This has been an odd season for O'Ward as he started the season regularly finishing in the top five, it was just never better than fourth or fifth. This is his third podium finish of the season. All his podium finishes have been victories. Three victories is a great season, nine times out of ten, and I think this has been a great season for O'Ward. It has been strange to say the least.
2. We will pause on going through the rest of the field to acknowledge Álex Palou clinched his fifth career IndyCar championship, and his fourth consecutive with a tenth-place finish. Palou didn't have to do more than ride around today. That goes for both races. It was that way prior to the weekend. He may have coughed up 42 points with a messy Washington, D.C. race, but he wasn't going to do that again. All he needed was clean days. He didn't do anything wrong. Tenth was enough. It helped that the rest of the competition was not perfect.
We will discuss Palou's legacy later. We have an entire offseason. We were content on Palou had clinched this title after Detroit. Through eight races he had four victories, six top five finishes and seven top ten finishes. Prior to last week, he had finished in the top five of every race this summer. No one was close to matching that output. It is no longer good enough to be great in IndyCar. You must be flawless to beat Palou. They all know it. None have been able to do it.
3. Back to the finishing order, David Malukas took second when it looked he was on his way to his first career victory. Malukas had strategy play in his favor as he had a pit stop before the red flag yesterday and he had the speed later in a stint to maintain a gap to the field. When Malukas had to make his pit stop, he had the tire advantage and carved his way through the field and back into the lead when everyone else had to stop. It looked like Malukas was firmly in control.
Then the final restart happened. A stutter in the engine allowed O'Ward to fly up the inside into turn one and that was curtains. Malukas remained close but O'Ward eventually pulled away. Lapped traffic never went in Malukas' favor. Overall, fourth and second on the day is a great day. This was Malukas' sixth career runner-up finish and his fourth of the season. It is deflating to be this close and have it not come through.
4. Rounding out the podium was Rinus VeeKay, who used the lapped car of Scott Dixon as a pick to pass Scott McLaughlin in the closing laps. VeeKay had the car at the end of the race to threaten for a great finish, and the Dutchman got it. This has been an outstanding season for VeeKay, and it is on the verge of being a career-best. He was brilliant this weekend and was running with the big boys. There is something special here.
5. Scott McLaughlin comes home in fourth. Malukas went fourth-second. McLaughlin goes second-fourth. McLaughlin didn't need strategy help to get this finish. He didn't quite look as strong as O'Ward and Malukas. A podium would have been a respectable result. I said this a few weeks ago but this feels like where McLaughlin is stuck at the moment. Really good, but not quite the driver to beat.
6. Christian Rasmussen capped off the day with a fifth-place finish. Rasmussen needed this weekend. It has been an underwhelming season. There have been more bad results, some of his doing, some of the team's failings, than you would have expected. We know the oval speed is there. It didn't always show or get the finishes this season. It stood out in Milwaukee. It likely will be enough to secure a Leader Circle position. It is a small victory. It should be a starting point for next season.
7. If you were told on Wednesday, "Christian Lundgaard would finish third and sixth at Milwaukee," you likely would have called it poppycock. Well, it happened. Lundgaard drove two solid races at Milwaukee, and the driver being shown the door at McLaren due to his oval form ended with the best oval races of his career. He has a comfort with Milwaukee. He was comfortable with Iowa as well. There are more than two ovals and Iowa isn't on the schedule. Lundgaard probably still has some mental barrier he must break down especially with quicker ovals, but he is getting there. I am sure Chip Ganassi Racing will get him over that hump.
8. That extra set of tires did come in handy for Josef Newgarden, the only problem is Newgarden slipped down the running order early in this race resumption and was fighting from behind. It also didn't help that over 15 cars were on the lead lap so the likelihood of riding those tires to an improbable victory was slim-to-none. It was surprising how much Newgarden struggled with the balance of his car this weekend. He has never had a grip on Milwaukee since it returned to the schedule in 2024, which is odd because when IndyCar left, Newgarden had two incredible drivers in 2014 and 2015. A lot can change in a decade.
9. The top Honda was Marcus Ericsson in eighth. Ericsson had a racy car at the end but it never came close to cracking the top of the field. This was by far Honda's worst race of the season. I don't think they were particularly bad. It was more misfortune today than anything else. If Palou had more to race for, he might have been more of a factor.
10. In ninth was Marcus Armstrong. Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing took fuel just before the race restarted. This group was throwing things at the wall in terms of strategy in both races. In this one, it led to a ninth-place finish. It gets Armstrong off the snide. He can head to Laguna Seca with an increase in confidence.
11. We will cover all of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing here because Louis Foster and Mick Schumacher were 11th and 12th respectively. Graham Rahal was 23rd, three laps down. For a banged up driver, Foster drove stellar this weekend. He was icing his hand as he is still carrying the knocks from the Markham accident. I am surprised he drove this well at Milwaukee considering how off he was at Washington, D.C.
Schumacher overcame a spin after slight contact with Dennis Hauger to finish 12th. We are all surprised Schumacher did this well on ovals. We all expected that he would improve but I don't think we expected him to be starting as well as he did and being a threat for top tens, especially with this team.
Which leads us to Graham Rahal. I don't get it. You don't get it. It doesn't make sense that the 20-season veteran is one of the slowest cars on the track while his teammates are pushing for the top ten. RLLR had its oval woes for a half-decade or so. Rahal appears trapped in a bottle with all the oval suffering the team went through. We saw Rahal run well on ovals earlier this season. I don't get where it went while everyone else at RLLR took a step forward.
12. Nolan Siegel took 13th, and Siegel benefitted from Will Power's caution. Siegel was running long on that stint and was still on the lead lap in eighth while needing to make a pit stop. When Power, McLaughlin and Lundgaard came upon the slower car of Siegel, Power went to the outside and ended up in the marbles. Power hitting the wall allowed Siegel to make a free pit stop and finish on the lead lap. Power was not particularly happy after that on.
Siegel was in the way for much of these two races. He has been better this year, we cannot deny that. We started this season with Tony Kanaan saying Siegel had to push for the championship top ten to retain his ride. We knew Siegel would never come close to that. He is closer to 20th than tenth. I don't know if he will get another opportunity in IndyCar. We can do a post-mortem after the season is over. From the beginning, this felt like an unnecessarily rushed move. Everyone is being proved correct on that thought.
13. There was brief thought during the afternoon race that Ed Carpenter Racing is the biggest fraud in the series as it has somewhat frequently shown great pace in practice only for both of its cars to be struggled to run in the top fifteen during the race. Rasmussen somewhat disproved that. Alexander Rossi did no favors against that allegation. Rossi dropped like a rock after this race restarted. He didn't crack the top ten in either race. He has one top ten finish in the last five months. Where have you been, Alex? Should we put your face on a milk carton?
14. We covered in the First Impressions for the afternoon race that the points were not there for Kyle Kirkwood to keep the championship alive into Laguna Seca. If the afternoon race was a brilliant drive, this conclusion was burning your hand on the hot plate. We ended yesterday thinking Kirkwood was on the move and the afternoon race proved it. In the resumption, Kirkwood struggled on that set of tires. He lost ground and never recovered. He nearly caught the Schumacher caution at the right time but he was a hair later entering pit lane. The team took a gamble putting on slightly used tires and it did not net him any more positions. I think Kirkwood was better than 15th. I wish we got two uninterrupted Milwaukee races. I don't think Kirkwood would have been 15th if this race ran in its entirety yesterday.
15. Kyffin Simpson and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the lead lap finishers. In two races in one day, I don't think I heard Simpson's name once. I am not sure where Rosenqvist went in this one. Yesterday looked very promising and he vanished in thin air in both races today.
16. Scott Dixon was a lapped car that Rinus VeeKay used as a pick to finish third. That is a sentence you did not expect to be reading when this season started. Dixon was never competitive this weekend. It was hard to watch those closing laps. It has been hard to watch this entire season.
17. Pretty much everyone from 19th on back was caught a lap down when the red flag came out yesterday and they remained a lap down through the checkered flag today. Romain Grosjean couldn't work his magic like he did in the afternoon race. Santino Ferrucci was a disappointment. Dennis Hauger got screen time for nudging Schumacher into a spin. Sting Ray Robb didn't do anything wrong but he didn't do anything great either. We covered Graham Rahal.
I am sure all five of these drivers are thinking they would have been better off leaving after the afternoon race and they all would have been home before the delayed race resumed.
18. Add Caio Collet as the sixth driver who likely wishes he did not restart this race. Collet was already off the lead lap and slow. Pinballing off Josef Newgarden and into the front straightaway barrier was the final nail Collet did not need in his coffin. Newgarden was quick and Collet was in no man's land. The brief brush with greatness put the Brazilian in the barrier and mercifully ended his weekend.
It was never going to get better. I think it is safe to think Collet will be making his final start with A.J. Foyt Racing at Laguna Seca. The Brazilian money might be enough for him to stay, but it sounded ominous after the last few races. It has flipped drastically from where we were only a few months ago. That is professional motorsports.
19. This was a classic Will Power weekend. Blinding speed, incredible car that can work its way through traffic, lost result because of something absurd. In the afternoon race, it was Power speeding on pit entry for the final stop. In this race, it was coming upon Nolan Siegel, who was trudging along on old tires hoping for a timely caution and who inadvertently helped cause said timely caution. There is a world where Power finishes first and fifth this weekend or second and seventh. Instead, it is 14th and 25th, and that three-race run of third-place finishes feels might far away.
20. This was a longer day than expected. This was a longer doubleheader than expected. Considering the first race that took the green flag this weekend did not end until after 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, you cannot say this was a smooth weekend. We will go into greater depths tomorrow. It wasn't IndyCar's greatest weekend. It was far from the worst either, but it had its frustrating moments and while the series cannot control the weather, it didn't handle what it can control the best either
With that said, we should acknowledge two 250-lap races were completed this weekend. The weather on Sunday was nice, even if there was a threat of rain as the evening race resumed. The event still looked good for all the hiccups, and Milwaukee is a track IndyCar should be at, and others agree as the series has a contract through 2030 to race at the facility. No tracks are lining up to host IndyCar. Anyone that is willing to give a four-year deal is one worth sticking with.
21. These races were fun today. There was plenty of action. It isn't a high-speed oval. It isn't two-by-two for ten rows. The speeds aren't pushing 230 mph, but these drivers are on the ragged edge and there is a substantial amount of precision in the passes that are made. They take time but are enthralling to watch develop. I see this race and wonder why IndyCar isn't trying to organize a race in Loudon. After Gateway and this race, how is the series not dying to get to Richmond? Those are two worn tracks where tire falloff plays a key role in the NASCAR races. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to what we saw today. If only there were a few more one-mile ovals in this world...
22. We can ponder that thought throughout the night. It could be a nice distraction from the reality that in seven days the season will be over. One more checkered flag will wave at Laguna Seca and then a six-month offseason will begin. We can think about that next week.
