth. Ericsson has three top ten finishes at this place, but the Swede has never finished better than seventh, and he has only one top ten start. Andretti Global has only five top five finishes over the eight Barber races since it won in 2014 with Ryan Hunter-Reay.
The only other drivers entered this weekend with no victories and at least four Barber starts are Jack Harvey and Felix Rosenqvist. Harvey has never finished in the top ten in this race. He has never started in the top ten either. Last year, Harvey started and finished 24th. Rosenqvist has seen mixed results. He was tenth in 2019 and ninth last year, but he retired due to an accident in 2021, and he wasted a sixth place starting position with a 16th place finish in 2022.
If there is any hope for these drivers it is Barber is going through a spell of new winners. There have been five different winners in the last five Barber races. In the first eight Barber races, there were only five different winners. Prior to this streak, there had never been more than three consecutive different winners here.
Palou's Place to Pounce
The bad news for everyone is if they think Scott Dixon is great at Barber Motorsports Park, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Álex Palou is better.
In three starts, Palou has finished first, second and fifth. His average finish of 2.667 is the best at Barber Motorsports Park among drivers with at least three starts. The Catalan driver has started third, third and second. His average starting position of 2.667 is the best among drivers with at least three Barber starts.
Palou led 56 laps in the 2021 race. His 60 laps led ranks Palou seventh all-time at the track. Everyone ahead of him has made at least ten Barber starts. He has led more laps at this track than Dixon and Rahal, two of the three drivers to have started every Barber race, and he has led more laps than Sébastien Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe and Tony Kanaan combined, three drivers that all started the Grand Prix of Alabama ten times.
Considering Palou has 20 consecutive top ten finishes, this is not the place the competition was hoping to see if they were looking for Palou to cool off, especially when they will likely need Palou to come back down to Earth to have a shot at the championship. Palou received an extra bit of help after the Penske penalties lifted him to a fourth place classification at St. Petersburg. He went from sixth to third at Long Beach. If you are wondering if Palou can go from third to first at Barber, well that is what he did when he won in 2021.
It is more than top ten finishes though. During this stretch, Palou has six victories, 12 podium finishes and 16 top five finishes. He has not gone more than two consecutive races without a top five result since a four-race stretch in 2022 that covered Toronto, the Iowa doubleheader and the summer Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race. He has led laps in 12 of his last 20 starts, and Palou has led ten laps or more in ten of those races.
He isn't leading the championship but 12 points is nothing after only two races with 15 remaining in the 2024 calendar. The competition does pose a threat to keep Palou down. Besides Dixon's track record, championship leader Josef Newgarden has the most Barber victories with three, but Newgarden is on a bit of a Barber slump. The American has finished 14th or worse in the last three Barber races after having five consecutive top five finishes and seven consecutive top ten finishes prior to this dip.
Over the last three Barber races, Palou has scored 124 points, the most during that span, while Newgarden has scored 40 points, 15th most, and fewer than Christian Lundgaard, who has only raced in two of those three races.
Sixteen drivers competed in all three Barber races from 2021 to 2023. Only Jack Harvey (37 points) and Conor Daly (30 points) scored fewer points than Newgarden and started all three races. The only other drivers to have scored at least 100 points during this period are Patricio O'Ward (117 points) and Will Power (109 points).
Indy Lights
After 49 days off, Indy Lights returns to competition for its second round of the 2024 season.
Over a month and a half ago, Nolan Siegel won the St. Petersburg race, leading all 45 laps from pole position. One week after making his IndyCar debut in Long Beach, Siegel looks to extend his Indy Lights championship lead. He was second last year at Barber.
Fourteen points off Siegel is Jacob Abel, who now has five podium finishes in his Indy Lights career but that first career victory remains missing from Abel's résumé. Louis Foster opened the 2024 season with a third place finish, and Foster looks to continue the good start. Last year, Foster was 14th in the opening two races of the season, one of which was at Barber.
Michael d'Orlando opened the season with a fourth place finish while Reece Gold rounded out the top five and took fastest lap in the process at St. Petersburg. Jonathan Browne was a mover at St. Petersburg, going from 11th to sixth. Caio Collet took home seventh while Myles Rowe slipped down to eighth.
Salvador de Alba and Christian Bogle rounded out the top ten.
A few drivers are hoping to bounce back after rough season openers. Josh Pierson suffered a setback after avoidable contact with Jamie Chadwick earned him a penalty. Pierson ended up 13th while Chadwick's team fixed the car, but she was 24 laps down in 20th. Chadwick's Andretti Global teammate Bryce Aron had contact that dropped him to a 19th place finish as well.
Siegel and Gold each have won at Barber in USF Pro 2000 Championship competition in 2022. Rowe and Yuven Sundaramoorthy each won at Barber in U.S. F2000. Rowe won the first race in 2022 while Sundaramoorthy won the first race in 2021. In four U.S. F2000 starts at Barber, d'Orlando has two podium finishes and a finish of fifth.
Besides Siegel, the next best returning driver from last year's Barber race is James Roe, Jr., who finished fifth. The only top ten finisher from last year's race back for 2024 is Bogle, who was seventh.
The Indy Lights race will take place at 11:15 a.m. ET on Sunday April 28, and the race is scheduled for 35 laps.
Fast Facts
This will be only the third IndyCar race to take place on April 28. The first was on April 28, 1996 when Michael Andretti won at Nazareth. The second was on April 28, 2001 when Greg Ray won at Atlanta.
Only three times has the Barber race winner gone on to win the championship that season (Simon Pagenaud 2016, Josef Newgarden 2017, Álex Palou 2021).
Chevrolet has won eight of 11 Barber races since returning to IndyCar in 2012.
The average starting position for a Barber winner is 3.1538 with a median of third.
The worst starting position for a Barber winner is ninth (Will Power 2012).
After having the first 12 Barber races won from an odd-numbered starting position, the last two Barber races have been won from an even-numbered starting position.
The pole-sitter has won five of 13 Barber races.
The average starting position of the last eight IndyCar races, acknowledging O'Ward won from third at St. Petersburg, is 9.125 with a median of eighth.
Only two of the last eight races have been won from a top five starting position.
Ten of the first 11 races of the 2023 season were won from a top five starting position.
Despite the average starting position of the last eight winners, the driver that has led the most laps has won five of the last eight races.
The average number of lead changes in a Barber race is 6.769 with a median of seven.
Nine of 12 Barber races have had six lead changes or more.
Eight of 13 Barber winners have led at least half the laps in the race.
The average number of cautions in a Barber race is 2.153 with a median of two. The average number of caution laps is 8.23 with a median of seven.
There has never been a caution-free Barber race, but 11 of 13 races have had two cautions or fewer. The 2016 race had only one caution for one lap when the initial start was waved off.
The most cautions in a Barber race was six in 2011, which was also the only Barber race not to feature a lead change.
Predictions
Scott Dixon takes the Barber victory ahead of an angry Josef Newgarden while Álex Palou gets another podium finish. One of those drivers will not make the final round of qualifying. At least one Penske car will retire and it will draw an onslaught of "karma" messages on social media. Patricio O'Ward's top five streak at Barber ends. Théo Pourchaire will again be the top finishing rookie. Kyle Kirkwood will get his first top five finish that isn't a victory. Marcus Armstrong will make up fewer than 15 spots from his starting position. At least two cars retire. Sleeper: Christian Lundgaard.
