And so begins the final quarter of 2025. September has cooled off though summer made a few late statements. The sun is going down before 7:00 p.m. and it is rising after 7:00 a.m. September is a sleepy month, a recovery of sorts from the rush of summer and an adjustment to the change of autumn. There is also less racing to keep us busy.
A few series are wrapping up. Every series is in its final races. Everyone is in the single-digits. They will all be over soon. Some hardware is being claimed early. We have an idea how these seasons will end. We are counting down the final days.
IndyCar Tidbits
Yes, the season ended a month ago and there was not a single IndyCar race contested in September 2025, but we are closing this month with the final trove of tidbits from the 2025 season. We are going to touch upon penalties, the rookie class, ending the season making the wrong kind of history, as well as how American drivers did, but we must start with what was a historic championship and put it all into perspective.
The Champion
Last year I said it was
hard to write about a driver when he has won his third championship. It should be no surprise that Álex Palou followed that up by making it easy to write about his fourth championship because the fourth was staggeringly good. It was a historic season in many different ways.
Let's just start with the points because Palou hit a total we have never seen before with this points system.
Palou scored 711 points. Since the Indy Racing League because awarding 50 points for a victory in 1998, this was the highest points total ever achieved. The previous highest was 678, which Scott Dixon achieved in 2018.
But Palou scored 711 out of a possible 929 points. That is 76.533%, the highest percentage of points since Sébastien Bourdais scored 76.938% of the maximum points in the 2006 Champ Car season (387/503).
There is something notable about the highest share of points since the CART/USAC split in 1979. See if you can notice it.
A.J. Foyt - 85.128% (1979 USAC)
Johnny Rutherford - 78.71667% (1980 CART)
Buzz Calkins & Scott Sharp - 78.095% (1996 IRL)
Sébastien Bourdais - 76.938% (2006 Champ Car)
Álex Palou - 76.533% (2025)
Did you pick up on it?
The other four occasions higher than Palou's share all occurred during a split. Whether it be USAC and CART or CART and the Indy Racing League, they all occurred when there was a fracture in American open-wheel racing, until Palou in 2025.
Since 1979, this was the first season in which a driver scored at least 75% of the maximum points and there was a single IndyCar series. On only two other occasions has a driver scored at least 70% of the maximum points and there been one series. That would be Scott Dixon in 2008 (71.698%) and, you guessed it, Álex Palou in 2023 (70.613%).
Yeah, so Palou made a bit of history.
Let's go a bit further...
Eight victories, it was only the ninth time a driver has won eight races in a season since 1946.
Thirteen podium finishes, it was only the sixth time a driver has reached that total since 1946.
Fourteen top five finishes, it was only the ninth time a driver has reached that total since 1946.
The interesting thing is the juxtaposition of Palou's last two championships.
In 2024, Palou won the title, but it wasn't the most impressive championship we ever saw. We wrote about a lot of lows. Palou only won twice in 2024. He only had five podium finishes. His share of the maximum points was the lowest in nine years, which was the 2015 season, a season that saw six drivers enter the finale with a chance at the championship and only one driver won at least three races.
This season, Palou quadrupled his victory total from the year before, he nearly tripled his number of podium finishes, and as we mentioned before, he had one of the highest share of points in the last 45-plus years in IndyCar.
Yet, despite the difference of these two seasons, both titles felt pretty secure halfway through the season. This year, it was pretty much locked up after race #2. Palou led the championship wire-to-wire! Scott Dixon just did that in 2020, but 2025 was only the second time a driver went wire-to-wire in the championship lead since reunification.
This was Palou's third consecutive title. Only three other drivers have done that (Hello, Ted Horn, Sébastien Bourdais and Dario Franchitti). It was Palou's fourth title. The only drivers with more have the last names Foyt and Dixon. Palou is level with Bourdais, Franchitti and someone named Mario Andretti.
And this was only Palou's sixth season in IndyCar! He has still only made 98 starts in his career. He will not turn 30 years old for another two years! He is on 19 victories! Multiple that winning percentage over 350 starts and Palou is at 67.85 victories. That means we are pace for a new all-time leader in victories in about 15 years time, and that seems very possible considering Palou will only be 43 years old at that time and we have already seen the likes of Scott Dixon and Will Power remain highly success at that age. If the all-time victories record is at risk of falling, championships sets to be in the crosshairs as well. Palou is more than halfway to Foyt's record of seven, and he hasn't even been in IndyCar for a decade.
Last year, I asked if IndyCar is ready for a driver who could completely dominant a decade. I think we know the answer is no, but like it or not, it appears Palou is just getting started.
Americans
Unless Palou takes on new citizenship and openly embraces becoming an American, it will be tougher for the local drivers to triumph in IndyCar for the next ten years. Though one had a pretty good year, the American drivers did not shine in 2025. Even the best ended on a bit of a downer.
For the second consecutive season, American drivers combined to win only four races. There were only two American winners for the third consecutive season. However, there were only two American drivers in the top ten in the championship. That was the fewest since 2014. However, in 2014, there were two American drivers in the top ten of the championship and five regular drivers. This season, there were 11 full-time drivers, the most since 2020.
Kyle Kirkwood was the top American driver in the championship, and he did win three races, the second most to Palou, but Kirkwood ended the season with no top five finishes in the final eight races. This was after having five in the first nine events.
Josef Newgarden swept in and saved this from being a year with only one American winner in the final race, but Newgarden wasn't the other American driver in the top ten of the championship. That was Colton Herta, who ended up winless but seventh in points.
Americans excelled in the next set of ten drivers in the championship. While Kirkwood and Herta were in the top ten, six American drivers took the next six spots in the championship. David Malukas was 11th and two points ahead of Josef Newgarden. Alexander Rossi was 15th on 297 points, four more than Santino Ferrucci, who lost 26 points for improper weight ballast at Detroit. Those 26 points would have put Ferrucci 11th in the championship. Conor Daly and Graham Rahal were 18th and 19th respectively.
This was the fifth consecutive year without an American champion, the longest drought since 2007 through 2011.
Every Race Álex Palou Did Not Lead Kyle Kirkwood Won
Pretty straightforward statement.
This season saw Palou lead at least one lap in 14 of 17 races. In the three races Palou did not lead a lap, Kyle Kirkwood won.
At Long Beach, Kirkwood led 46 of 90 laps form pole position while Palou finished second, just over 2.6 seconds back. At Detroit, Kirkwood led 48 of 100 laps after starting third. Palou had started fifth, but he was taken out after David Malukas hit Palou entering turn one. At Gateway, Kirkwood only led eight laps as the race came down to a late pit cycle while Palou spent most of the race running just inside the top ten and ended up finishing eighth after starting ninth.
I don't know what it means other than it is a strange coincidence of the season, and if anything happens to Álex Palou, Kyle Kirkwood is suspect #1.
The Wrong Kind of History
The final three races of the season could not have been more memorable for the worst possible ways and the best possible ways for Christian Rasmussen.
Let's start with Portland where Rasmussen was ostracized for his driving after he forced Conor Daly off the road in turn seven, Daly made a lunge at contact at the chicane, and the spat soon ended with Daly spinning off the circuit after attempting an aggressive pass on Rasmussen in turn ten.
Though never punished from race control, Rasmussen was labeled as the menace from the ruckus in Portland.
What happened in the next race?
Rasmussen took a stunning first career victory at Milwaukee after taking tires under a late caution and charging down Álex Palou, who had dominated the race. Rasmussen also won with one of the most aggressive drives we have seen as he was sawing on the wheel and remained on the limit despite pulling away from second-place.
How did Rasmussen follow up his first career victory?
The Dane couldn't even make it through two corners at Nashville and he was out on the first lap of the race, leaving him classified in 27th, last-place.
How many times has a driver won a race and then finished last in the next race?
Rasmussen was the 41st occasion of a driver winning a race only to follow it with a last place finish. He was the first since Will Power in 2019, who had his own bit of history as Power won at Pocono, was last at Gateway and then won at Portland. Power did a complete 360º in a three-race span over six years ago.
But let's go a little further because Rasmussen wasn't just a driver who finished last. He finished last and Rasmussen did not complete a lap. How many times in the previous 40 occasions did that happen?
It happened four times prior, and the other four names will have your attention!
Dan Gurney won the first race of the July 27, 1969 doubleheader at the Indianapolis Raceway Park road course. In the second race, Gurney was out before lap one was completed due to a fuel filter issue.
It would not happen again until 2001, and this one is a little messy. Hélio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500. Seven days later, Castroneves was competing in the CART race at Milwaukee. What happened? Castroneves had an accident on the opening lap after contact with Kenny Bräck and Cristiano da Matta. Castroneves was first in a race in one series and then last in his next race in a different series. Ah... The Split. You got to love it!
The following season saw Dario Franchitti win the first CART race in Montreal. In the next race at Denver, Franchitti was out on the opening lap due to the accident after Team Green teammate Paul Tracy slammed into Franchitti attempting a wishful pass up the inside.
This is where Franchitti gets his own bit of history that Rasmussen could match at the 2026 St. Petersburg season opener. Franchitti then won the next race at Rockingham. So Franchitti went win, out without completing a lap and win in a three-race span.
The most recent time prior to Rasmussen was in 2013. James Hinchcliffe won at Iowa. At the next race at Pocono, Hinchcliffe had an accident in turn one spinning all on his own after getting a little high after starting third.
Here is another coincidental trend that Rasmussen is a part of after his Nashville result.
Of the last five occasions where a driver has won a race and then finished last in the next race, four of those have been drivers coming off their first career victory.
You have Rasmussen, and we have already covered the most recent occasion prior to Rasmussen was Power in 2019, but before Power was Colton Herta, who won his first career race at Austin earlier in that 2019 season and then Herta followed that with a last-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park.
Prior to Herta, Carlos Muñoz won the first race of the 2015 Belle Isle doubleheader only for his engine to fail five laps into the second race. Then you have Carlos Huertas, who infamously won the first Houston race in 2014, which was rain-shortened and Huertas had a fuel cell that was larger than regulations allowed, but in the second race at Houston, Huertas retired after two laps due to a mechanical issue.
If you go beyond Huertas, you have Hinchcliffe's Iowa/Pocono combo that we just mentioned but prior to Hinchcliffe, you also have James Hinchcliffe, who scored his first career victory at St. Petersburg to open the 2013 season only to finish last in the second race at Barber due to a loose wheel. So it has actually been the case that in five of the last seven occasions where a driver has gone from first to last in race results that the driver was coming off their first career victory.
This might be a trend to keep in mind moving forward.
Multiple Winners Outside the Championship Top Ten
Speaking of Rasmussen, he won the penultimate race, but he was 13th in the championship. Josef Newgarden was 12th in the championship, and Newgarden won the season finale.
It is not often we see multiple drivers win races and not finish in the top ten of the championship. When was the last time it happened?
Well, it happened not that long ago in 2021. Rinus VeeKay won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but VeeKay ended up finishing 12th in the championship. Hélio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500, but Castroneves was not full time in 2021. He only ran six races and he was 22nd in the championship.
So when was the last time two full-time drivers won a race and both finished outside the top ten in the championship?
It still likely happened a little more recent than you would imagine.
It was 2016. Alexander Rossi won the Indianapolis 500 and he ended up 11th in the championship, only two points outside the championship top ten. Sébastien Bourdais won the next race at Belle Isle, and Bourdais wound up 14th in the championship. Bourdais was 28 points outside the championship top ten.
This year, Newgarden was 40 points outside the championship top ten, and Rasmussen was 43 points off.
An Odd Rookie Class
For all the bright spots we can take from two of the three rookies this season, it was one of the most unproductive rookie classes in recent IndyCar history. It is difficult to call it the worst rookie class, but it has an argument.
For starters, this was the first time a rookie did not finish in the top 20 of the championship since 1986. Louis Foster was the top rookie in 23rd on 213 points, two points more than Robert Shwartzman in 24th. Jacob Abel scored 123 points over 16 starts, and Abel was 27th in the championship, 48 points behind the next closest driver.
Despite all of that, two of these drivers won a pole position. Robert Shwartzman took pole position at the Indianapolis 500 and Louis Foster took pole position at Road America. We actually had multiple rookies score pole positions in 2019 with Felix Rosenqvist and Colton Herta, so it wasn't that long ago but it still rarely happens.
How about this? We had a rookie of the year with zero top ten finishes and he beat another driver who had multiple top ten finishes.
When was the last time either occurred?
The answer is, of course, 1986.
Dominic Dobson is credited as
rookie of the year for the 1986 CART season. Dobson's best finish over nine starts was 11th at the Meadowlands. That earned him two points, combined with a point for 12th at Long Beach and Dobson finished 31st in the championship on three points. However, Dobson was not the top finishing rookie in points. In fact, he wasn't even second best.
Sports car driver Chip Robinson made two starts in the 1986 season with Dick Simon Racing. Robinson was 14th at the Meadowlands, but he finished the season with a seventh-place result in the 1986 finale at the Tamiani Park circuit in Miami. This earned Robinson six points. However, Mike Nish also made three start in the 1986 season, nearly two years removed from his first career start at Phoenix in October 1984. Nish was tenth in his first start at Portland, earning him three points.
Robinson and Nish were 26th and 30th respectively in the championship. Nish was a spot better than Dobson on tiebreaker as Nish's best finish was tenth to Dobson's 11th. Robinson made three starts in the 1987 season and never raced in IndyCar again. Nish failed to qualify for the first two races of the 1987 season and never attempted another race after that.
Dobson would go on to attempt a race in each of the next eight seasons. He would not get a top ten finish until he was seventh at Detroit in 1989, his 19th career start. His best finish was third in the 1994 Michigan 500 driving for PacWest Racing. Dobson was tenth in his final career start, the 1994 finale at Laguna Seca.
Only time will tell how we will look back on the class of 2025. I am sure all three drivers hope to do more than what they achieved this year.
No Repeat Finishes
When we last checked in on this in June, only two drivers were remaining after nine races, Scott Dixon and David Malukas. How far would they go?
Well, in the very next race, the tenth race of the season from Mid-Ohio, Malukas would finish 17th, his first repeat finish as he was 17th at Long Beach. Cross off Maluakas.
Dixon won Mid-Ohio, his first and only victory of the 2025 season. Dixon remained alive for another race.
At the first Iowa race, Dixon was tenth, and he finished tenth at Thermal Club in the second race of the season. Within two races, no drivers were left standing. Everyone had a repeat finish by the 11th race.
Dixon's streak of ten consecutive different finishes to start a season was the fewest since Marcus Ericsson was the last one standing with a nine-race streak to start the 2019 season. The previous five seasons had all seen at least one driver make it 12 races repeat finish. This was the first season where Dixon was the last driver standing before a repeat finish.
Penalties
We do not talk about penalties much in IndyCar. We acknowledge them when warranted. This season saw a fair number of penalties we could not ignore, but there are plenty of penalties we brush off because Nolan Siegel running in 17th serving a penalty for running over the air hose on a pit stop doesn't really matter.
There was something I noticed early on. In three of the first four races, there were no penalties. No drive-through penalties for speeding, no blocking penalties, no jumped restarts, nothing, nada occurred at St. Petersburg, Long Beach and Barber Motorsports Park. That would not stand, and every subsequent race would see at least one penalty occur.
Based on IndyCar's box scores, the races with the most penalties were the Indianapolis 500 and Road America, as each had nine penalties. Indianapolis includes the three post-race penalties that saw Marcus Ericsson, Kyle Kirkwood and Callum Ilott effectively disqualified and moved to the final three spots in the classifications.
In the first five races, three had no penalties, Thermal Club had four penalties and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis had three penalties. In the next four races, every race had at least seven penalties. Along with the post-race penalties after the Indianapolis 500, Detroit saw Santino Ferrucci penalized post-race 26 points for improper weight ballast instillation.
There were 25 unique penalties this season in IndyCar and 66 penalties occurred over the 17 races.
The most common penalty was avoidable contact, which there were 11 of each violation over the 17 races. The most avoidable contact penalties came at Road America, which saw three. Only one driver had multiple avoidable contact penalties this season. That dubious honor belongs to David Malukas. Malukas was penalized for the contact with Palou at Detroit and then he picked up the second avoidable contact penalty on lap 38 at Road America.
Pit lane speeding violations and blocking were tied for the second most offenses in 2025. Each happened nine times. Almost half of the pit lane speeding penalties occurred at the Indianapolis 500. There were four during that race.
Six of the nine blocking penalties came in two races. There was one block at Gateway (Nolan Siegel) and then three at Road America before we saw two at Portland and three in the Nashville season finale.
The only other penalties that occurred more than five times this season was emergency service in a closed pit lane, which happened seven times.
The most penalized driver was Devlin DeFrancesco, who took seven penalties this season. DeFrancesco's first infraction was avoidable contact at Thermal Club, which technical came before the race even began as the Canadian got into the side of Scott McLaughlin going through the final corners on the final pace laps.
Then at Detroit, DeFrancesco took two penalties, emergency service in a closed pit lane and causing an avoidable yellow flag. He had a block at Road America, another emergency service penalty at Mid-Ohio and then two blocking penalties at Portland. DeFrancesco was responsible for a third of the blocking penalties this season, and he was the only driver to receive multiple blocking penalties!
The only other drivers to have at least five penalties this season were Christian Rasmussen (two speeding penalties, two emergency service penalties and a failure to follow directions penalty), and Robert Shwartzman, but one of those wasn't really on Shwartzman because his penalty at Thermal Club was an unapproved modification to the fire suppression system. That is more on the team, and it only cost the team entrant points, not driver points. Shwartzman did fail to pack up in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, hit personnel in the pit lane in the Indianapolis 500, sped on pit lane in the second Iowa race and threw a block at the Nashville finale.
On two separate occasions this season did a driver get three penalties in a single race. At Gateway, Felix Rosenqvist received an unsafe release penalty on the pit lane. The punishment was a drive-through, but Rosenqvist decided to drop to the rear of the field thinking that would satisfy the demand. Since the Swede did not properly serve his penalty, he was handed a stop-and-go penalty for failing to follow directions. About 143 laps later, Rosenqvist had to take emergency service in a closed pit lane.
Despite all of that, Rosenqvist was still leading with less than ten laps to go and one caution could have won him the race.
The other occasion involved Rinus VeeKay in the next race at Road America. VeeKay was handed a penalty for jumping the restart on lap seven. Two laps later, VeeKay got a penalty for receiving service in the pit lane before green flag conditions, and he got an avoidable contact penalty on lap 28 and was forced to drop three positions. I remember none of that from VeeKay's Road America race and he finished tenth despite those penalties!
Six of the full-time drivers did not receive a penalty throughout the 17 races. They would be Álex Palou, Patricio O'Ward, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi, Graham Rahal and Sting Ray Robb.
October Preview
There are a few European championships that will be decided shortly. One will be decided this weekend.
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season ends at Hockenheim this weekend, and one of nine drivers could leave as champion. Lucas Auer leads on 171 points, seven points ahead of Jordan Pepper, 11 points ahead of René Rast, 16 points ahead of Maro Engel and 17 points ahead of Ayhancan Güven.
Then you have Jack Aitken and Marco Wittmann tied and 21 points behind Auer. Thomas Peining is 25 points back and Jules Gounon is 29 points behind Auer with 56 points remaining on the table.
Auer won two of the first three races and he has only finished on the podium twice since then. Pepper has one victory. Rast has won three times but he has also finished outside the top ten in as many races. Rast has the most podium finishes this season with five. Güven has the most victories this season with four, but he has five finishes outside the top ten and his victories are his only podium results.
Reigning DTM champion Mirko Bortolotti is 15th in the championship and his best finish is sixth.
The European Le Mans Series will go to its finale from Portimão on October 18 with the top three in the LMP2 championship separated by seven points. VDS Panis Racing has won twice with the #48 Oreca of Oliver Gray, Esteban Masson and Charles Milesi. IDEC Sport has won the other three races with Jamie Chadwick, Mathys Jaubert and Daniel Juncadella in the #18 Oreca. VDS Panis Racing has 81 points, six more IDEC Sport. The you have Inter Europol Competition, which has finished second in each of the last four races and it has #43 Oreca of Tom Dillman, Jakub Śmiechowski and Nick Yelloly six points back entering the finale.
In LMGT3, seven teams could win the championship. AF Corse leads with Riccardo Agostini, Custodio Toledo and Lilou Wadoux on 66 points in the #50 Ferrari, 12 points clear of the #59 Racing Spirit of Léman Aston Martin of Erwan Bastard, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Clément Mateu.
The other title hopefuls are the #82 TF Sport Corvette (52 points), the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari (47 points), the #85 Iron Dames Porsche (46 points), the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari (44 points) and the #86 GR Racing Ferrari (43 points).
The #50 Ferrari is the only team with multiple victories in the class.
Other events of note in October
IMSA will also have its season close and a number of championships decided at Petit Le Mans.
The Bathurst 1000 takes place in two weeks.
MotoGP has some dead-rubbers to run in the Asia-Pacific region.
Toprak Razgatlioglu will likely claim another World Superbike championship.
Formula One has a night race in Singapore before coming to the United States and Mexico.
NASCAR has some races to run.
There will also be the Indianapolis 8 Hour to close out the Intercontinental GT Challenge season.
