And here we are at the final day of 2025. Can you believe it is already 2025? A quarter of a century is behind us, and yet it feels like it just began. It has gone fast and it is not slowing down.
Enough of the existential pondering for a moment, we have an annual tradition to attend to. Every year, we hit New Year's Eve, and we end the year with IndyCar predictions for the next year. It has been a while since our most recent IndyCar, 123 days to be exact, but who is counting? At least we are two-thirds of the way through the offseason. Only 61 days to go. That is only two months! If we have survived four months, what are another two more?
My goodness, that is depressing to write.
Well, fuck it. Let's get ready with a dozen predictions for the new season.
1. Will Power finishes in the top three of street course points
When the green flag waves on March 1, 2026 at St. Petersburg, it will be the first time since September 7, 2008 at Chicagoland Speedway Will Power starts an IndyCar race for a team other than Team Penske. Power will begin his Andretti Global-era, and after seeing how 2025 ended, Power is motivated.
It was not the cleanest end to his time at Penske, but Power did end as the best Penske driver in the championship. He was ninth, and one point ahead of Scott McLaughlin.
Power did finish in the top five in two of four street course races in 2025. He was taken out on the opening lap at St. Petersburg, and he dropped like a rock at Toronto but did enough to finish 11th.
We are approaching four years since Power's most recent street course victory, and he is one of the best street course drivers in IndyCar history. He is joining a team that has been pretty on point when it comes to street races in recent seasons. Kyle Kirkwood won two of the four in 2025, and Kirkwood also won two of the five street races in 2023.
Andretti Global has won five of 13 street races over the last three seasons. That is tied for the most with Chip Ganassi Racing. Patricio O'Ward has won two of them with Arrow McLaren. Christian Lundgaard won the other with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
In 2025, Kirkwood scored the most points in street races with 165, 48 points more than Álex Palou. O'Ward was 51 points back on 114 points and Colton Herta had 112. Even Marcus Ericsson cracked the top eighth with 94 points.
Will Power was tenth in street course points in 2025 with 87.
The Andretti switch will see Power flourish on street courses, and he will return to being one of the best at them.
2. Josef Newgarden will at least double his top five finish total
The 2025 season was a season from hell for Josef Newgarden. If something could go wrong, it went wrong for Newgarden. Races went against Newgarden in creative ways.
Seatbelts came undone while in the top five at Long Beach. The car failed him in the Indianapolis 500. He had nowhere to go when Louis Foster spun in front of him exiting turn four at Gateway. He spun over the final corner at Road America. He spun at the start at Mid-Ohio. He was on the wrong side of a caution twice in the second Iowa race. He was collected in turn one when Jacob Abel ran wide, and he was spun in the chicane when he exited the pit lane ahead of Scott Dixon at Portland, and it then took Newgarden two laps to get the car re-fired.
Of those eight races that went horribly wrong for Newgarden, at least half of those should have been top five results, Long Beach, Gateway, Iowa and Portland, and he probably would have been in the top five at Indianapolis as well.
Newgarden only had three top five finishes in 2025. He definitely should have had more. I think six is the lowest bar. There are six oval races. He could be in the top five of all six oval races. He is the most recent Phoenix winner. He has won two of the last three Indianapolis 500s. He is the best to ever race at Gateway. He just won at Nashville. He probably should have finished in the top five at Milwaukee as well in 2025 had he not been shuffled back due to him not taking tires under the final caution, one of three drivers not to stop, and there will be two Milwaukee races next year!
Even if he only gets four top five finishes on ovals next year, he is going to be better on road and street courses. There were some flukey results in 2025 that aren't going to repeat themselves in 2026. It will be better.
3. Álex Palou will not lead the championship after at least six races
Palou went wire-to-wire. He led the championship after every race in 2025. In 2024, he led the championship after 12 of 17 races, and he led the championship for the final ten events. In 2023, he took the championship lead at the fifth race and never looked back, leading for 13 races. Even in his first championship season in 2021 he led the championship after 11 of 16 races.
Every season where Palou has not led the championship after at least six races, he has not won the championship that season. But in every season where he has not led the championship leader for no more than five races, he has been champion.
As great and as inevitable as Palou has been in IndyCar, this is IndyCar. Nothing lasts forever. Things swing from one side to the next. He will still be great and be the driver to beat, but to think he is going to lead the championship after at least 12 races again after he has led the championship after 42 of the last 51 races is expecting a lot.
Only one driver has won four consecutive championships. Palou damn well could become the second driver to do it, but it will not be as big of a walkover as we have seen before.
4. Scott Dixon will win a race where he leads at least the final 10% of the race
Dixon was a little fortunate to win a race in 2025. If Álex Palou does not have a brain fade with six laps to go and drive off the road, Dixon does not win at Mid-Ohio. Palou did his best to get the lead back, but once behind Dixon, he could not make the pass for the victory. Any other day, Dixon does not win that race, Palou is celebrating his seventh victory in the first ten races, and we likely do not see a Dixon victory in 2025.
Dixon only led 91 laps in 2025. He led seven races, and in four of those, he led five laps or fewer. This was the second consecutive season Dixon failed to lead 100 laps. From 2006 to 2023, he only failed to lead 100 laps once (97 laps in 2014).
Every time we get concerned about Dixon and his winning streak and whether or not he has lost a step, he wins a race or goes on a run and wins three races in a four-race span, and he still finishes at the top of the championship. If 2025 was a bad year, it was a bad year when he was third in the championship and his only finish worse than 12th was 20th in the Indianapolis 500 when his brakes caught on fire under caution before lap 30, and the team made a late decision to change the brakes, which cost Dixon multiple laps.
At Mid-Ohio, Dixon led 11 laps total, but he only led the final six laps, the final 6.667%. In 2026, Dixon will win another race, but this time he will win the race and lead the final 10% of the race. Let's say it is the Indianapolis 500, he would need to lead the final 20 laps, which is asking a lot at Indianapolis, but at Mid-Ohio, he would just need to lead the final nine laps. At Gateway, he would need to lead the final 26 laps.
You get the picture. It is doable.
5. Meyer Shank Racing wins a race
This is the most cut-and-dry prediction, and it is a little boring. It will either happen or it won't.
In the last two seasons, MSR has come close to victory with Felix Rosenqvist having some memorable runs. Last year, Marcus Armstrong had a remarkable season as both MSR drivers ended up in the top eight of the championship. Both MSR drivers finished ahead of all three Team Penske drivers in the championship. No one saw that coming!
The technical partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing helps, and it is bound to pay off with something special. Felix Rosenqvist was maybe a lap or two shy of beating Álex Palou at Road America, but a special fuel-saving drive led to another Palou victory. The pace has been there for MSR. I think this is the year MSR gets a victory. Either driver could do it.
6. Rinus VeeKay scores the most points for a Juncos Hollinger Racing driver
After a stellar season at Dale Coyne Racing saw VeeKay take a team that could not finish better than 13th in the 2024 season to finish 14th in the championship with a runner-up finish at Toronto and an impressive fourth-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park, VeeKay has moved to JHR, his third team in three seasons.
JHR has yet to win an IndyCar race. In the eight seasons it has competed in IndyCar, the last four has seen at least one full-time entry, JHR has one podium finish and five top five finishes. It has never had a driver finish better than 16th in the championship. VeeKay has never finished worse than 14th in the championship.
The most points for a JHR driver came last year. Conor Daly scored 268 points, but he was 18th in the championship. Romain Grosjean was a spot better in 2024, but Grosjean scored eight fewer points. Callum Ilott was 16th in 2023 with 266 points.
Based on VeeKay's track record, he should top this. He has never scored fewer than 277 points in a season. His average points total is 301.667. There are some reasons to believe this will be one hill too high for VeeKay to summit. JHR has struggled for pace with a selection of drivers, some on par if not better than VeeKay. We knew Dale Coyne Racing could be competitive, and it wasn't a complete surprise VeeKay got get top ten finishes there. There is no reason to feel confident he can get six to eight top ten finishes at JHR.
However, if all he needs is 269 points, and that would have been good enough for 18th last season, I think VeeKay gets there.
7. Christian Lundgaard will have consecutive top five finishes and one of those finishes will be fourth or fifth
Lundgaard was the surprise to start 2025. He had three podium finishes in the first four races and it looked like he was set to take the spot as best McLaren driver. Patricio O'Ward did come on in the second-third of the season and ended up finishing second in the championship while Lundgaard wound up fifth.
A few results went against Lundgaard that were out of his control, and his season became defined by either being on the verge of victory or shuffled at the back of the pack. He had six podium finishes in 2025, but zero finishes of fourth and zero finishes of fifth.
That changes, and Lundgaard will have a pair of races where he finishes in the top five in both, and one of those results will be a fourth or a fifth. In his career, 69 starts, Lundgaard has finished fourth in three races, but not since the August 2023 Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course races, and his only fifth-place result was the 2022 season finale at Laguna Seca.
8. Alexander Rossi will lead at least 100 laps
It has been a rough few seasons for Alexander Rossi. He left Andretti Autosport for McLaren in hopes of being a championship contender, and in two seasons won zero races and never finished better than ninth in the championship, the same form he showed in his final three seasons at Andretti. Last season, he moved to Ed Carpenter Racing, where for the first time in his IndyCar career he failed to have a podium finish in a season.
With an average finish of 13.764 and a championship finish of 14th, this was Rossi's worst season in IndyCar.
Rossi has not led 100 laps in a season since 2019. He has led fewer than 50 laps in three of the last five seasons.
However, that changes in 2026. Rossi will hit 100 laps led. Ed Carpenter Racing hit good form on ovals at the end of this season, capped off with Christian Rasmussen taking victory at Milwaukee. Rossi was looking competitive at Indianapolis last year before mechanical issues ended his race. One good oval race could be 100 laps led in one go. If he has three good oval races, that could be 40 or 50 laps led a pop and that will get him there easily.
9. Each Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry finishes better in the entrant's championship
It couldn't be much worse. The best RLLR entry in 2025 was 19th. Two of the entries didn't even crack the top 22. There are only 27 full-time cars.
It does feel like we are going through another cycle for RLLR, and after the last three years of spinning downward, it is time for the team to rise. I don't think it can get back to the championship top five in 2026, but it just needs each car to do a little better.
Graham Rahal had the #15 Honda in 19th. Rahal was only eight points off 18th. He had eight finishes outside the top fifteen. If he lowers that number to four, he will would get another spot in the championship.
Louis Foster was 23rd in the #45 Honda, and he was tied on 213 points with the #6 McLaren Chevrolet of Nolan Siegel. Foster had zero top ten finishes, but he had a few close calls. He had seven finishes between 11th and 14th in 2024. If he turned one 11th into a tenth, he would have been 22nd. If he turns three of those finishes into top ten results, he could be 21st and jump the #90 Prema entry.
Then you have Mick Schumacher taking over the third RLLR entry, the re-numbered #47 Honda. This car was the second-worst entry in the championship in 2025. Devlin DeFrancesco had the #30 Honda in 26th on 171 points. That was ten points off the #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet in 25th. DeFrancesco was averaging barely over ten points a race. I don't see how Schumacher could do that poorly. To get to 25th, he just would need to average 10.647 points per race. I feel like Schumacher should be able to do that accidentally.
I don't know how high a RLLR entry could rise in 2026, but if the #15 Honda is 17th with the #47 Honda in 18th and the #45 Honda in 19th, that fulfills the prediction, even if RLLR would have some work to do.
10. Fewer than 50 points will separate Marcus Ericsson and Dennis Hauger
Depending on how you read this, either Dennis Hauger is going to do very well or Marcus Ericsson is going to do very bad, because there is no middle ground.
Ericsson's second season at Andretti Global was a slip backward from an already poor position after 2024. Ericsson was 20th in the championship. He was 26 points behind Graham Rahal. Ericsson had one top five finish. He had two top ten finishes over the entire season. It was his worst season in IndyCar by far.
Meanwhile, Dale Coyne Racing had Rinus VeeKay in 14th and 71 points clear of Ericsson.
I don't think 2026 will be as bad for Ericsson, and I don't think Hauger will immediately hit the level VeeKay reached, even though Hauger's Coyne entry will be run in partnership with Andretti Global. I think there is a middle ground where Ericsson rises back to 14th or 15th in the championship, but Hauger ends up being 16th or 17th, wins Rookie of the Year, and these two drivers are pretty darn close.
11. Indianapolis 500 one-offs will lead fewer than a third of the race
The 2025 Indianapolis 500 will have a strange place in the history book. It already has a strange place, but it will develop as we get away from it.
Takuma Sato led the most laps. Ryan Hunter-Reay led the second-most. They combined to lead 99 laps. Throw in Jack Harvey leading three laps and Ed Carpenter leading one, and Indianapolis 500 one-offs led over half the race in 2025. No full-time driver led more than 17 laps, and those drivers were Marcus Ericsson and Devlin DeFrancesco!
Don't worry, we will not see the same thing again in 2026, and we will see a market correction. A third of the Indianapolis 500 is 66.667 laps. One-off drivers are not going to lead more than 67 laps next year. They could led a few laps. Hunter-Reay has moved to McLaren for the 2026 Indianapolis 500. Sato could be back. Hélio Castroneves is still going to be out there. There is a chance one of those drivers could lead 30 or 40 laps on their own. The 2025 race was such an obscure event in how it played out from start to finish that I don't see one-off drivers leading that many laps again.
12. A country wins a World Cup match and an IndyCar race on the same day
This is a fun one, as The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, and IndyCar will be intertwined in a sense as the Nashville race is scheduled to follow the 2026 World Cup Final.
The World Cup begins on June 11 with the final on July 19. There will be three days in which an IndyCar race and World Cup matches are both occurring. For this one to be correct, a country must win its match and the IndyCar race winner that day must be from one of the countries that win a match.
For example, June 21 is the IndyCar race from Road America. On that same day there will be four group stage matches, the second match days for Group G and H. The matches that day are Belgium vs. Iran, New Zealand vs. Egypt, Spain vs. Saudi Arabia and Uruguay vs. Cape Verde.
There looks like only two real possibilities for June 21, but don't you like your odds? Álex Palou, Scott Dixon, Scott McLaughlin and Marcus Armstrong could all win at Road America. Spain will be heavy favorites over Saudi Arabia. New Zealand has a mighty task against Egypt, and the All Whites (yes, this is New Zealand's national team nickname) must win for this to be correct. A moral victory in a draw over Egypt will not be enough.
July 5 will see IndyCar at Mid-Ohio, and there will be two quarterfinal matches. We don't know who will be playing that day, but it could be Brazil. It could be the Netherlands. It could be Sweden (if it qualifies via its UEFA playoff). Norway is a possible option as are Germany, England, Mexico, and Spain.
Then there is the day of the final, and the door is open to any of the 48 countries that qualify to play on that day.
Could we see a dream day where the United States lifts the World Cup and then Josef Newgarden wins again in his home race?
Could Australia do the unthinkable while Will Power does the plausible?
Could July 19, 2026 be the day it ends up coming home and England sees Callum Ilott take a first career victory that would very much be overshadowed?
Or does Germany claim another World Cup while Mick Schumacher wins on an oval?
Does Caio Collet win a rain-shortened Nashville race after Brazil wins its first World Cup since 2002 earlier that afternoon?
Anything is possible at this point.
With that thought in mind, let's close out 2026 thinking about everything that is possible in the New Year. Thank you to all those who have taken the time to read these post. Don't forget to check out any of the other sets of predictions for NASCAR, motorcycle racing, Formula One and sports car racing. They will keep you busy over the first few days of the New Year, as we will return to our usual musings on Monday.
Happy New Year!
