Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Andrea Kimi Antonelli waved a flag. Monza had some accidents. The Isle of Man TT began. NASCAR hasn't had a qualifying session in a few weeks. Corey Heim has locked up a full-time Cup ride for next season. Detroit proved to be a physical weekend for everybody. Toyota had a good weekend at home. History continued in Aragón. Italians will outfit Alpine next year. Álex Palou won again. It is June 1st, but before we move completely away from the month of May, let's tackle one overarching topic from this month and its most famous event.
Bumping and Business
Even before we got to May 2026 the lack of bumping for this year's Indianapolis 500 drew considerable attention. Once Formula Two announced it was adding races to the Miami and Canadian Grand Prix weekends to make up for the lost Bahrain and Saudi Arabia fixtures, it put an Indianapolis 500 entry in question. Once Colton Herta could no longer run the Indianapolis 500, Andretti Global decided not to enter an extra car at all. This left IndyCar with only 33 entries this May.
For four of the previous five years, more than 33 cars had entered the Indianapolis 500, and we had some memorable qualifying moments to see who would make the race. Dating back to 2018, bumping has provided excellent drama on a consistent basis. The lack of it is not a shock, as it has been intermittent for the entirety of the 21st century, but this year's dearth of entries raised extra concerns, especially when paired with IndyCar's still relatively new charter system and the announcement that starting next season non-chartered entries will not be eligible for entry to races outside the Indianapolis 500.
For the full-time teams, there is a lot to lose with bumping in place. However, for Indianapolis Motor Speedway and even IndyCar, bumping does provide to the qualifying weekend. The absence of bumping this year meant the qualifying format on Sunday had to change and IndyCar was going to add three more cars to the pole position fight with an additional round, the "Final 15" with six cars competing, three advancing to complete the Fast 12 and the remaining three set to fill row five.
Weather prevented us from seeing the "Final 15" session, but it hardly drew any excitement when it was announced. It felt rather redundant and unnecessary. May we never have to consider the "Final 15" again. However, we need to consider something if we are not going to continue to bastardize pole position qualifying, and that is where we return to bumping.
One more car on the entry list and we are not having this conversation. As IndyCar president Doug Boles pointed out in the lead up to qualifying, all the consternation over the entry list was nearly avoided. If the Formula Two schedule had not changed and Prema had not undergone significant business issues, we could have seen 36 cars, though it is unlikely the HMD Motorsports with A.J. Foyt Racing entry for Katherine Legge materializes with such circumstances, but we would have had bumping.
Bumping is living on the knife's edge at the moment. We were so close to a full Last Chance Qualifing session to determine who would start on the final row and possibly had multiple cars fail to make the race, and yet we fell on the side of just getting 33 cars.
However, the future over bumping and the Indianapolis 500 entry list is now within the general interest of all the teams involved.
For as much pushback the charter system has created in IndyCar, it is a collective effort focused on the health of the series, and it can be a tool to facilitate growth. IndyCar can set a standard for what it will take to earn a charter entry. If you want a charter, there are terms that must be agreed upon. One of those can be Indianapolis 500 entries.
The simple solution that IndyCar can set is if you are a team that receives a charter, you must enter a car for the Indianapolis 500. That can be a basic tenant for charter approval. That stipulation would save bumping once and for all. With each manufacturer about to receive a charter entry for the 2028 season, we are about to have 27 full-time cars. There are ten teams in IndyCar. If in two years each had to run an additional car for the Indianapolis 500 we would have 37 entries before even considering teams like Dreyer & Reinbold Racing entering. We would then need to have a discussion over if the one-hour Last Chance Qualifying session would be enough time to determine who makes the race if we had 38 or 39 entries.
Everything is easier said than done, but such a stipulation would solve the issue. If we consider that five teams contributed to Indianapolis 500 one-off entries and Andretti Global was 9/10ths of the way there, most teams are already showing a willingness to contribute to the Indianapolis 500 entry list beyond their full-time entries. They see a value in a full field and they also see a value of running an extra car even if it puts their full-time entries in doubt of making the race. It is getting the likes of Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, Dale Coyne Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing involved. Two of those teams would have no issue fielding one more car.
There are good reasons as to why teams do not want to field an extra car. You could argue it would be level for everyone if everyone had to run an extra car, but as much as we want more cars at Indianapolis, the reveal of the Indianapolis 500 purse and the share non-Leader Circle entries received explicitly shouts as to why teams don't want to enter an extra car.
While this year's Indianapolis 500 purse was a record $30,906,400, that money was largely for the Leader Circle teams. All 22 cars that finished in a Leader Circle spot at the end of the 2025 season were credited with earning more than $1,000,000 in winnings. Meanwhile, tenth-place finisher Takuma Sato, driving a one-off entry for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, went home with $137,000. While Sato and 12th-place finisher Dreyer & Reinbold Racing's Conor Daly earned $138,000, the other six Indianapolis 500 one-offs made between $102,000 and $105,500 in winnings.
The three chartered entries that did not finish in the Leader Circle spots last season (the #47 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, the #19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda, and the #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet) received a little bit more than the true one-offs. Those three entries each earned between $155,000 and $159,800. Mick Schumacher picked up an extra $50,000 for Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year and an extra $10,000 for being fastest rookie qualifier. That put Schumacher up to $218,800 in winnings.
That is appalling wealth distribution even by United States standards, and it speaks volumes to how much IndyCar values one-off entries. Doug Boles cannot say he loves bumping and is focused on bringing back bumping drama and then, in the year with the largest Indianapolis 500 purse ever, a more than 50% increase from the year before, be paying barely more than $100,000 to the lowest earning entries.
Teams are spending close to $1 million, or possibly even more, to run one race. Even the teams doing it on a budget are spending north of $500,000. Their only hope of breaking even cannot be winning the race. That is not a sign of a healthy race nor one that wants outsiders to enter.
If that purse increase is just applying the increase in Leader Circle money than perhaps the conversation should be whether or not the funding should be distributed better. The full-time teams deserve their fair share, but if we are trying to incentivize Indianapolis 500 one-offs, some of that money should be saved and allocated to the teams that fill the 33 entries.
Looking at the money on the table, there is enough to take care of the full-time teams and the one-off entries.
A simple way would be to take the bottom five Leader Circle finishers and take away $250,000 from each and then take the next six Leader Circle finishers and take away $150,000 from each.
That is $2,150,000 that can be spread to the other 11 entries. If shared equally, that is still only about $195,454 per entries. It is more than what the teams are currently getting, but some teams would still being getting less than $300,000.
A real bump would be getting another $5 million for the purse. Again, easier said than done but we just found $11 million for the purse. I am sure Roger Penske can find $5 million more. That injection could be distributed equally to the one-off entries. That would be about another $454,545 per one-off teams, and now every teams would leave with more than $750,000 just for starting the Indianapolis 500.
That would be significant and it would certainly increase interest in one-off programs for the Indianapolis 500. It would make everyone stronger. Imagine if every team knew it could break even just from starting the Indianapolis 500 and could hire a driver instead of needing a funded driver. Even for the funded drivers, imagine if a driver knew all he or she needed to bring in funding was about $200,000 instead of needing to find $600,000 to finalize a program and being entirely priced out from a seat. That would make Indianapolis more accessible to a number of talent drivers, especially veterans who lost interest in attempting the Indianapolis 500 because how much money they had to raise for one race.
The Indianapolis 500 is IndyCar's prize cow, but all financial benefit should not be reserved exclusively for the full-time teams. They should get a bulk of the money, but they should not be the only ones seeing the rising tide.
The distribution of this purse increase is insulting, especially if IndyCar leadership is saying it wants to preserve bumping for the future. If you want to preserve bumping, an Indianapolis 500 one-off cannot be a money pit. There must be some hope that a team can at least break even or at least isn't turned off from ever entering again. The money is clearly there to spread it around so everyone can feel better.
One of the attractions to the Indianapolis 500 back in the "golden era" of motorsports was how much money it paid just to start. In Art Garner's Black Noon, which tells the story of the 1964 race, Garner notes last place in the Indianapolis 500 paid more than winning the Monaco Grand Prix. It isn't going to be like that now, but the Indianapolis 500 should at least take care of all those who make the race. Abel Motorsports should at least have most of its bills covered and feel good that it can try again next year.
The money is there to make it work, and if IndyCar wants bumping, it must acknowledge and properly compensate those who allow the field of 33 to be the field of 33.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Álex Palou, but did you know...
Marco Bezzecchi won MotoGP's Italian Grand Prix, his fourth victory of the season. Raúl Fernández won the sprint race. Manuel González won in Moto2, his third victory of the season. Brian Uriarte won in Moto3, his first career grand prix victory.
Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Cup race from Nashville, his second victory of the season. Justin Allgaier won the Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season. Layne Riggs won the Truck race, his third victory of the season.
The #31 Whelen Racing Cadillac of Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber won the IMSA race from Detroit. The #3 Corvette of Antonio García and Alexander Sims won in GTD Pro.
Enzo Fittipaldi won the Indy Lights race from Detroit, his second victory of the season.
The #66 Tresor Attepto Racing Audi of Ariel Levi, Rocco Mazzola and Sebastian Øgaard won the 3 Hours of Monza.
Nicolò Bulega swept the World Superbike races from Aragón, and Bulega has won all 18 races this season. Alessandro Zaccone and Jaume Masià split the World Supersport races.
Elfyn Evans won Rally Japan, his second victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar has a Sunday night race from Gateway.
The Monaco Grand Prix occurs on its latest date ever.
MotoGP has its earliest trip to Hungary ever.
NASCAR keeps Michigan busy with its only race at Michigan International Speedway.
