Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
With Jorge Martín withdrawing from Malaysia due to his arm injury suffered last week in Australia, Marc Márquez grasped the opportunity and won the Malaysian Grand Prix after finishing second in the sprint race to Pedro Acosta. Márquez could clinch the MotoGP world championship at the next round, but this MotoGP has shown us not to be certain over anything. Records were broken in Mexico City. Esteban Ocon was benched at Haas, and Ryō Hirakawa made an unexpected Formula One debut. All three NASCAR national series championships will be decided at Homestead. It may be November, but something around May was on my mind.
A Sprint Concept for IndyCar
I was thinking about how hard it is to get an Indianapolis 500 one-off entry. We have 25 full-time cars and at least eight one-off entries. The problem for young drivers is not just raising the funding but convincing a team you are worth the shot, especially if there are nine extra entries or more. Even if you get a ride, that could be it.
With the charter rules, only 25 cars are going to be allowed in all other races shortly (unless IndyCar changes its rulebook for Barcelona, but we can discuss that a later day). Midseason driver replacements are not unheard, but they are not a yearly thing. A driver may get a ride for Indianapolis and then not get another shot until the following May, or perhaps never again.
It does feel like the pool of one-off drivers is shrinking. We make the joke that Conor Daly is everyone's reserve driver, but it is partially true. Daly will have a full-time ride in 2027 with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Teams will have to look somewhere else.
How can any drivers get a shot in IndyCar with how few opportunities there are to drive?
Every year, it feels like most of the Indy Lights grid does not have a sniff at IndyCar. Only two drivers from the support series in 2025 moved up to IndyCar in 2026. From 2024 to 2025, two drivers moved up and Nolan Siegel was a midseason promotion in 2024. When it comes to the 2023 championship, only Christian Rasmussen moved up while Siegel, Louis Foster and Jacob Abel all eventually got a shot, but Abel was out of IndyCar after a season, and Siegel may not have a ride in 2026.
A lot of talent is left on the sideline. Hunter McElrea was runner-up to Rasmussen in 2023, and he has one IndyCar start to his name. Toby Sowery was third in the 2019 Indy Lights championship, and it took him five years to get a handful of starts with Dale Coyne Racing. We can never say whether or not Kyle Kaiser was any good because Kaiser had six starts over two seasons. He will always have bumping Fernando Alonso and McLaren from the Indianapolis 500, but to rate Kaiser in any way as an IndyCar driver is complete unfair. His career, like many, was rather incomplete.
I was thinking about Myles Rowe and how Rowe excelled notably on ovals in Indy Lights. Rowe had a few good road and street course performances, and he was fourth in the 2025 Indy Lights championship. Rowe has done enough to get at least an Indianapolis 500 entry, but outside of an Indianapolis 500 attempt, I am not sure he will get a chance to race elsewhere.
What could be done to get more drivers a shot at IndyCar and gauge what is the best talent currently without a ride?
Whether we like it or not, sprint races have become a regular thing in a few forms of motorsports. Formula One introduced a few in 2021, and coming in 2027 there will be ten sprint rounds. MotoGP adopted sprint races at every round starting in 2023. Starting next year, MotoGP sprint races will receive their own qualifying session, just like Formula One.
There is no good reason for IndyCar to adopt sprint races in the same vain as Formula One and MotoGP, but for a championship that is not going to increase its number of race weekends, this is a way for more racing to take place. However, it could also present an opportunity to allow the sprint races to stand apart from the actual championship.
I don't think we need more races for the driver's championship, but sprint races could be used as a separate series meant for non-full-time drivers. It couldn't be at every race weekend, but my idea would be eight race weekends would be delineated as sprint weekends, three road courses, three street courses and two ovals, and participation would be limited to drivers with 35 IndyCar starts or fewer at the start of that season.
On those weekends, each car is split between the full-time driver and the sprint driver. On the first day for road/street courses, each driver gets a practice session. The full-time driver gets 45 minutes and the sprint driver gets 30 minutes. On Saturday, the sprint drivers get a modified qualifying session. The field is split into two groups. Each group gets ten minutes. The top three from each group advances before a six-minute final round. IndyCar practice and qualifying takes place as usual for the full-time drivers, and then the sprint race is held, 50% of the full race distance.
For ovals, it would be a little tougher, but those sprint weekends could have a test day for sprint drivers the day before the two-day weekend begins. It could be a two- or three-hour test for these drivers. Then on Saturday, the full-time drivers could get an hour practice session before the sprint drivers have a one-hour session that doubles as qualifying. The full-time drivers could get another practice and their qualifying session in before the sprint race closes the day with a race at 50% full race distance.
Early sprint rounds could be held at Arlington and Barber Motorsports Park. It could return after the Indianapolis 500 at Detroit and Gateway. The summer could rotate, but initially races could be held at Mid-Ohio, Portland and Markham before the sprint finale at Milwaukee.
For the sprint portion to carry some weight, while the drivers would score their own points and not contribute to the full drivers championship, the sprint points could go toward the entrant's championship. Have you ever wondered what is the point of the entrant's championship if it is identical to the drivers? Here is a chance to differentiate it. All points scored by those cars, regardless of the driver, go toward the entrant's championship, and now teams have incentive to find the best drivers available and not just settle for another driver with money to fill the championship. It would hopefully incentivize the teams to hire drivers, especially if the full-time seats are already funded.
There would still be variety in the driver lineups. We would see Hunter McElrea get more than just testing opportunities and Toby Sowery would likely get a chance to race. The proposed rule would allow Team Penske to run Felipe Nasr, as well as giving Myles Rowe an opportunity. It would leave the door open for current Indy Lights drivers to get a shot in an IndyCar while still developing. It would be a great for Enzo Fittipaldi and Tymek Kucharczyk, and it would keep both drivers in the IndyCar bubble, not sending both to the curb. This could be the place for the likes of Josh Pierson to show what they are capable of before receiving full approve to drive in IndyCar.
This proposal would also allow teams to bring in talent from different parts of the motorsports world. Alex Dunne could be a driver for Dale Coyne Racing if he doesn't get a full-time ride. Kakunoshin Ohta could use it as a chance to get familiar with an IndyCar driving for Meyer Shank Racing. We could see Andretti Global bring in Jake Dennis from Formula E. Perhaps General Motors wants to keep Jack Aitken and Frederik Vesti busy and farms them to Ed Carpenter Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing respectively. We could maybe see Linus Lundqvist actually race after running three races as a substitute in 2023 and the entire 2024 season before being kicked to as a "simulator development driver." What a depressing title!
I just listed 12 names above, essentially half a grid, and tell me you would not be interested in seeing an IndyCar race with McElrea, Sowery, Nasr, Rowe, Fittipaldi, Kucharczyk, Dunne, Ohta, Dennis, Aitken, Vesti and Lundqvist competing? And we would still need 13 more drivers! Think about who else could be added!
Bringing more drivers into IndyCar isn't a bad thing, and it could be done in a way to let talent shine with results that can be used to improve a career that are not just controlled test sessions. These would be actual race results against a full field.
When you consider IndyCar's driver ecosystem, IndyCar doesn't keep drivers around. Drivers are here-and-gone in a flash. Such a sprint concept would have over two-dozen more drivers competing, of which some would likely be from sports cars and the sprint would be a secondary job, but others would be racing versus not racing, and that is something IndyCar fails to do at the moment. We see drivers race in the month of May and then do nothing until the following May.
This isn't NASCAR where drivers may fall out of the Cup Series but they can continue their careers in the lower two levels and extend their career a decade or more. There are no Justin Allgaiers, Harrison Burtons or Daniel Hemrics within the IndyCar spectrum. This concept would create a few, and that would be a good thing to have a handful more drivers more skilled with an IndyCar and increases the options for full-time drivers that teams otherwise are not considering.
IndyCar isn't one to try new things. It doesn't do anything revolutionary to a point it hurts. This would be a departure from a usual race weekend format, but it could be done to help the series develop drivers while also increasing meaningful events on track. This would be more than just another practice session, and a race where all drivers have something to prove could be utterly exciting to watch.
Such a weekend format is far from reality. No one within IndyCar's office is thinking about a sprint series, but it could be beneficial to the series and the drivers around it. It could give Indy Lights drivers a place to go instead of just hitting a dead-end and going to sports cars or entirely ending a career altogether. There are plenty of kinks and hurdles keeping it from reality, but it surely would be something different that could see IndyCar's prospective talent pool grow. More names could be brought to the table, and if results are strong enough, it could force teams to consider drivers previously never on their clipboard.
There are plenty of things IndyCar must iron out, but this would be a different way to solve a problem, and it would keep drivers within the IndyCar circle. IndyCar should not be afraid of that, and it should seek to develop its talent pool, realizing great drivers are all over the place, some just need a chance.
Champions From the Weekend
Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched the World Drivers' Championship with a third-place finish in the Mexican Grand Prix. Antonelli became the youngest world champion at 20 years and 68 days old, over three years younger than the previously youngest world champion Sebastan Vettel.
Máximo Quiles won the Moto3 race from Malaysia, his 11th victory of the season, and Quiles technically clinched the Moto3 championship after his victory in Indonesia a few weeks ago, but it was lost in the shuffle that weekend, and we properly recognize Quiles at this moment.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about, Marc Márquez, Pedro Acosta and Máximo Quiles, but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Mexican Grand Prix, his third victory of the season.
David Alonso won the Moto2 race in Malaysia, his second victory of the season.
William Byron won the NASCAR Cup Series race from Martinsville. Carson Kvapil won the Grand National Series race, his third victory of the season. Chandler Smith won the Truck race, his third victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
The NASCAR season concludes at Homestead for the first time since 2019.
The FIA World Endurance Championship wraps up in Monza.
Super GT ends at Fuji.
MotoGP may race in Qatar. Yamaha is already boycotting the race based on the current conflict in the region.
Formula One continues onward to Brazil.
