The 15th and 16th rounds of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season is a return to the Milwaukee Mile. The one-mile oval in Wisconsin's largest city is back on the IndyCar schedule for the first time since 2015. Opened in 1903, the Milwaukee Mile is the oldest racetrack in the United States, and it first hosted IndyCar in 1939. After years of hosting two, and in some cases three races, Milwaukee has hosted the second-most races in IndyCar history after only Indianapolis Motor Speedway. These will be the third and fourth-latest IndyCar races held at Milwaukee. Prior to this year, only twice have Milwaukee races taken place in September, first in 1946 and then in 1981.
Coverage
Time: Peacock’s coverage for race one begins at 5:40 p.m. ET on Saturday August 31 with green flag scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET. USA’s coverage for race two begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 2:50 p.m. ET.
Channel: Peacock & USA
Announcers: Kevin Lee, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Georgia Henneberry and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
Channel: Peacock & USA
Announcers: Kevin Lee, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Georgia Henneberry and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 3:35 p.m. ET (2 hours and 10 minutes)
Saturday:
Qualifying: 2:15 p.m. ET
Race: 6:00 p.m. ET (250 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 2:50 p.m. ET (250 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 2:50 p.m. ET (250 laps)
Palou's Championship Hopes
Álex Palou is in position to clinch the championship early. With a 54-point advantage over Will Power entering the Milwaukee round, Palou can clinch his third IndyCar championship if he leaves this doubleheader weekend with a 55-point lead.
After his Portland victory, Power owns the tiebreaker over Palou as Power now has three victories to Palou's two.
Palou has finished in the top five in four consecutive races, which includes a second at Iowa and a fourth at Gateway. He has finished in the top five in three of the first four oval races this season. While Power has won two of the last four races, his average finish over the last six races is 10.1667, and his victories at Iowa and Portland are his only top ten finish over that six-race stretch.
There are eight drivers mathematically alive for the championship entering this weekend.
Colton Herta dropped to 67 points behind Palou after the Portland weekend. Herta also enters this weekend with four consecutive top five finishes and six top five finishes in the last seven races. He has finished fifth in the last two oval races.
Scott McLaughlin enters Milwaukee as the leader in oval points. With 175 points, McLaughlin is only two points ahead of Josef Newgarden in the unofficial oval championship. However, the New Zealander is 88 points behind Palou with three races remaining. McLaughlin has finished in the top six of every oval race this season, and he has been on the podium in the last three oval races.
After being taken out on the opening lap at Portland, Scott Dixon has fallen to fifth in the championship, 101 points off his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate. Portland was the first time Dixon failed to complete a lap in a race since the 2005 Motegi race. This is the first time he has gone consecutive races without a top ten finish since the August 2021 between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and Gateway. He has not gone three consecutive races without a top ten result since 2014 over the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Indianapolis 500 and Belle Isle.
Patricio O'Ward already has an active three-race drought without a top ten finish. O'Ward has fallen to 124 points off Palou. Prior to the Olympic break, O'Ward was third in the championship and 52 points off the championship lead. He has two runner-up finishes this season on ovals.
Josef Newgarden has been heading in the right direction in the last two races. With a victory and a third-place, Newgarden has consecutive podium finishes for the first time this season and for the first time since he swept the Iowa doubleheader last year. The only problem is Newgarden is still 131 points behind Palou, a one-point improvement from where he was at the Olympic break.
There are 162 points left on the table over the final three races, and Kyle Kirkwood is 142 points behinds Palou. Kirkwood has not finished better than seventh over the first four oval races, and he has only one top five finish in the last six races.
Palou has a chance to become the 13th driver with at least three IndyCar championships, and this would be the 17th time a driver has won consecutive championships, the first since Dario Franchitti's three-peat from 2009 to 2011. Palou would be the first driver to clinch consecutive championships with races to spare since Sébastien Bourdais from 2005 to 2007.
Dixon's 400th Start
This is a historic weekend for Scott Dixon as he enters Milwaukee with 399 IndyCar starts to his name. By taking the green flag on Saturday, Dixon will become the second driver in IndyCar history to reach 400 starts joining Mario Andretti. Andretti holds the all-time record at 407 starts.
Come Saturday, Dixon's career will span 23 years, five months and 21 days. He made his debut on March 11, 2001 at Fundidora Park in Monterrey, Mexico driving the #18 Reynard-Toyota for PacWest Racing. He qualified 14th and finished 13th. Dixon's first 23 starts came with PacWest Racing over the 2001 season and the first three races of the 2002 season.
When PacWest Racing shuts it doors during the season, Dixon joined Chip Ganassi Racing in the #44 Lola-Toyota. His first race with Ganassi was on June 2, 2002 at Milwaukee, where he qualified fourth and finished sixth.
Dixon's first 39 starts came in CART with the following 360 starts coming in the current IndyCar Series. He has made 336 consecutive starts, an IndyCar record and 101 more starts than the next longest active streak. That would be Graham Rahal on 235 consecutive starts.
The last race Dixon missed was July 25, 2004 at Milwaukee. A pair of practice accidents left him with a bone chipped in his right thumb and a sprained ankle. Dixon was not cleared for competition that weekend.
In his first 399 starts, Dixon has won 58 races, second all-time. In his 24 seasons in IndyCar, he has won a race in 22 of them, including in a record 20 consecutive seasons. His 141 podium finishes are second all-time, three behind Mario Andretti’s record. Dixon holds the record for most top five finishes with 210. No other driver has 200 top five finishes. Dixon has 295 top ten finishes, and he has led 6,822 laps, the second-most all-time. He has also won six championships, one behind A.J. Foyt's record.
Dixon's first 87 starts were with Toyota powered cars. From 2014 through 2016, he drove with Chevrolet engines behind him in 50 races. His remaining 262 starts have been with Honda. Dixon's Honda starts alone would rank 13th all-time.
His first teammate was Maurício Gugelmin, a 38-year-old Brazilian who won the 1985 British Formula Three championship and who spent five seasons in Formula One with his best finish being third in the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix. One of Dixon's current teammates, Kyffin Simpson, was not even born when Dixon made his IndyCar debut. Simpson has only been alive for 330 of Dixon's starts. During his career, Dixon has had 27 different drivers as teammates.
Dixon’s first 399 starts have occurred at 52 different circuits. Of those 52 circuits, Dixon has won at 28 of them, an IndyCar record. He has raced in 23 states and eight countries on five continents. He has won in 16 of those states, but only three countries.
Dixon's 400th start will come 30 years, one month and 15 days after Mario Andretti established the club on July 17, 1994. In his 400th start, Andretti started tenth and finished fourth at Toronto.
Milwaukee Experience
It wasn't that long ago IndyCar raced at Milwaukee, but nine years is a considerable amount of time. Things change quickly, enough so that only five drivers this weekend have raced previously at Milwaukee in IndyCar.
Scott Dixon leads the way, as he has made 12 starts at the one-mile oval. He is one of three active drivers that raced at Milwaukee in CART/Champ Car and the IRL/IndyCar Series. Milwaukee is one of the 28 tracks Dixon has won at in his career. He was triumphant in 2009, winning from fourth on the grid with 27 laps led. He led the final 25 laps after overtaking Ryan Briscoe. Dixon has five top five finishes and nine top ten finishes at this circuit, including a seven top ten finishes in his last eight visits.
Will Power is another past Milwaukee winner entered in this year's race. With seven starts, Power won in 2014 at Milwaukee with 229 laps led from pole position. Though Power has three top five finishes at the circuit, he has finished outside the top ten in his other four visits and he has led only a combined four laps in his six Milwaukee starts outside of his victory. All eyes will be on Dixon for his 400th start, but he isn't the only one hitting a milestone this weekend. The first Milwaukee race is slated to be Power's 300th career start.
Graham Rahal has also made seven Milwaukee starts, but Rahal could not find victory at the circuit. He was runner-up in the 2011 race and he was third in the most recent Milwaukee visit in 2015. Rahal was eighth in the most recent oval race at Iowa, but he has not finished in the top five on an oval since he was third in the second race of the 2021 Texas doubleheader. In his 15 oval starts since that Texas race, Rahal has an average finish of 18.4667.
Josef Newgarden only made four Milwaukee starts, but Newgarden ended on a high-note. He returns to Milwaukee having finished fifth in each of the last two races here. In both of those races he started in top five. He started on pole position for the 2015 race, the first pole position of his IndyCar career. He led 109 laps, but he lost the lead through the pit cycles and did not have cautions fall in his favor. Milwaukee is one of three oval circuits Newgarden has not won at in his IndyCar career. The other two are Fontana and Pocono. He has won at five different ovals.
The forgotten driver that has Milwaukee experience is Katherine Legge, who is back in the #51 Honda for Dale Coyne Racing. Legge has contested all four oval races so far this season in the #51 Honda. Her first of two Milwaukee appearances came in Champ Car in 2006. She started eighth and finished sixth, which remains Legge's best finish in IndyCar. She returned to Milwaukee in 2012 and she finished 18th after starting 15th.
One day you were probably expecting to see listed here was Ed Carpenter. While Carpenter has made 11 starts at Milwaukee, Carpenter has decided to step aside for the final three races of the season, and Christian Rasmussen will close out the season in the #20 Chevrolet. Carpenter has not finished in the top ten in his last 15 starts with an average finish of 19.8 during that span. Thirteen of those last 15 results have been outside the top 15, including Carpenter’s last eight races.
Power was fastest at the Milwaukee test held in June. Twenty of 27 cars participated in that test as Chip Ganassi Racing was absent due to its 24 Hours of Le Mans commitments, and Juncos Hollinger Racing was absent because Romain Grosjean was also at Le Mans with the Lamborghini program.
It was a Penske 1-2-3 at the Milwaukee test as Newgarden and Milwaukee debutant Scott McLaughlin were second and third. Power ran the fastest lap at 22.6001 seconds (161.521 mph).
Doubleheader Results
There has been at least one doubleheader round held at oval in every IndyCar season since 2020. Milwaukee will become the fourth oval circuit to host a doubleheader during that time. Iowa has had a doubleheader in four of the last five seasons while Gateway and Texas Motor Speedway each hosted one doubleheader.
Only once in the last six oval doubleheader weekends has a driver swept the two races. That was Josef Newgarden in the 2023 Iowa doubleheader. However, only six times has a driver finished on the podium in both races of an oval doubleheader. Scott McLaughlin did it at Iowa earlier this season when he finished first and third. In the 2022 Iowa doubleheader, Patricio O'Ward and Will Power both did it with O'Ward finishing second and first, and Power finished third and second.
O'Ward has finished on the podium in both races of an oval doubleheader weekend more than any other driver since 2020. Along with Iowa 2022, he was third and second at Gateway in 2020, and he was third and first at Texas in 2021.
Sixteen times has a driver finished in the top five of both races of an oval doubleheader weekend, and in four of the last six oval doubleheader weekends at least three drivers have had double top five weekends. However, there have never been more than three drivers to finish in the top five of both races. There has also been never fewer than two drivers to finish in the top five of both races.
In none of these six doubleheader weekends has the winner started in the same starting position in each race. In only two of the six weekends has both race winners started in the top five. In the last four oval doubleheader weekends, the winner of the second race has started worse than the winner of the first race, and in the last three of these weekends, the second race winner has started outside the top five.
Team Penske has been running the show on ovals, and it hasn't been just on the doubleheader weekends. Team Penske has won four consecutive oval races and nine of the last ten oval races. Penske has swept the last two oval doubleheader weekends and three of the six held since 2020. Penske has had at least two podium finishers in the last six races held over a oval doubleheader weekend and in eight of the 12 races held over these six weekends.
Extending this to Chevrolet, it has won 11 of the last 12 oval races, and in oval doubleheader weekends Chevrolet has swept the races on four of six occasions. On both occasions Chevrolet did not sweep the weekend, it was Scott Dixon taking the victory for Honda. Both of those Dixon victories were in the first race of the doubleheader weekend. Only once has Honda had multiple podium finishers in a race over these six doubleheader weekends. Dixon won the first Gateway race in 2020 ahead of Takuma Sato.
No team has won more at Milwaukee than Team Penske. The organization has won eight times including three of the last ten Milwaukee races it has entered. Three other active teams have Milwaukee victories. Andretti Global has won at the circuit five times while Chip Ganassi Racing has four Milwaukee victories. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing won twice at the circuit.
Indy Lights
This is the penultimate race of the Indy Lights season, and with his victory at Portland, Jacob Abel extended the championship battle into Milwaukee.
Abel took the victory, his third of the season and first since the first race of the IMS road course weekend in May, but Louis Foster finished second at Portland. It was the ninth consecutive race Foster has finished in the top two, and Foster's championship lead remains 80 points entering the final two races.
If Foster finishes sixth or better at Milwaukee, he will clinch the championship. On Foster's side is he has won the first two oval races held this season at Iowa and Gateway. He has also finished worse than sixth in only one race this season, and that was seventh in the first IMS road course race in May.
Foster is looking to become the sixth Andretti Global driver to win the Indy Lights championship and the fourth Andretti driver to it in the last six Indy Lights seasons. He wold also become the first British champion in the series since Alex Lloyd in 2007 and the fifth British champion the history of the series.
While Foster and Abel are the only ones fighting for the championship, Caio Collet could clinch third in the championship this weekend. Collet has 376 points, 77 points ahead of Callum Hedge. Hedge had his top five streak snapped at three races after he was 13th at Portland.
There is a tight battle for fifth in the championship as 22 points cover fifth to ninth with two races remaining. Reece Gold sits on 276 points, nine points ahead of Jamie Chadwick and ten points ahead of Salvador de Alba. James Roe, Jr. is 20 points outside the top five and Myles Rowe is 22 points back.
Indy Lights will run a 100-lap race at 3:50 p.m. ET on Saturday August 31.
Fast Facts
Saturday's race will be the ninth IndyCar race held on August 31, and the first since Justin Wilson won at Belle Isle in 2008. It was the final victory for Newman/Haas Racing.
August 31 was also the date of Maurício Gugelmin's only IndyCar victory. It came at Vancouver in 1997.
Sunday's race will be the 17th IndyCar race held on September 1, and the first since Will Power won at Portland in 2019.
The average starting position for a Milwaukee winner is 4.522 with a median of third.
Ten of the last 12 Milwaukee races have been won from a top five starting position. Those other two Milwaukee races were both won from 11th.
Thirteen of 113 Milwaukee races have been won from outside the top ten.
This will be the 40th year Milwaukee has hosted multiple races. Milwaukee hosted at least two races in every season from 1947 to 1982. In 1947, 1948 and 1965, three races were held at the circuit. From 2004 to 2006, Champ Car and the Indy Racing League each ran at the track.
Chevrolet won all four Milwaukee races contested since engine competition returned to IndyCar in 2012.
The most recent Milwaukee race in 2015 had 15 cars finish on the lead lap, the most ever for a Milwaukee race.
The fewest drivers to finish on the lead lap for a Milwaukee race was nine on June 8, 1969.
Only one Milwaukee race has been rain-shortened. The 1994 race ended after 192 of 200 laps due to rain.
The average number of lead changes in a Milwaukee race is 4.168 with a median of 4.5.
The last nine Milwaukee races have had at least five lead changes with the last three races having at least eight lead changes.
Seven Milwaukee races have had at least ten lead changes.
The most lead changes in a Milwaukee race is 12, which occurred on June 3, 2001. Kenny Bräck won that race.
Seven Milwaukee races have featured no lead changes, most recently on June 5, 2004 with Ryan Hunter-Reay. Hunter-Reay led 250 laps in that race.
The fewest laps led by a Milwaukee winner was nine by Joe Leonard on June 7, 1970.
The average number of cautions in a Milwaukee race since 1972 is 3.964 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 28.736 with a median of 26.
The most caution periods in a Milwaukee race was eight on June 8, 1976. The most caution laps in a Milwaukee race was 79 on May 31, 2003.
Predictions
Colton Herta and Josef Newgarden split the weekend while Will Power will do just enough to keep the championship alive heading to Nashville, but Álex Palou's championship lead will still be greater than 40 points. The two races will be within 15% of each other in total passes. Chevrolet teams will combine to lead at least 350 of 500 laps over the weekend. There will be no funny business with the hybrid on pit lane or during qualifying. There will be no funny business on a restart. Alexander Rossi will be the top finishing Arrow McLaren driver in both races. Scott Dixon gets at least one top ten finish and does not lose significant ground due to a poor pit strategy. The longest green flag run in one of these races will be more than 150 laps. Sleeper: Kyle Kirkwood.
