Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
MotoGP closed its season in Valencia, and Marco Bezzecchi closed his season with a victory on his 27th birthday. It was Bezzecchi's second consecutive victory and third of the season. JR Motorsports confirmed it was attempting the Daytona 500 again with Justin Allgaier. IMSA did some testing at Daytona where the results were virtually meaningless because of BOP. The test results are meaningless the week before the 24 Hours of Daytona. What would make two months earlier any more relevant? A number of IndyCar drivers were testing. Speaking of IndyCar drivers, we haven't really spoken much about the recent movement on the grid.
Not So Silly After All
There hasn't really been a need for weekly check-ins on IndyCar silly season, but over the past week-and-a-half, there has been plenty of news, and most of it has been substantial.
Another full-time seat has been claimed, though it went the way we expected.
Caio Collet was confirmed in A.J. Foyt Racing's #4 Chevrolet for the 2026 season. Collet fills the spot vacated when David Malukas moved to Team Penske. Collet was second in the Indy Lights championship, 72 points off Dennis Hauger with three victories. With this news, it appears two full-time seats remain open on the 2026 IndyCar grid, the second Dale Coyne Racing entry and the #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, though Devlin DeFrancesco was announced as signing a multi-year deal at the end of last year.
Beyond the full-time seats, we are also getting Indianapolis 500 seats filled, and one of the biggest one-off entries was filled last week. Ryan Hunter-Reay was announced to be taking the fourth Arrow McLaren entry, and Hunter-Reay will drive the #31 Chevrolet for the team. This will mark Hunter-Reay's 17th Indianapolis 500 attempt and his sixth different team competing for at Indianapolis. He had spent the last three years driving for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
With Hunter-Reay moving, it opens another space on the grid, as Dreyer & Reinbold Racing has lost one of its drivers. D&R announced Jack Harvey would be back in one of its entries at Indianapolis in September.
We sit less than two weeks from Thanksgiving with 25 full-time cars confirmed, two more open and three Indianapolis 500 entries set with Hélio Castroneves in a third Meyer Shank Racing car.
It feels like a game of musical chairs is about to begin for the month of May seats.
The two full-time seats appear to have outsiders, those who were not on the grid in 2025, as front-runners. Romain Grosjean is heavily rumored to be the primary candidate for Dale Coyne Racing's vacant seat. The RLLR seat is either remaining in Devlin DeFrancesco's possession or it will be Mick Schumacher.
Those two decisions do not really change much for May other than if Schumacher does get the ride then DeFrancesco becomes a potential one-off contender.
Where are those other three seats coming from?
There is the second Dreyer & Reinbold car, Andretti Global's annual additional entry, Ed Carpenter Racing's third car for Ed Carpenter, and those three alone would get the May grid up to 33 cars without considering Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing bringing out a fourth car, which seems highly likely seeing as how Takuma Sato drove for RLLR at a test at the Speedway last month. Then we are back at 34 entries with each team fielding the same number of cars as they did the year before.
It really means that as we sit here there are only two open one-off seats seeing as how Ed Carpenter will likely hire Ed Carpenter for the open Ed Carpenter Racing seat, and Sato seems firmly in RLLR's plans.
It is the second D&R ride and the fourth Andretti car that remain.
Andretti Global knows its one-off driver from 2025 will not be back. Marco Andretti announced earlier this month his retirement from motorsports. Andretti Global also has a former full-time driver who is competing with the team in a different discipline who has no races scheduled from the middle of April through the start of June.
If we are being honest with ourselves, the only logical choice for Andretti's open car is Colton Herta, seeing as how his Formula Two schedule allows him to fully focus on an Indianapolis 500 one-off, and if Herta is already announced to be running for Cadillac in three IMSA endurance races, attempting the Indianapolis 500 is not a step too far in his 2026 calendar.
That leaves one seat for the 2026 Indianapolis 500, and about 975 drivers vying for it. If we are honest, it is about three or four serious names, and everyone is trying to raise significantly more money than Conor Daly.
Daly has four consecutive top ten finishes in the Indianapolis 500, including one with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. It is his for the taking.
Could Linus Lundqvist do enough to get that D&R spot on the grid? Maybe. If Devlin DeFrancesco loses the RLLR seat, he could take his money and likely pay for a one-off. Even Jacob Abel is a possibility.
Outside of that, everyone else is a reach.
Could J.R Hildebrand make a comeback? Yes, but no is the correct answer. Could Katherine Legge raise enough money? Possibly, but Legge's racing interests are elsewhere at the moment. Anyone else is a stretch.
There is not a swath of drivers at the lower rungs looking to get a shot and see Indianapolis as an opportunity. I do not sense Lochie Hughes and Myles Rowe are itching to add an Indianapolis 500 one-off to their schedules along with a full Indy Lights season. Toby Sowery is hanging around but is technically a RLLR reserve driver. There are the likes of Tristan Vautier and Hunter McElrea who have been in IndyCar circles in recent years ready for an opportunity should it present itself.
It is not a breath-taking group of suitors for a spot on the entry list for the biggest race IndyCar has to offer. We do not see surprises that often. We knew Kyle Larson wasn't coming back the moment he was out of the race this May, and there isn't another NASCAR driver in consideration for The Double. We aren't going to see Yuki Tsunoda come over because Honda doesn't have a place for him in Formula One, and Tsunoda must be kept busy.
If you are expecting a splash, need not put on that poncho, my friend. You are going to remain dry. The final pieces of the 2026 IndyCar puzzle are laid out and we have a clear view of what the picture will be. The usual suspects have been rounded up, and these teams are rather predictable with their decisions, but who can blame them? There is one clear option that stands above the rest. No one is walking through the door that will make the grid think any differently.
Champions From the Weekend
Diogo Moreira clinched the Moto2 world championship with an 11th-place finish at Valencia..
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marco Bezzecchi, but did you know...
Álex Márquez won MotoGP's sprint race from Valencia. Izan Guevara won the Moto2 race, his first victory in three years when he won the 2022 Moto3 finale from Valencia to cap off his championship season. Adrián Fernández won in Moto3, his first career victory in his 85th career start.
Chaz Mostert and Broc Feeney split the Supercars races from Sandown.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One has a a bit of an earlier night in Las Vegas.
Super Formula concludes it season at Suzuka.
