Musings From the Weekend: Playing Second or Third Fiddle

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

We had a pair of season opening weekends, but IndyCar picked up where it left off with Álex Palou stomping the competition in St. Petersburg. Tires played a surprising role at the end of MotoGP's season opener at Buriram, and now Marc Márquez has a bit of a hole to climb out of. There are 21 races remaining. Plenty of time for a comeback. Dario Franchitti held up pretty well in the Truck race from St. Petersburg. History was made in the Cup Series. However, we look ahead to next weekend and the shared bill for IndyCar and NASCAR. IndyCar's most popular driver spoke about it in St. Petersburg though he was not gushing over the event.

Playing Second or Third Fiddle

It is a quick turnaround for IndyCar from the first race of the season as six days after the checkered flag in St. Petersburg, the green flag for the second race of the season will wave from Phoenix Raceway. IndyCar returns to the one-mile oval for the first time since 2018, but this time IndyCar is running during the NASCAR weekend along with the Cup Series and NASCAR's second division, the first companion weekend for the two entities since 2023. From 2020 to 2023, IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series raced together at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The final three years saw both series run on the IMS road course. 

The weekends at Indianapolis were generally seen as positive as it brought the biggest series together. For one weekend, you could go to the same track and see both series compete. It was definitely convenient for spectators and the television partners. Whenever two series are getting together, optics come into play, and those optics were on the mind of Patricio O'Ward.

When asked in St. Petersburg about the upcoming Phoenix weekend, O'Ward did not express enthusiasm and noted how it looks for IndyCar competing on such weekends. 

"I'm already tired of IndyCar being like the support race," he said. "I know every time we race with them, we are always the side show. It's great for the fans, but not for us... If they add more races together, great. If they don't, great too. I don't really care."

At least O'Ward was honest and did not sugarcoat it. He has a point but these weekends can be beneficial for multiple parties.

In IndyCar's case, it is getting an oval race early in the season. For the last few years, people were displeased with IndyCar scheduling and the amount of time between races early in the season. Now, IndyCar opens with three consecutive race weekends and four in the five weekends of March. That is not a bad thing. It was also IndyCar's only chance of getting back to Phoenix, and that is a problem. 

IndyCar isn't getting to Phoenix on its own. It wasn't drawing more than 15,000 spectators eight years ago, and for all the cheer around growth, the series hasn't grown enough to pull out a reasonable crowd from the fifth-most populous city in the United States. Without NASCAR's shoulders to stand on, IndyCar would not be going to Phoenix at any point in 2026, and while there would still be three race weekends in March without it, IndyCar would be down a race weekend and only running at three ovals this season. 

However, IndyCar is the guest, and it is treated as such. It was the same way with the Indianapolis weekends. When the two sanctioning bodies ran together at Indianapolis, the NASCAR teams got the garages and the IndyCar teams set up a paddock like a street course weekend in an available parking lot. IndyCar hit the track early Friday and the race started at noon on Saturday. It was the first race of the weekend, and people interpreted that to mean IndyCar was the less-important event. 

The schedule is the same at Phoenix. IndyCar will race at 1:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, 3:00 p.m Eastern. NASCAR's second division races at 5:30 p.m. local, 7:30 p.m. Eastern that night. The Cup race is Sunday at 12:30 p.m. local, 3:30 p.m. Eastern (Don't forget about Daylight Savings starting next week). 

IndyCar will practice at 8:00 a.m. local on Friday morning before qualifying at noon and then immediately getting into a high light practice session at 1:40 p.m. local. A final practice will run from 3:10 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Phoenix.

For a shared weekend meant to bring the series together, there is really not that much mingling. IndyCar gets the available time, but it is mostly to get out of the way before the NASCAR action takes place.

It is not the ideal schedule for IndyCar. Any team that has an accident or issue in the first practice session will be under the gun. They likely are not going to make it in time for qualifying and the goal will be ready to shake the car down in the 50-minute practice in the afternoon. If an accident occurs during qualifying, that team is not getting out on track for final practice, and with how the weekend is set up, it might be unlikely the team gets shakedown laps before the race to make sure the car is properly put together as we have seen in the past. The two-seater is running Saturday night, so I guess there is a window there where a team could run five installation laps, but I doubt that time will be there Saturday morning. Cup practice is at 10:00 a.m. local.

There are plenty of weekends where IndyCar is the main event and draws the crowd. We saw it at St. Petersburg, and we will see it at Barber, Long Beach and of course Indianapolis. To go to a track and not be given the arrangement you are used to feels like a slight, especially when everything is rushed. It will be tougher to recover from a setback at Phoenix than at other weekends. In an 18-race championship, one lost weekend can lose you the title. Losing it because track time was condensed because another series prioritized the time is salt in the wound.

It is the price that comes with such a weekend. It would be nice if the schedules could be balanced. Both races could take place on Sunday. The time is there and Phoenix has lights. It is tougher to do on an oval, especially if there is weather, but 12:30 p.m. on Sunday speaks a lot different in terms of prestige than 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, and even with such a start time, the IndyCar race could be complete in two hours. The NASCAR race could still start at 3:30 p.m. local, 4:00 p.m. at the latest. 

But that is not the schedule we are getting and that is not the schedule we are going to see as IndyCar is tagging on to the NASCAR weekend. NASCAR is doing Roger Penske a favor because of IndyCar's inability to stand on its own with oval weekends. 

It is a good weekend for the fans, and I understand why you would attend such a weekend. Long Beach and Detroit are arguably two of IndyCar's best weekends because IMSA is also competing. That is valuable to me. If I can see both, that weekend is better than just seeing one or the other. We lament the lack of shared weekends with sports cars that we once had when the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am would run the same weekend as IndyCar. 

I do quibble that such a weekend does anything to grow IndyCar.

If you are a NASCAR fan in the year 2026 of our Lord, you know about IndyCar. You just don't care enough to watch or at least make it your series of choice. IndyCar has been doing this for years. How many IndyCar races have led into NASCAR races whether it be on NBC or Fox? How many times have NASCAR fans been exposed to IndyCar if they have time before a Cup race? How many more oval races does IndyCar need to run to catch a NASCAR fans attention? The Indianapolis 500 happens every year, and NASCAR fans know about it. They are largely the reason it drew over seven million viewers in 2025 (thanks, Kyle Larson!). 

We have had Fontana and Iowa before the half-ass repave and Gateway and Pocono and Milwaukee and Nashville. They have seen it. They will dabble with it when not busy with NASCAR. They are not coming to be full-time fans even if the racing is good, the championship is close without a playoff format and some of the best talents ever are competing. We did these shared weekends at Indianapolis for four years. It didn't do anything to grow IndyCar in a substantial way. We see that in the television ratings.

This is IndyCar's attempt to chase existing fans with a working knowledge of motorsports because 45,000 people are going to show up for the Cup race in Phoenix, and that is 30,000 more than IndyCar could draw at the same track even if it had a Super Bowl-esque budget in promotion. These are the same people who have had IndyCar buzzing in their ears for years and they have been swatting it away. 

This strategy ignores the larger group of people with no motorsports connection who could be turned into interested and invested primary IndyCar viewers. You know, the group of people in the United States who have found Formula One and turned it into the second-most viewed motorsports series in this country. But that takes hard work and if the France family can do Roger Penske a solid at no additional cost to Penske, you know he is going to take it, even if we know what the results are going to be. 

O'Ward's sentiments are heard, and if there is one thing we know about O'Ward is he is clearly interested in making IndyCar bigger and having it stand out on its own. He probably would love to race at Phoenix but race at Phoenix when IndyCar is the main event and drawing 45,000 people on its own and becomes the talk of the town for one weekend. That isn't happen next weekend and it probably isn't going to happen next year either. We live with the weekend we will be getting, but IndyCar should strive for more, and at least strive to be what Patricio O'Ward envisions.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Álex Palou, but did you know...

Marco Bezzecchi won MotoGP's Thailand Grand Prix. Pedro Acosta won the sprint race. Manuel González won the Moto2 race. David Almansa won the Moto3 race, his first career victory. 

Nikita Johnson won the Indy Lights race from St. Petersburg. Sebastián Garzón swept the U.S. F2000 races.

Tyler Reddick won the NASCAR Cup race from Austin, his third consecutive victory, and Reddick became the first driver to open a Cup season with three consecutive victories. Shane van Gisbergen won the Grand National Series race. Layne Riggs won the Truck race from St. Petersburg.

Eli Tomac won the Supercross race from Daytona, his eighth Daytona victory. Seth Hammaker won the 250cc race.

Coming Up This Weekend

We know about IndyCar and NASCAR's rendezvous in Phoenix.

The Formula One season begins in Australia.

Supercars also tag along in Melbourne. There are companion weekends happening all over the globe!

Supercross has a Triple Crown event in Indianapolis.

First Impressions: St. Petersburg 2026

1. It is comedy, pure comedy, every IndyCar race, because as much as we get our hopes up watching Scott McLaughlin and Marcus Ericsson battle for the lead during a pit cycle, the driver who will always come out on top is Álex Palou, and after the first round of pit stops, while McLaughlin and Ericsson tussled, Palou went three laps longer on his last stint and came out ahead of those two and the rest of the field in comfortable fashion. From there, the race was over. Palou was never challenged, running away during the second stint of the race and maintaining his mighty advantage over the final run to the checkered flag and his second consecutive victory at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Palou didn't do anything brilliant. He didn't make an astonishing pass. He didn't run down the leaders. He ran his race and stayed out of harm's way. He stretched the fuel a little longer on the first stint and he benefitted from others fighting and losing time. The door opened and Palou slipped on through to first. It was all he needed. 

He wins three races a year this way. He doesn't need to start first. He can start fourth or eighth or ninth and run this strategy and win. I don't know how you beat this. It is a man playing chess against a bunch of boys playing checkers. How does the rest of the grid not realize this? There are plenty of bright minds in IndyCar. This is year seven for Palou in IndyCar, his sixth with Chip Ganassi Racing. You would think by now someone would have figured this out and come up with a solution for the Palou strategy. 

Nope! And instead we see Palou tallying wins like they are going out of style. Race #99 in his career and victory #20. Palou becomes the eighth driver to reach 20 career victories in his first 100 starts. The championship is over, folks. This wasn't even hard for Palou, and he is going to win races harder than this with ease. 

2. It is hard to think Scott McLaughlin had another St. Petersburg race get away from him due to tire strategy. It kind of did today, but not like last year where the alternate tire compound became junk almost immediately and he had to run some kind of stint while a number of drivers got away with doing two laps under caution. 

If McLaughlin isn't caught in the battle with Ericsson after the first pit stop, maybe he is able to remain ahead of Palou and maybe McLaughlin can hold off the Catalan driver as the race unfolded. With how well Palou ran, it might have been inevitable that Palou was going to win this race. If the pass wasn't going to happen after the first round of pit stops, it was going to come after the second round of pit stops. It is still a good day for McLaughlin. The pace is there. He just has to put the pieces together and not fall asleep when Álex Palou is around.

3. This was a monster day for Christian Lundgaard to go from 12th to third and push McLaughlin for second. Lundgaard had a good middle portion of the race, and took advantage when the top five was backed up due to Marcus Ericsson struggling on the alternate tire. Lundgaard made a pair of bold moves, first on Arrow McLaren teammate Patricio O'Ward and then on Ericsson. Those two spots allowed Lundgaard to get on the podium and push for more. 

Lundgaard sounded confident during the race and he looked confident behind the wheel. We are going to see him hit higher levels this season.

4. Kyle Kirkwood held on to finish fourth. It could have been more, but it was great that it ended as well as it did. Kirkwood had to work from 15th. He made up ground early, but he really took advantage of Ericsson's slow end to his second stint to use that as a pick on the final round of pit stops. Kirkwood hit that logjam and came to pit lane. It got him a handful of positions and put him second. The problem became Kirkwood stopped early and had to save fuel. 

The fuel conservation took Kirkwood off the podium, but he needed a race where he was competitive with the top drivers after not having a top five finish over the second half of 2025. He accomplished that today. This should be a good boost. Starting 15th was not ideal and that is an area where Kirkwood and Andretti Global must work on, but they should feel better after today.

5. Patricio O'Ward came up short of getting fourth. Fifth is a good day, but it felt like the limit for O'Ward today. He got bogged behind Ericsson and lost out to his teammate in that exchange. The fire wasn't there for O'Ward to take advantage of that opportunity and his teammate pounced. It is a fine start to the season. He is going to be competitive and win races. This is a good foundation to set.

6. Marcus Ericsson took sixth after falling behind. It could have been better, and Ericsson got away with some aggressive driving. I felt like the move on Marcus Armstrong was a little dirty, driving the New Zealander to the inside barrier on the main straightaway. No penalty was called, but it felt like that was the limit. This was an important day for Ericsson because I believe everyone has him being dismissed from Andretti Global when this season is over. He was the top qualifier for the team, he finished sixth, and if he keeps doing this over the remaining races, Ericsson is going to cause a good problem from the Andretti organization. 

7. Moving from 23rd to seventh and not being the center of attention is a good achievement for Josef Newgarden. We didn't see anything incredible from him today but he didn't stay at the rear of the field. We were never wondering what was wrong with him in this race. Newgarden had to get a respectable finish out of today, but there is still work to be done. This funk is moving onto year three though. Newgarden has some work to re-discover his groove. Perhaps it is somewhere lost in the desert.

8. A top ten finish on his IndyCar return was the best possible outcome for Romain Grosjean this weekend. Grosjean qualified sixth and dropped to eighth, but it is still outstanding. We saw last year Dale Coyne Racing show good speed. Pit stops were always going to be a trouble area this year. That is where time was lost today. Grosjean looked comfortable and he looked like he never missed anytime. It will be fun to see this season play out.

9. Every damn year we finish a season opener and we are wondering how the heck Rinus VeeKay cracked the top ten. Again, not a special day, he never made a notable move, but VeeKay was ninth at the finish from 19th on the grid. He impressed us last year with such a drive in this race with Dale Coyne Racing. He has picked up where he left off at Juncos Hollinger Racing. If he can finish between 12th and 14th in the championship again, it is hard to fathom how VeeKay does not get a call from a larger team because he has been impressive with lesser equipment.

10. First race, first top ten finish as Dennis Hauger takes tenth though he started third. Hauger lost spots during the race. Some of that was down to pit stops. Some of it was also down to his speed at the end of stints, but it was his first race and Hauger is going to develop. This was a great weekend for the Coyne group. Both cars made the Fast Six. Both cars finished in the top ten. It is a great place to start from.

11. It was a great weekend for Dale Coyne Racing, but it was a missed opportunity for Meyer Shank Racing. Marcus Armstrong was 11th and Felix Rosenqvist was 12th. Armstrong got up to fourth at the start of the race from seventh. After the block from Ericsson, Armstrong lost time and never recovered. It is harsh he did not get a top ten finish. 

I am trying to figure out the strategy for Felix Rosenqvist because he started on the alternate tire, switched to the primary on lap 31 and then came in under the caution for Scott Dixon's unsecured tire to put on the primary tire on lap 42. No matter what, Rosenqvist could not make it to the end of the race with that pit stop and he still had to put on the alternate tire a second time. Either there was a problem with the tire or the team didn't get enough fuel in the car. It didn't make sense and definitely ended a top ten run for the Swede.

12. Thirteenth doesn't feel good, but it could have been worse for David Malukas after his left front tire blew up a few laps after Malukas had a lock up. Seeing it live, it felt like Malukas should have immediately made a pit stop. That left front was not going to go a full stint. It didn't even make it ten more laps. This was a missed opportunity for Malukas. The result could have been much worse. Onto Phoenix!

13. This feels like another bad result for Louis Foster because of strategy because I don't know what Foster's team was thinking. Foster started the race with two stints on the primary tire, but he did 22 laps on his first stint and then the final stint had to be cut short due to the Dixon caution. Either way, Foster had to make one more stop from there. 

It felt like Foster's team expected the alternate tire to wear much more and it didn't, or the team thought teams had to use both tire compounds twice, which they didn't. It was not the case that every team could only go 20-25 laps on the alternate tire. The tire lasted a full stint. It was not like last year when no one wanted to run the alternate tire. 

We will talk about the tires in a moment.

14. Kyffin Simpson did nothing brilliant and finished 15th. I think Alexander Rossi's team misread the tire regulations because he stopped under the opening lap caution to get onto his second set of alternate tire, but the alternate tire was fine, and this put Rossi in a hole. Caio Collet was 17th and at least he got to run every lap. I don't think Collet was mentioned once during the race. Graham Rahal had a good race going and looked like he could steal a top ten finish but something happened in the final pit cycle and stint that dropped him to 18th. Rahal's day was better than this.

15. There is one notable thing Simpson did, and that was spin Christian Rasmussen in turn one. No penalty was called. I didn't mind there was no penalty. It was a racing incident, two cars going side-by-side into the corner. Rasmussen didn't look out for himself. It ruined his day. 

16. Nolan Siegel got lapped on the track. Do you know how hard it is to be lapped on track in IndyCar on a street course? It isn't a matter of if McLaren replaces Siegel after the season. It is a matter of after what race does McLaren replace Siegel this season. 

17. Sting Ray Robb locked up on the opening lap entering turn four and he collected Santino Ferrucci with Mick Schumacher left with nowhere to go. Robb locked up. It happens. It wasn't reckless. Robb's reputation doesn't help him. We know we have seen the maximum potential from him. 

It was a tough start to the season for Ferrucci and Schumacher. For Schumacher, it was a tough start to his IndyCar career. It is the second consecutive year a debutant has failed to finish a lap in the season opener, and in both cases the rookie had nowhere to go.

18. Two drivers we haven't mentioned: Will Power and Scott Dixon. 

Will Power slapped the wall exiting turn ten, and it ended what may have been a top ten finish. Scott Dixon had an unsecured tire after his second pit stop, which ruined what could have been possibly a top five finish or better. 

Power had a similar accident in the first practice. People say it was down to driving for a new team, but all the teams have the same brakes. That wasn't a difference Power must overcome at Andretti Global compared to Team Penske. It was a strange thing to see two near-identical accidents for Power this weekend. That is kind of a red flag. Did Andretti get Power a year too late?

As for Dixon, the tire changer didn't get the tire secure. That is a rough way for a race to end. Dixon stopped under the first caution and put on the primary tire. He was in a similar boat a Foster and Rossi, but Dixon was doing better and had more speed. He was positioned to make that stop and come out in the top ten. He was going to start his second stint on the alternate tire. From there, Dixon could have gotten more, possibly benefited from the Ericsson logjam, and it could have been a top five or podium finish. This ends a run of ten consecutive top ten finishes at St. Petersburg. 

19. Let's cover the tire strategy rule because I think IndyCar got this one wrong. 

Making the teams use the alternative tire twice means races can still be two stoppers. I think what IndyCar was hoping for was the alternate tire would wear like it did last year and make it so everyone would have to make a third stop no matter what. That didn't happen. 

If IndyCar wanted a three-stop race, it should make it mandatory to use both tire compounds twice, like it did as a trial in last year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. It didn't do that, there was no difference between the compounds, and we had a normal St. Petersburg race where everyone was gunning to run a 33-35 lap stint to make it on two stops. 

Regardless of the outcome of today, if there is going to be a primary tire compound and an alternate tire compound, there must a difference between them. If both tires can do the full stint and are basically be identical on time, then what is the point?

I thought Firestone had it right last year. The alternate tire went to junk quickly, but it played a role in strategy. How long was a team going to run them? How much time would be lost? IndyCar's issue last year, and it still remains, is if there is an opening lap accident, a team can get off a tire compound without ever really using them. They introduced this new rule but it didn't matter because there was no difference in the compound. Either the minimum number of laps on a compound must increase or the tire compounds must be very different. 

We didn't see the alternate tire wear and become a handful until about 25 laps into a run today, but that is too late. The alternate tire compound should be junk after 15 laps and it should come down to whether or not a team immediately gets off it when it starts to turn or if it tries to hold on for another five laps or so because it gets them in a better fuel window or doesn't force the primary tire to be stretch too long. That would lead to a much more lively race. 

Today's race was ok once we got toward the end of a stint, but what is the point of waiting for a half-hour for things to mix up? A tire that wears quicker keeps the race fluctuating, and if you have that and the mandate that the alternate tire must be used twice, these races could swing wildly with someone moving through the field while another team drops down the order due to a gamble gone wrong. 

Firestone had it at the start of last year. Something was different this year because the alternate was nowhere near this good in 2025. Let's hope we do not see more of the same at Arlington and Long Beach.

20. IndyCar has an opening lap issue. We had the incident today. Last year saw seven races have a caution on the opening lap. There were also nine races in 2024 that had an opening lap caution. Twelve races in 2025 had the first caution fall in the first four laps of the race. That kind of predictability is not a good thing. 

It makes the drivers look amateur. It takes the fun out of the start of races. It makes conservative pit strategies more appealing and teams will take fewer risks. It is problem, but I am not sure there is an easy solution. Can we spread out the field more at the start? Should there be a penalty for early accidents? Everyone would fear aggression being penalized, but I don't think it being a genuine 50-50 on whether or not 25 drivers can complete one lap without an issue is a good thing either. 

A half-brain idea in the immediate aftermath of the race is if there is an opening lap accident, a penalty carries over to the next race. If you cannot get through the first lap in one race, you start from your pit box the next race. Not the end of the pit lane. Before the start of the final pace lap, any car in an opening lap accident in the previous race comes to pit lane and parks in their pit box. The race starts on track and once the field clears the end of the pit lane, those cars can exit their box and join the race.

It is harsh but it would likely change something. Drivers would be held accountable. 

To add to it, if you are involved in a caution between laps two and five, you automatically start at the rear of the field. You would be on track but you would be starting 25th. 

I don't know when it becomes a problem that IndyCar and its drivers notice, but I think it is a problem now. There should not be a fear to have a higher standard of driving. 

21. We will be back at it in six days in Phoenix. It is a big opportunity for many. 

Morning Warm-Up: St. Petersburg 2026

For the second consecutive season, Scott McLaughlin is starting on pole position for the season opener at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. In the final round of qualifying, McLaughlin took the top spot with a lap at 60.5426 seconds. It is the 11th pole position of his career, but he has won only three times from pole position in his career. He was fourth in last year's St. Petersburg race after starting on pole position and leading 40 laps. Starting on the primary tire meant McLaughlin had to run a stint during the race on the alternate tire, and it cost him and ultimately the lead. IndyCar has introduced a new rule this season where all cars must complete two stints on the alternate tire in street course races. McLaughlin has finished third in the last two IndyCar races. He has not had a podium finish on a street course since he was second in the 2023 Nashville race, another race where he started on pole position.

Marcus Ericsson was 0.0195 seconds off pole position, but this is Ericsson's first front row starting position since the 2023 Grand Prix of Long Beach. This is only the third time the Swede has started on the front row in his IndyCar career, and this will be his 115th start. He started second at Gateway in 2022. Ericsson has finished in the top ten in five of seven St. Petersburg starts. His 2023 victory is his only top five finish at the circuit. Last season, he had two top ten finishes all season, and he started in the top ten in seven races. In three of those he finished outside the top twenty.

Dennis Hauger makes his IndyCar debut from third on the grid, as Hauger was 0.0317 seconds off McLaughlin's time. Since 1946, three driver have won on debut, Graham Hill at the 1966 Indianapolis 500, Nigel Mansell at Surfers Paradise in 1993 and Buzz Calkins in the inaugural Indy Racing League race at Walt Disney World Speedway in 1996. Dale Coyne Racing has had a top ten finisher in seven of the last nine St. Petersburg race. In two of those races, a rookie finished in the top ten. Ed Jones was tenth in 2017 and Santino Ferrucci was ninth in 2019.

Álex Palou starts his pursuit of a fourth consecutive championship from fourth starting position in St. Petersburg. Palou was 0.1416 seconds off please position. Palou could become the fifth driver to win consecutive St. Petersburg races joining Hélio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya, Sébastien Bourdais and Josef Newgarden. Palou has won in consecutive years at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and at Laguna Seca, both active streaks entering 2026.

David Malukas will make his Team Penske debut from fifth, and he was 0.2212 seconds off his teammate McLaughlin. Malukas will become the 39th driver to start an IndyCar race for Team Penske. Only one driver has won on his debut for Team Penske. That was Sam Hornish, Jr. on February 29, 2004 at Homestead, leading a Penske 1-2 with Hélio Castroneves in second. Five drivers have finished on the podium in their Penske debut, 11 have had a top five finish and 19 have had a top ten finish.

Romain Grosjean's return to IndyCar saw him make the Fast Six, and Grosjean starts sixth for St. Petersburg. This was actually the third consecutive St. Petersburg race in which Grosjean made it to the final round of qualifying. He started on pole position in 2023 and started fifth in 2024. However, he finished 18th and 22nd in those races respectively. In four St. Petersburg starts, Grosjean's best finishes fifth, but he finished outside the top ten in the other three starts, and his average finish is 14.5.

Marcus Armstrong fell 0.0368 seconds short of making the final round of qualifying, and Armstrong will open the season starting seventh. This is his third consecutive top ten start at St. Petersburg, but Armstrong has failed to finish the last two St. Petersburg races. His average finish in 13 street course starts is 11.538. Both of his street course top five finishes came in 2024 when he was third at Detroit and fifth at Toronto.

Patricio O'Ward joins Armstrong on row four. In six St. Petersburg starts, O'Ward has finished on the podium three times and outside the top ten in the other three races. He won the most recent street course race at Toronto from tenth on the grid. The worst starting position O'Ward has won from in his career came on a street course. He went from 16th to first in the second Belle Isle race in 2021.

Louis Foster was the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing qualifier, and he will start ninth. Foster was the top RLLR starter in only five races in 2025 despite having the best average starting position among the RLLR drivers at 13.529 and winning the team's only pole position. Last year, Foster was caught in the opening lap accident at St. Petersburg and he was unable to complete a lap in his debut. 

Kyffin Simpson cracked the top ten in qualifying, and it is Simpson's best career starting position on a street course. His previous best was 13th at Toronto last year, a race in which Simpson finished third. Simpson has finished in the top five of the last two IndyCar street course races, and he has three consecutive top ten finishes. The only other driver who was in the top five in the last two street course races is Colton Herta, who is not entered this weekend. Simpson had the fastest lap in two of four street races in 2025.

Felix Rosenqvist takes 11th on the grid, and dating back to last season it is the third consecutive street race Rosenqvist is starting outside the top ten. Rosenqvist enters this race having not won in his last 92 starts. A victory this weekend would put the Swede third all-time in the most starts between victories behind Graham Rahal's record 124 and Johnny Rutherford, who had a 97-race drought. Rosenqvist led 31 laps at St. Petersburg in 2019, his IndyCar debut, and he has not led at the circuit since.

Christian Lundgaard made the second round of qualifying, but the Dane takes the 12th grid position. Last year, Lundgaard went from 12th to third at Long Beach. Lundgaard failed to win a race in 2025, but he was fifth in the championship. It was the third time since 2020 a top five championship finisher did not win a race. The other two times were also by an Arrow McLaren driver, Patricio O'Ward in 2020 and 2023. 

Will Power's Andretti Global debut will be from 13th starting position as Power fell 0.0696 seconds off making it out of group one in the first round of qualifying. This is the second consecutive year Power is starting 13th at St. Petersburg. He spun on the opening lap last year and barely completed three corners before being classified in 26th. Power has led the most laps all-time at St. Petersburg with 269, but he has led only 27 laps in the last ten St. Petersburg races. 

Christian Rasmussen missed out on advancing from group two by 0.0129 seconds, and Rasmussen will start 14th. In the last two races, Rasmussen has finished first and he has finished last. It was the 41st time in IndyCar history a driver has gone from first to last in the next race. On 30 occasions has a driver finished last and then won the next race. On seven occasions has a driver won a race, finished last in the next race, and then won the race after that. The most recent was Will Power in 2019, who won at Pocono, was last at Gateway and then won at Portland.

Kyle Kirkwood is a spot directly behind his new Andretti Global teammate in 15th position as the American was 0.1068 seconds off making it to the second round. Dating back to last season, this is the sixth time in the last eight races Kirkwood has failed to start in the top ten. Kirkwood's finishing position has improved each year at St. Petersburg. He went from 18th in 2022 to 15th to tenth and was fifth last year. Kirkwood has nine consecutive top ten finishes on street courses dating back to his Nashville victory in 2023. 

Scott Dixon will start 16th, his worst starting position at St. Petersburg since he started 20th in the 2013 race. Dixon has ten consecutive top ten finishes at St. Petersburg. He was second last year, his fifth runner-up finish at St. Petersburg and he is still looking for his first victory in the event. Dixon has the most victories in IndyCar history from outside a top ten starting position with eight. No other driver in IndyCar history has more than four victories from outside the top ten.

Santino Ferrucci occupies the inside of row nine. Last season, Ferrucci started outside the top ten in 15 of 16 starts, but he finished better than his starting position 11 times and on five occasions he finished at least ten spots better than where he started. The only time Ferrucci started 17th in 2025 was at Mid-Ohio. He did finish better than his starting position, but he only improved to 16th at the checkered flag. 

Graham Rahal occupies the outside of row nine. Rahal started outside the top fifteen in nine races last season, including St. Petersburg where he started 21st. This is his fourth consecutive St. Petesburg race starting outside the top fifteen. This is about to be the 20th season of Rahal's IndyCar career. He has finished outside the top ten in 14 of 19 season openers in his career. His best season opening finish was second in 2018.

Rinus VeeKay leads an all-Juncos Hollinger Racing row ten for his very first IndyCar race with the organization. However, 19th is VeeKay's second-worst starting position ever at St. Petersburg. He stated 24th in 2023 and his race ended with an accident, classifying him in 21st. VeeKay has four top ten finishes in six season openers in his career, and he also has four top ten finishes in six St. Petersburg starts.

Sting Ray Robb starts the season in 20th, and prior to this weekend Robb had only started in the top twenty once for a street course race. Last year at Long Beach, he started 19th and went on to finish ninth, his second career top ten finish. In three St. Petersburg starts, Robb has finished 16th, 24th and 21st. He has never finished on the lead lap in this race.

Mick Schumacher opens his IndyCar career from 21st starting position. Schumacher has not won a race since September 26, 2020. It was the Formula Two feature race from Sochi. Yuki Tsunoda was second and Callum Ilott was third in that race. Marcus Armstrong was ninth. Christian Lundgaard was involved in an opening lap collision with current Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing reserve driver Jüri Vips.

Nolan Siegel was 22nd in the championship last season, and Siegel opens the 2026 season starting 22nd.  Siegel ended last season with six consecutive finishes outside the top fifteen. His average finish in six career street course starts is 20.5 with his best finish being 18th at Toronto last year. He ended last season with seven consecutive finishes outside the top ten.

Josef Newgarden has his worst ever starting position at St. Petersburg in 23rd. This is the fourth consecutive street course race where Newgarden is starting outside the top ten In the last seven season openers, Newgarden has either finished on the podium or outside the top fifteen. He was third last year at St. Petersburg. This will be Newgarden's 240th consecutive start, and it will break a tie with Ryan Hunter-Reay for the fifth-longest streak in IndyCar history.

Caio Collet will begin his IndyCar career from 24th starting position. Fourteen of the first 22 St. Petersburg races have featured at least 24 starters. Only once has a 24th-place starter at St. Petersburg gone on to finish in the top ten. That was Graham Rahal in 2018, who went from 24th to second. The average finish for the 24th-starter at St. Petersburg is 17.0714. Collet was seventh and third in his two Indy Lights starts in St. Petersburg. 

Alexander Rossi rounds out the grid in 25th starting position. This is Rossi's worst starting position since the 2024 Nashville season finale when he started 26th. This will be the fourth time in Rossi's career that he is starting outside the top 25 and only the ninth time he has started outside the top 20 in what will be his 165th start. He has one top five finish when starting outside the top 20, fourth from 32nd in the 2018 Indianapolis 500, and his only other top ten finish was eighth from 21st in the first Iowa race in 2020. Rossi has three consecutive top ten finishes at St. Petersburg after finishing 20th or worse in his three visits prior to this streak.

Fox's coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg begins at noon ET with green flag scheduled for 12:29 p.m. The race is scheduled for 100 laps.

Best of the Month: February 2026

Two months down. Again, February is quick. Throw in an Olympics, and February barely existed. There was always something going on, and it made the cold nights fly by. Honestly, once the Olympics are over, it feels like winter is over. It is kind of the quadrennial opposite of Labor Day. The fact it ended with a blizzard in the Northeast could not have been more fitting.

Anyway, the Olympics are over, and we are on the verge of the motorsports season really ramping into high gear. March begins with MotoGP and IndyCar on the first day of the month. We are already into Formula One testing and the opening grand prix is just over a week away. NASCAR is already underway. There have been plenty of sports car races, and more are coming. It is an exciting time.

Preseason IndyCar Tidbits

We are about to get into the IndyCar season, and there is plenty we should keep an eye on. Álex Palou is going to do something historic. As will probably Scott Dixon. Will Power might if Andretti Global is a semi-competent organization. We are always on the verge of history even if we do not see it coming. 

With the first race only a few days away, let's go over what we should keep in mind before the season starts flying by. There are three consecutive weeks with races and four races in five weekends to open this season. IndyCar has not had a season like this in a long time. If we don't take the time now, we are bound to get caught out. 

This is going to be a fair list of drivers, and we are going to list a milestone or an interesting tidbit ahead of the first race. Shall we start with the best driver in IndyCar? I think we shall. 

Álex Palou

Top 20 All-Time in Pole Positions

We have already covered the victories, but Palou is five pole positions away from tying Emerson Fittipaldi for 20th all-time. Palou has 12 pole positions. That is level with Parnelli Jones. Palou had six pole positions last season and three pole positions two seasons ago. It is achievable. 

Ten Victories From Pole Position

In the last two seasons, Palou has won at least twice from pole position. With eight victories from 12 pole positions, that is an incredible batting average at 66.667%. Only 11 drivers in IndyCar history have won ten races or more from pole position. While Will Power (18) and Scott Dixon (12) are ahead of Palou, the next closest active drivers are Alexander Rossi and Josef Newgarden, and both Americans have only won three times from pole position.

50 Podium Finishes

This one feels inevitable because Palou only needs six podium finishes to hit this milestone. For context, only 21 drivers have reached 50 podium finishes in a career. Hitting this mark would at least put Palou's name in the all-time podium finish leaders category listed under the record book section of the IndyCar media guide. It would be another case of getting to see his name listed among the all-time greats. Again, it feels inevitable. He could have six podium finishes in the first six races.

Scott Dixon

7,000 Laps Led

Seventy-seven laps are all Dixon needs to lead to reach 7,000 laps led in a career, and he would only be the second driver in IndyCar history to reach that milestone. Even if Dixon reaches it, he would still be 595 laps away from tying Mario Andretti's all-time record. The all-time record is not impossible, but it is a reach. This milestone is possible for 2026. If Dixon has a great year on ovals, the all-time record could become more plausible. We can reconvene in September and assess Dixon's assault on this record.

Patricio O'Ward

12 Career Victories

A dozen victories does not sound that special, but in O'Ward case it is because if he wins three more races O'Ward will surpass Adrián Fernández for most IndyCar victories for a Mexican driver. Fernández has long been seen as a legend in Mexican motorsports, and he had a strong IndyCar career. Fernández has been IndyCar's benchmark for Mexican drivers. O'Ward is only turning 27 years old in May, and he has a full career still ahead of him. Maybe someday he will get to race in his home country and be the hero that inspires future competitors to follow his path. 

Will Power

Sixth All-Time in Starts

If Power starts all 18 races this season, he will move up to sixth all-time in starts. Even if there are only 17 races, Power would move to sixth. With 18 races, he would be up to 337 starts, which would move him ahead of Al Unser and Al Unser, Jr. Power will tie Unser at St. Petersburg, and he will be level with Unser, Jr. at Road America. There is quite a gap to the top five. A.J. Foyt is fifth on 369 starts.

Graham Rahal

Eighth All-Time in Start

Power can be sixth but Rahal could end the season eighth all-time start. Taking into considering Power starting every race, if Rahal makes 18 starts he will end the season on 327 starts, which would move him ahead of Johnny Rutherford, Michael Andretti and Al Unser. It is staggering to think Rahal is about to break into the top ten all-time in starts. His debut still feels like yesterday.

Josef Newgarden

5,000 Laps Led

Dixon is potentially going to break 7,000 laps led in a career. Newgarden could reach 5,000 laps led, which is 487 laps away. If Newgarden reaches it, he will become the eighth driver to reach 5,000 laps in a career. Four times has he led at least 487 laps in a season, most recently in 2023 when he led 602 laps. He has led at least 200 laps in ten of the last 11 seasons. 

12 Consecutive Seasons with a Victory

One victory in 2026 will make it the 12th consecutive season Newgarden has won a race. He has won an oval race in a record ten consecutive seasons. If he wins in a 12th consecutive season, Newgarden will become the third driver to win a race in at least 12 consecutive seasons. Scott Dixon has an active streak of 21 consecutive seasons with a victory. Will Power has the second-longest streak when he won 16 consecutive years from 2007 to 2022.

Scott McLaughlin

60 Team Penske Victories

This one is a bit of a stretch, but if McLaughlin wins five races this season, it will give him 60 victories for Team Penske across all disciplines. That would move the New Zealander up to second all-time in the organization. It would put him just ahead of Mark Donohue, who won 59 times for Penske, and behind Brad Keselowski's organization leading 67 victories. Forty-eight of McLaughlin's victories did come in Supercars, which has an abundance of races, some of which are shorter distances than what we see in IndyCar and NASCAR, but that was his springboard to the United States and the career he currently has. 

Team Penske

250 IndyCar Victories

McLaughlin is a few victories away from a milestone. Team Penske is a few victories away from a milestone, four to be precise. With four more victories, Team Penske will hit 250 victories in IndyCar, extending a record that is already pretty much out of reach for the rest of eternity. It is a matter of when not if, but after last season, when could be 2027. I doubt that though. The last time Team Penske did not win four races in consecutive seasons was 2004 and 2005 in the Indy Racing League when it was running the less-successful Toyota engines. Engines are not holding Team Penske now. I expect to see some hats and a banner in victory lane at some point in 2026.

Chip Ganassi Racing

150 IndyCar Victories

If we are doing Team Penske, we should do Chip Ganassi Racing as well, and funny enough, Ganassi is five victories away from 150 in IndyCar. Again, a matter of when and not if, but most likely when will it occur in 2026? The team did only win four races in 2024, but it has won at least five races in four of the last six seasons. It also only won four times in 2022. There! Prepare for milestone victory lane celebrations in 2026 for IndyCar's two best teams!

Kyle Kirkwood

First Career Third-Place Finish

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Kirkwood is about to start his fifth season in IndyCar, he has won five races in his career, and yet, he has yet to have a third-place finish. That is 68 starts and no finishes of third. Along with five victories, he has finished second only once (Toronto 2024), he has finished fourth on three occasions and he has finished fifth on three occasions. He ended 2025 with a sixth-place finish. He had a few sevenths in 2024. He had a trio of eighths last season, he was ninth in two races in 2023, and his first career top ten finish was a tenth at Long Beach in 2022. 

Kirkwood has covered every spot in the top ten but third. Is this usual? I don't have enough time to go through every driver and find the longest wait until their first career third-place finish, but let's use the 33 drivers Kirkwood raced against last year as a comparison. 

Four of those drivers took longer than 68 starts to get their first third-place finish. Josef Newgarden took 71 races. Hélio Castroneves took 82 starts, and Castroneves won an Indianapolis 500 before he had one third-place finish in his career. The Brazilian actually had six career victories to his name before he finished third for the first time. It took Conor Daly 114 races to finish third. Ed Carpenter's first third-place finish was in his 153rd start, the 2014 season finale at Fontana, nearly 11 years after his IndyCar debut. 

It is not unheard of, but it is pretty rare. 

Christian Lundgaard

First victory for car #7 since...

Lundgaard had a few close calls at victory in 2025, and it was a bit of a shame he didn't get a victory, because he had his best season in IndyCar. Some drivers run into buzzsaws in their careers, and Lundgaard ran into Álex Palou. Without Palou, the Dane likely has at least two victories in 2025. Instead, history will show six podium finishes, but none on the top step. 

I have a feeling that changes this season, and if it does we will see something we have not seen in probably longer than you realize. Driving car #7, a Lundgaard victory would be the first for the number since... Danica Patrick at Motegi in 2008!

Yeah! That is a long time. Of all the single-digit numbers, it is the longest drought, though car #6 has not won since 2010 with Ryan Briscoe at Texas. Keep that in mind for Nolan Siegel.

To give you an idea of how long ago that Patrick victory was, it was the third race post-reunification, and yet, it was the penultimate race prior to complete reunification. Motegi was the same weekend as Long Beach, and when the schedules merged, Long Beach was retained but with the Champ Car teams running one final race with the Panoz DP01 chassis and Cosworth engines, and the Indy Racing League teams went to Japan. Technically, car #7 has not won a race in a unified IndyCar since June 13, 1993 with Danny Sullivan at Belle Isle. 

Santino Ferrucci

Potential Birthday Winner

There are two drivers who could potentially win on their birthday. We have touched up Will Power already, who has his birthday fall on the 2026 season opener in St. Petersburg. The other is Santino Ferrucci. Ferrucci will turn 28 years old on Sunday May 31, which is the same day as the Detroit race. 

It would also be Ferrucci's 101st career start. Currently, only three drivers have had their first career victory come after the 100th start, and the record was set on May 31, 2003. That is when Michel Jourdain, Jr. won at Milwaukee in his 129th start. 

Sting Ray Robb

Fourth-Most Starts without a Top Five Finish

Robb is entering his fourth season in IndyCar, and for the first time in his career, he is staying with a team for a second season. In the last two seasons, Robb has had a top ten finish, so he has gotten on the board and can at least be included in that group in the box score for each season. His qualifying form has been improving, however, the top five is still a long way off. His career best finish remains ninth. If Robb goes another season without a top five finish, he will end 2026 with zero top five finishes in 69 career starts. It would be the fourth-most starts without a top five finish in IndyCar history. Only Hiro Matsushita (117), Randy Lewis (81) and Jerry Karl (73) would have more.

Romain Grosjean

Most Second-Place Finishes without a Win

Grosjean is back in IndyCar, and when he left IndyCar after the 2024 season, he had yet to win a race in his brief IndyCar career. However, it wasn't for a lack of trying. Grosjean has five runner-up finishes but had yet to win. He is one of five drivers all-time to have at least five runner-up finishes but zero victories. The last time he drove for Dale Coyne Racing, Grosjean had two second-place finishes. If Grosjean has three runner-up finishes in 2026 and does not win a race, he would match Vitor Meira for most runner-up finishes without a victory. It is a stretch, but crazier things have happened in this world.

What would be crazier, Grosjean winning one race for Dale Coyne Racing and removing himself from this list or getting three or four runner-up finishes this season and either matching or surpassing Meira's record? It is the latter, right? It would be crazier that Grosjean could be that consistently good than having one race go his way and pulling out a victory. If Grosjean has three or four runner-up finishes that means the finishes across the board are pretty good and he is in the top ten of the championship and possibly pushing the top five. He could win one race and still be 14th in the championship. We see that in IndyCar with enough regularity to not be stunned when it happens. Christian Rasmussen just won a race and was 13th in the championship.

Ponder that thought for a moment. 

Caio Collet

New Brazilian Winner

Collet has been the least acknowledged rookie heading into the season, and that is a little unfair. He was competitive in both his Indy Lights seasons. He won races in Formula Three. He is a decent driver. He is driving for A.J. Foyt Racing, which has done better with the Team Penske technical alliance, but it is still A.J. Foyt Racing. No one expects it to win races. No one should expect Collet to win races out of the box. However, the team could put together one decent race, and why couldn't it end up being Collet's day. 

I stumbled upon something. Do you know the last time we had a new Brazilian winner? I am not asking when was the last time a Brazilian won a race (Hélio Castroneves, 2021 Indianapolis 500), but when was the last-time a first-time winner was Brazilian? 

You are probably thinking, it has been a minute since we have seen a great influx of Brazilian talent. It isn't like the 1990s or early 2000s when it felt like a third of the grid hailed for the Lusophone nation. But how long has it been? 

Twelve Brazilians have won an IndyCar race. 

The most recent first-time Brazilian winner was Felipe Giaffone on August 11, 2002 at Kentucky. 

For starters, that was an IRL race, and Giaffone was driving for Mo Nunn Racing. Sarah Fisher started on pole position. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for Tomas Scheckter at Team Cheever as Scheckter was fired from the team after an accident 89 laps into the race, though Scheckter had scored his first career victory in the previous race at Michigan. 

Giaffone's victory capped off a stretch where the IRL had four consecutive races with a first-time winner. That streak began with another Brazilian, Airton Daré, who won at Kansas. Alex Barron then won at Nashville before Scheckter and Giaffone concluded the four-race run. 

To add more perspective, Collet was 130 days old the last time IndyCar had a new Brazilian winner.

Mick Schumacher

Second German Winner

For as long as IndyCar has been around, it is strange there has been a lack of German drivers competing in the series especially since they have been everywhere else. Formula One, sports cars, touring cars, there have been plenty of German legends. IndyCar has been one area where we have not seen them regularly competing. The last German to start an IndyCar race was Lucas Luhr, who ran a second Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing entry at Sonoma in 2013. 

Part of that is because Germany has had a strong domestic racing scene and the German manufacturers race there. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Porsche can keep the talent at home. It is no different to the United States with NASCAR and IndyCar. There is no reason to venture far. 

Anyway, only one race in IndyCar history has had a German winner. In 1937, Auto Union, along with Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo and the best grand prix racing had to offer, came to America to contest the Vanderbilt Cup race in Westbury, New York, and the best from Europe took on the best from the AAA National Championship. Bernd Rosemeyer won the race leading 75 of 90 laps for Auto Union and defeating Mercedes-Benz's Richard Seaman by 51 seconds. To this day, it remains the only German victory in IndyCar history. 

Let's not ignore that IndyCar holds a race on the 89th anniversary of that exact race this season. Mid-Ohio falls on July 5, 2026, and fittingly it is the home race for Schumacher's team, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. 

Second-Most Experienced German

To give you an idea of how few Germans have raced in IndyCar, if Schumacher starts every race this season, he will end 2026 as tied for second-most experienced German in IndyCar history with 18 starts. He would be level with Christian Danner, who ran sporadically in CART from 1992 to 1997. The most experienced German is Arnd Meier, who made 29 starts over the 1997 and 1998 CART seasons. Timo Glock is the third-most experienced German and he only ran the 2005 Champ Car season, which had 13 races.

Lessons From the Olympics

It isn't really a lesson but it is an event that motorsports should replicate, and specifically, NASCAR should replicated it. 

I loved the team pursuit competition in speed-skating. If you did not see it, each country has three skaters on the ice. One country lines up on one straightaway and the other country lines up on the other. Each country completes eight laps and the country's time is when the third skater finishes. For eight laps, the skaters are building speed and rotating who leads the draft. It is a thrilling competition to watch. 

NASCAR should do this at Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, and it should be used as qualifying for the races. This would be much more exciting than single-car runs and it could bring practice back with teams limited to three-car groups for an hour session or so. I don't think it should be eight laps in length but it could be a five-lap run for each group. The group with the fastest time gets the first three spots on the grid with the next group getting the next three spots and so on. NASCAR is almost perfectly segmented for such a thing as there are 36 chartered entries. It could be 12 groups, and most of the teams are three-car operations.

Toyota has nine cars, and four of those are for Joe Gibbs Racing, but we could split the group. 23XI Racing has its three cars, we could take three JGR cars for a group and then Ty Gibbs could join Legacy Motor Club's two cars. 

Ford is nearly perfect. It has three teams running three cars, and then the Wood Brothers. We will come back to that. 

Chevrolet would require more piecing together. There are 17 Chevrolet teams. That is just shy of six groups of three. 

Trackhouse and Spire Motorsports each run three cars. Those two are set. 

Hendrick Motorsports runs four cars, but it also has technical alliances with two single-car teams in Haas Factory Team and Hyak Motorsports. Hendrick could keep three cars together and then have Alex Bowman run with Cole Custer and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. 

Richard Childress Racing has two cars, but a technical alliance with Rick Ware Racing's lone car, so that forms another trio. 

That leaves Kaulig Racing's two cars and Wood Brothers. We could have one mixed manufacturer group for the sake of the competition. I am also not considering the potential open cars that would enter. If we had 39 entries then we could have it work especially if Beard Motorsports is entered with its Chevrolet and then there were two Fords to join Wood Brothers. 

Either way, this is something NASCAR should experiment with. Maybe it isn't all six drafting races and it is just once at each track, but it could be fun to watch. Of all the dumb things NASCAR has done, most recently its 2026 All-Star Race format which we may discuss in the not-too-distant future, this would be far from abhorrently bad, and it would be something different that would be worth tuning into see. 

It should be considered. 

March Preview

MotoGP begins this weekends and we will do a quick blitz of what things look like heading into the first race of the season. 

Marc Márquez is back to defend his championship with Ducati and Francesco Bagnaia remains as Márquez's teammate. Álex Márquez is now on a factory bike at Gresini Racing. Fermín Aldeguer is also at Gresini, but Aldeguer will miss the season-opening Thailand Grand Prix due to a fractured femur in a training accident. Michele Pirro will run the opener as a wild card with Gresini. VR46 Racing team has Fabio Di Giannantonio on a factory bike with Franco Morbidelli on a year-old model. 

Marco Bezzecchi was fastest in practice from Buriram on his Aprilia. Jorge Martín hopes to be healthy after missing a great chunk of 2025, and Martín looks to strengthen Aprilia's contingent on the grid. Trackhouse is back with Raúl Fernández and Ai Ogura.  

The only change in the Honda camp is Diogo Moreira moves up after winning the Moto2 championship to join Johann Zarco at LCR Honda. Luca Marini and Joan Mir remain on the factory bikes.

No change at KTM as Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta lead the factory outfit while Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini are at Tech3.

The most notable change is the introduction of Toprak Razgatlioglu as the three-time World Superbike champion joins Pramac Yamaha alongside Jack Miller. Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins are the Yamaha factory effort. 

Twenty-two races this year with the one change being the Brazilian Grand Prix returning to the schedule in place of the Argentine Grand Prix. The Brazilian round will be at Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Goiânia. The circuit hosted the world championship for three seasons from 1987 to 1989. This is MotoGP's first trip to Brazil since Jacarepaguá last hosted the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix in 2004.

A few races have moved around. Barcelona has moved up to May, Hungary and the Czech Republic have moved up to June. The British Grand Prix is now in August and Austria is the final round of the 12-round European swing on September 20.

The season concludes in Valencia on November 22.

Other events of note in March:

We have three Formula One races in March: Australia, China and Japan. 

The 12 Hours of Sebring is a few weeks ago. 

The week after Sebring is the FIA World Endurance Championship season opener from Qatar.

After racing in the Swedish snow in February, the World Rally Championship heads to Kenya for the Safari Rally. 

Formula E will race at Jarama. 

Track Walk: St. Petersburg 2026

The first round of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series takes place in a familiar location, St. Petersburg, Florida. A total of 181 days will have passed since the most recent IndyCar race, a 225-laps race around Nashville Superspeedway. The grid reassembles this weekend on the gulf coast with 25 cars entered for the season opener and 18 drivers in the same spot they were when IndyCar last raced. For three drivers, this weekend marks their IndyCar debuts. For another three drivers, they are in a different spot than where they were this time a year ago. And for another driver, he is back in the series after a year on the sidelines.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 12:00 p.m. ET on Sunday March 1 with green flag scheduled for 12:29 p.m. ET.
Channel: Fox
Announcers: Will Buxton, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee, Georgia Henneberry and Jack Harvey will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

First Practice: 1:35 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 9:15 a.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 4:35 p.m. ET 
Sunday:
Warm-up: 9:05 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 12:29 p.m. ET (100 laps)

Is Álex Palou Bound to Make More History?

We ended the 2025 season with Palou claiming his third consecutive IndyCar championship and the fourth title in his six-year IndyCar career. It capped off a historic season that saw Palou win eight races, stand on the podium 13 times and end with an average finish of 4.0588. As for what is to come next, probably more history.

Palou has yet to reach 100 starts in his IndyCar career, and he is already reaching heights most don't hit in an entire career. St. Petersburg will be his 99th career start and he enters this weekend with 19 career victories. One victory in the either of the first two races of this season will make him the ninth driver to win at least 20 races in the first 100 starts of a career. Palou is already tied for 22nd all-time in victories with Jimmy Bryan and Sam Hornish, Jr. 

Last season, Palou won eight times and he became just the ninth driver to win at least eight races in a season. The only driver that won eight times in consecutive seasons was Mario Andretti, who did it in 1966 and 1967. Palou opened last season with a somewhat surprising victory at St. Petersburg after starting eighth and not taking the lead until 26 laps remained during the final round of pit stops. It kicked off a start to the season that saw him win five of the first six races. Five more victories will put Palou tied with Bobby Rahal for 18th all-time, and another eight-win season would have Palou level with Johnny Rutherford for 15th.

Beyond the victories, Palou could become the second driver in IndyCar history with four consecutive championship. Only Sébastien Bourdais has achieved such a feat, though Bourdais did it in the middle of the CART-IRL split when CART had become Champ Car. During Bourdais' four-year championship run, the largest field he competed against was 19 cars. For Palou, the smallest field he has competed in was 23 entries, and all eight of those races came during his rookie season in 2020. The last 71 IndyCar races have featured at least 25 starters. Over the past three seasons, every race has started at least 27 cars.

Another title would be Palou's fifth, and it would put him alone for third all-time in championships, one behind Scott Dixon in second and two behind A.J. Foyt's all-time record. Dixon's fifth title came in his 18th season while Foyt's fifth title was in his 11th season. 

Palou ended last season with four consecutive podium finishes. It is the third time in Palou's career he has ad at least four consecutive podium finishes. In 2023, he won three consecutive races over Detroit, Road America and Mid-Ohio before finishing second at Toronto. Last season, he opened the season with six consecutive podium results.

It isn't only Palou who is chasing history. Entering 2026, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing are tied with 17 championships apiece. Team Penske has held the record for most championship as a team since 1983 when it won its sixth title, breaking a tie with Dean Van Lines Racing, which had won five championships, three with Jimmy Bryan in the 1950s and two with Mario Andretti in the 1960s.

Who Can Conquer the Catalan?

There will be two-dozen drivers with the objective of toppling the Catalan driver and ending his three-year reign as IndyCar king. For any of these drivers to do it, they must overcome a 196-point gap as that is how massive Palou's insurance was between him and the rest of the field in 2025.

The closest competitor was Patricio O'Ward, who scored his best championship finish last season coming in second to Palou. O'Ward did win twice in 2025, and he had ten top five finishes, but he also had five finishes outside the top ten, and Palou has had only had five finishes outside the top ten over his last three seasons. The only time Palou had at least five finishes outside the top ten in a single season was his rookie year in 2020 with Dale Coyne Racing. 

The best challenger could come from within the Chip Ganassi Racing stable, as Scott Dixon was third in the championship last year. The six-time champion had the second-best average finish in 2025 at 8.294, but that was over four positions worse than Palou's average. While Dixon had the second-best average finish, he only won once, and it came after an unforced error from Palou driving off the road at Mid-Ohio. Dixon only had three podium finishes in 2025, his fewest since he had only one in 2005.

Kyle Kirkwood did win the second-most races in 2025. With three victories, Kirkwood was Palou's main challenger in the first half of the season as the two competitors combined to win every race in the first half of the season. Through the first nine races, Kirkwood had an average finish 7.889, and that included 32nd in the Indianapolis 500 after being disqualified. He was sixth on the road. However, in the final eight races, Kirkwood failed to score a top five finish and his average finish dropped to 14th.

The 2025 season started on a good note for Christian Lundgaard. In his first year with Arrow McLaren, Lundgaard made a stellar first impression with four consecutive top ten finishes, three of which were consecutive podium results. After four races, Lundgaard was second in the championship behind Palou. However, Lundgaard fell into a little slump. While he would pick up three more podium finishes over the final 13 races, he did have six finishes outside the top ten, three of which were outside the top twenty. 

We have covered the remaining top five drivers from last year's championship, but we have not mentioned Team Penske. The team responsible for the most recent non-Palou title and champions in five of the last 12 seasons, Team Penske is always seen as a favorite, but last year was the organization's worst season in a quarter-century. Penske did not win until the 15th race in the 17-race season. No Penske drivers finished in the top eight of the championship, and the organization's three drivers combined for nine podium finishes over the 2025 season. Team Penske also had a combined 19 finishes outside the top twenty last season.

Greener Pastures

Most of the IndyCar grid has remained unchanged from when the 2025 season ended. Most drivers have stayed put, but a few drivers are driving somewhere else, and it is a notable change for one of the greatest drivers to ever race in IndyCar.

St. Petersburg will mark the first time in over 17 years that Will Power will compete in an IndyCar race for a team other than Team Penske. Power makes his first start for Andretti Global in the #26 Honda. Last season, Power was the top Team Penske driver in the championship, but he was ninth matching his worst championship performance for the team. Power did win at Portland, but he had nine finishes outside the top ten and six of those were results outside the top twenty. 

Andretti Global will be hoping Power can lead to successful for multiple drivers in the organization. While Kirkwood won three times last year and finished fourth in the championship, the Andretti organization has not had multiple drivers win multiple races in the same season since 2018. 

With Power leaving Team Penske, it has led to David Malukas joining the organization. Malukas spent 2025 racing for A.J. Foyt Racing where he had a career year. Malukas was 11th in the championship and he was credited with second in the Indianapolis 500. He picked up another top five finish with a fourth in the second Iowa race. Malukas ended up finishing two points better now-teammate Josef Newgarden in the championship. 

While Malukas' four-year IndyCar career has brought him to Team Penske, there is a lot he has yet to accomplish. He has yet to in a race in IndyCar, and he is the first winless veteran Team Penske has hired since Ryan Briscoe joined the organization for the 2008 IndyCar season. However, Briscoe had spent 2007 racing for Team Penske in the American Le Mans Series. Malukas has never had a top five finish on a road or street circuit. Last season, his best finish on such a circuit was seventh at Road America.

Power and Malukas dominated most of the attention during the offseason when it came to driver shuffling, but they were not the only drivers to change seats. 

Despite finishing 14th in the championship after being the final driver hired to a full-time seat for the 2025 season, Rinus VeeKay decided to leave Dale Coyne Racing for Juncos Hollinger Racing. VeeKay had a memorable season that saw him finish second at Toronto and have a brilliant drive to fourth at Barber Motorsports Park. The Dutchman had six top ten finishes in the first nine races after Dale Coyne Racing failed to score a finish better than 13th in 2024. 

VeeKay has never finished worse than 14th in the championship in six IndyCar seasons, and he moves to Juncos Hollinger Racing, which has never had a driver finish than 16th in the championship. Last season, JHR had a combined five top ten finishes between Conor Daly, whom VeeKay replaces, and Sting Ray Robb, who will be VeeKay's teammate this season. The team has had at least one top five finish in each of the last three seasons. In 2024, the team had nine top ten finishes. 

VeeKay does have history with Juncos Hollinger Racing. Together, they won the 2018 Pro Mazda championship and they were second in the 2019 Indy Lights championship behind Oliver Askew.

With VeeKay leaving Dale Coyne Racing, it opened a spot in the Illinois-based team, and with the final full-time driver announced for the third consecutive season, Dale Coyne Racing has brought Romain Grosjean back to IndyCar. 

Grosjean spent 2025 as reserve driver for Prema behind Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman, but he never contested an IndyCar race. Grosjean did run five IMSA endurance races last year for Lamborghini, and his best finish was fourth at Petit Le Mans. The Frenchman last raced in IndyCar in 2024 with Juncos Hollinger Racing. He was 17th in the championship, but his best finish was fourth at Laguna Seca and he had six top ten finishes over the entire season. 

It is a reunion as Grosjean made his IndyCar debut with Dale Coyne Racing in 2021. The two parties combined to have three podium finishes, including finishing second in Grosjean's third IndyCar start, which came from pole position in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. While Grosjean did not run three oval races, he still ended up 15th in the championship and was only 33 points behind Scott McLaughlin for Rookie of the Year.

Our Rookie Trifecta

Speaking of rookies, we have three ready for the 2026 season, and all three will be making their IndyCar debuts this weekend. Two of the three are coming up from Indy Lights while the third has a spent his career racing on the global stage, first in Formula One and most recently in the FIA World Endurance Championship. 

Dennis Hauger won the 2025 Indy Lights championship with Andretti Global, and Hauger moves up to IndyCar to run the #19 Honda for Dale Coyne Racing in a technical partnership with Andretti Global. Hauger won six of 14 races last year and he stood on the podium ten times. He also won eight pole positions and had five fastest laps. 

Prior to Indy Lights, Hauger was the 2021 Formula Three champion, which he won against the likes of Jack Doohan, Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant. He spent the next three seasons in Formula Two where his best championship finish was eighth in 2023 and he won five races. 

Also moving up from Indy Lights will be Caio Collet, who takes over the #4 Chevrolet for A.J. Foyt Racing. Collet was second to Hauger in Indy Lights, 72 points behind the Norwegian. Last year was Collet's second year in Indy Lights. After winning one race in 2024, Collet won three times in 2025, and he had nine podium finishes, three more than the year before. 

Collet also spent time in Formula Three, competing two rungs below Formula One from 2021 to 2023. He and Hauger shared the podium in the final race of the Circuit Paul Ricard weekend in 2021. Collet was third while Hauger was second and both finished behind Jack Doohan. Collet was ninth, eighth and ninth in the championship over those three years, and all three of his victories were sprint victories. 

The most notable rookie this season is Mick Schumacher, who joins Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to drive the #47 Honda. Schumacher spent two seasons racing in Formula One, both for the Haas F1 organization. While he failed to score a point as a rookie in 2021, Schumacher had two points finishes in 2022, an eighth in the British Grand Prix and sixth in the Austrian Grand Prix. 

After spending 2023 as a reserve driver for Mercedes-AMG and McLaren in Formula One, Schumacher returned to competition in 2024 driving for the Alpine hypercar program in the FIA World Endurance Championship. In 16 starts, his best finish wa this on three occasions. 

Last year, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing took Rookie of the Year with Louis Foster, though Foster's best finish was 11th and he was 23rd in the championship. It was the first time the rookie of the year finished outside the top twenty in the championship since 1986. Foster did have the highlight of taking pole position at Road America. 

Foster was the second RLLR driver in the last four seasons to win rookie of the year. Christian Lundgaard took the honor in 2022. Dale Coyne Racing has produced three rookies of the year since renunciation in 2008, but it has not done it since Ed Jones in 2017. A.J. Foyt Racing has never produced a rookie of the year.

Since the introduction of the aeroscreen in 2020, the average championship finish for all qualified rookies is 21.24 and no rookie has finished better than 14th in that time. The last season where a rookie finished in the top ten of the championship saw two crack the top ten. In 2019, Felix Rosenqvist was sixth as a rookie while Colton Herta was seventh. 

A Few Changes

The opening weekend of the IndyCar season will see some changes to procedures and how things are done. We will first see these changes in practice. 

Both practice sessions before qualifying will feature the split-group format, which we saw introduced last season during the first practice sessions. Each practice will be open to all entries for the first 40 minutes before the field will be split into two groups based on alternating pit boxes. Each group will then get an additional 12 minute on track. The second practice session had previously been a 60-minute session open to all cars.

The morning warm-up session will also increase by five minutes, from 25 minutes to 30 minutes. 

With the change to the practice format, a change has also been made on how groups will be determined for the second round of qualifying. The groups will be determined based on the previous race's qualifying results. For the opening round at St. Petersburg, entrant points from last season will set the groups, meaning we know the qualifying groups even before the first session will take place. 

One group will feature Álex Palou, Scott Dixon, Christian Lundgaard, Marcus Armstrong, David Malukas, Caio Collet, Christian Rasmussen, Alexander Rossi, Kyffin Simpson, Graham Rahal, Louis Foster, Sting Ray Robb and Dennis Hauger.

The other group will feature Patricio O'Ward, Kyle Kirkwood, Felix Rosenqvist, Will Power, Scott McLaughlin, Josef Newgarden, Romain Grosjean, Santino Ferrucci, Rinus VeeKay, Marcus Ericsson, Nolan Siegel and Mick Schumacher.

St. Petersburg will mark the first weekend with the new alternate tire compound rule for street course races. Each team must use a set of the alternate tire compound in two stints in each street course race. In all likelihood, this will make every street course race at least three-stop race, if not a four-stop race, but it does not entirely eliminate teams attempting to make it on three stops or even two stops. The primary tire compound must only be used on one stint, theoretically opening the door to a team making it on two stops, but using the alternate tire compound for majority of the race.

All 23 finishers in last year's St. Petersburg race made at least three stops. The only car to make four stops was Patricio O'Ward, but that was after O'Ward decided to start on the primary tire and switch to the alternate tire after two laps. O'Ward then went 20 laps on the alternate tire but still had to make two more pit stops to make it to the finish of the race. In 2024, 21 of the 23 cars that took the checkered flag at St. Petersburg only made two stops.

Road to Indy

This season's St. Petersburg weekend sees two of the three Road to Indy series also opening their campaigns on the temporary circuit. 

Indy Lights is showing up with 24 cars for its opening race. 

Leading the way will be Lochie Hughes and the Andretti Global quadruplet. Hughes was third in the championship last year with a pair of victories, and he was second at St. Petersburg last year. Hughes has three new teammates. Seb Murray moves over from the Andretti Cape partnership while Max Taylor will be full-time in Indy Lights after running a few races last year in companionship with a full USF Pro 2000 season. Josh Pierson moves over from HMD Motorsports where Pierson was sixth in the championship.

Myles Rowe was fourth in the championship and he ended the 2025 season with a victory at Nashville. Rowe is back in the Force Indy entry run in partnership with Abel Motorsports. Abel Motorsports will run 2025 USF Pro 2000 championship Max Garcia. Garcia won nine races last season. Jordan Missig and Colin Kaminsky round out the Abel Motorsports drivers. 

HMD Motorpsorts is down to four full-time cars with Salvador de Alba leading the way. Jack Beeton, Enzo Fittipaldi and Tymek Kucharczyk will also be at HMD. 

Chip Ganassi Racing has expanded to four cars with Bryce Aron and Niels Koolen returning. James Roe, Jr. and Carson Etter are joining the outfit. Cape Motorsports is now running partnership with Ed Carpenter Racing, and it will have Nikita Johnson and Matteo Nannini as its drivers. 

There are three new teams on the grid from the 2025 season. Juncos Hollinger Racing is back after a year out of the series. JHR will have Alexander Koreiba and Ricardo Escotto as its drivers. Cusack Morgan Motorsports will run Nicolas Stati and Juan Manuel Correa. A.J. Foyt Racing is back in Indy Lights for the first time since 2004, and it has a two-car team for Nicholas Monteiro and Alessandro de Tullio. Both Cusick Morgan Motorsports and A.J. Foyt Racing have a technical partnership with HMD Motorsports. 

The first Indy Lights race of the season will be at 10:00 a.m. ET on Sunday March 1. There race is scheduled for 45 laps.

Twenty-three cars are entered for the U.S. F2000 season opener.

Exclusive Autosport won the Drivers' Championship last year with Jack Jeffers, and Exclusive Autosport is rolling into St. Petersburg with six drivers. Evan Cooley and Anthony Martella are the top returning drivers from the 2025 championship. Connor Aspley, Gabriel Cahan, Ayrton Cahan and Kaylee Countryman will round out the six-car lineup. 

VRD Racing won the Teams' Championship last year, and it is back with a four-car team for João Vergara, Colin Aitken, Ryan Giannetta and Jack Mohrhardt. 

Ed Carpenter Racing's tentacles are spreading down to the lowest rung of the Road to Indy as well, as the team has partnered with Jay Howard Driver Development. This partnership will continue in USF Pro 2000 as well. This weekend, JHDD has four cars entered for Liam Loiacono, Naim Saleh, Erik Holm and Cal Peter.

DEForce Racing has three drivers entered with Sebastián Garzón leading the way after being fastest at Homestead testing. Brady Golan and Thomas Nordquist. Pabst Racing has a trio of cars, two for Australians Brad Majman and Eddie Beswick, and one for Canadian Lucas Nanji. 

Zanella Racing has entered U.S. F2000 with 2025 USF Juniors champion Leonardo Escorpioni. Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing is back with Wian Boshoff. Wesley Gundler rounds out the grid with ENVE Motorsports. 

U.S. F2000 will race at 11:30 a.m. ET on Friday February 27 and at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday March 1. Both races are scheduled for 20 laps or 40 minutes.

Fast Facts

This will be the third IndyCar race to take place on March 1 and the first since 1925 when Tommy Milton won a 250-mile race on the 1.25-mile board oval in Culver City, California.

The only other March 1 race was in 1913. Billy Carlson won a 200-mile race on the Point Loma road course, a 5.982-mile course in San Diego, California. 

March 1 is also Will Power's 45th birthday. 

There have been nine birthday winners in IndyCar history, the most recent was Dan Wheldon on June 22, 2008 at Iowa. It was Wheldon's 30th birthday.

The oldest birthday winner in IndyCar history is Nigel Mansell, who won on his 40th birthday on August 8, 1993 at Loudon.

There have been six different winners in the last six St. Petersburg races. This matches the longest streak of different winners in the history of the race. There were six different winners from 2008 to 2013. 

Last year's race had an average speed of 97.173 mph, the fastest St. Petersburg race ever, whether it be at the 180-mile distance (100 laps) or 200-mile distance (110 laps).

Four of the last five St. Petersburg races have been completed between in the one-hour-and-51-minute range.

The average starting position for a St. Petersburg winner is 5.2727 with a median of fourth. 

Last year, Álex Palou won from eighth. It was the sixth time in 22 St. Petersburg races that the winner started outside the top five.

Twenty-three consecutive IndyCar races have been won from a top ten starting position. The most recent race won from outside the top ten was the second Iowa race in 2024. Will Power won from 22nd.

The most recent road or street course race won from outside the top ten was the 2023 Laguna Seca season finale. Scott Dixon won from 11th.

Chip Ganassi Racing has won two of the last three St. Petersburg races after winning only one of the previous 18.

Chevrolet and Honda have alternated winning at St. Petersburg since 2020 with Chevrolet winning all three even-numbered years and Honda winning all three odd-numbered years.

 

The average number of lead changes in a St. Petersburg race is 6.4545 with a median of seven.

The average number of cautions in a St. Petersburg race is 3.9545 with a median of 4.5. The average number of caution laps is 17.5 with a median of 16.

Every St. Petersburg race has had at least one caution. Last year's race became the second St. Petersburg race to feature only one caution. The first was the 2022 St. Petersburg race.

This is the first IndyCar season to start with three consecutive weekends of races since 2021, however, that was after the St. Petersburg race was delayed seven weeks due to the pandemic. The last season with the first three races originally scheduled over consecutive weekends was the 2007 Champ Car season.

Predictions

We start the season with a bang, and Will Power wins on his birthday. Only one other Team Penske driver finishes in the top five, and at least four different teams are represented in the top five finishers. Álex Palou spends majority of the laps running in the top five. Every car makes it through the first lap. Louis Foster gets his first top ten finish. Most cars start on the alternate tire and then use them again on their third stint. One driver will try to use the alternate tire in both the first two stints, and that driver will finish off the lead lap. Romain Grosjean will not have an outburst on the radio. Marcus Ericsson has his worst St. Petersburg starting position since 2021, but he will finish at least five spots better than that. Sleeper: Felix Rosenqvist.

2026 Road to Indy Preview

We are on the verge of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season, but along with IndyCar comes the start of the Road to Indy series as many young drivers continue their journeys to the top division of American open-wheel racing. 

There are a few slight changes from past seasons. New tracks for IndyCar means new races for the junior series as well. However, not everyone is starting together in St. Petersburg. There are also a few different season finale weekends.

Indy Lights

There will be 17 races in the 2026 Indy Lights season, starting at St. Petersburg. Two weeks later, Indy Lights will also partake in the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington on March 15. Two weeks after that, Indy Lights has its first of five doubleheader weekends. This one will be at Barber Motorsports Park. 

Indy Lights will have a little more than a month off before a doubleheader on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on May 8-9. The seventh race of the season will be on the streets of Detroit on May 31. One week later will be the first oval race of the season from Gateway.

The season hits the halfway point during a doubleheader at Road America over June 20-21. Independence Day weekend will feature another doubleheader at Mid-Ohio. Indy Lights will race against the World Cup final on July 19 from Nashville.

Portland kicks off the final quarter of the season on August 9 before the final oval race from Milwaukee on August 30. The season ends with a doubleheader from Laguna Seca on September 5-6.

Teams:

Andretti Global

Lochie Hughes: #26 The McGinley Clinic Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Third in the Indy Lights championship with 466 points and a pair of victories, but Hughes did not win in the final eight races thought he had eight podium finishes and ten top five finishes.

What to expect in 2026: Hughes will have higher expectations as he is the top returning driver from last year's championship, and there will be an expectation that he will take the title now that Dennis Hauger is gone. Hughes should be more of a threat. He should win a few more races.

Seb Murray: #27 Dream Racing Dubai Dallara

What did he do in 2025: 13th in Indy Lights with 230 points and one top five finish.

What to expect in 2026: It should get better. Murray is now fully in the Andretti camp after racing for Andretti Cape last year. However, this grid is rather competitive. It will be a challenge to break into the top ten.  

Max Taylor: #28 Susan G. Komen/Simplify Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Taylor made six starts in Indy Lights with his best finish being fourth and he had four top ten finishes. Taylor also ran the full USF Pro 2000 season and was sixth in the championship with one victory and four podium finishes.

What to expect in 2026: Taylor did well in USF Pro 2000 but not great. With his focus only on Indy Lights, he should be competitive and possibly could win a race, but fighting for the championship top five will be a good year. 

Josh Pierson: #29 The Crypto Companies Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Sixth in Indy Lights on 378 points with a pair of podium finishes and six top five finishes.

What to expect in 2026: Pierson has been developing and this is about to be his fourth year in Indy Lights, but he is still only 20 years old. The time has come to at least win a race. If he is the second-best Andretti driver behind Hughes it will be a good season.

HMD Motorsports

Salvador de Alba: #17 Grupo Indi Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Fifth in Indy Lights on 418 points with a victory at Milwaukee, three podium finishes and nine top five finishes.

What to expect in 2026: De Alba should be a championship contender, but with the grid growing and a number of IndyCar teams entering, HMD is not as well positioned as it once was in this series. De Alba should be competing for race victories. At worst, he will be somewhere in the championship top ten.  

Jack Beeton: #45 Tailored Investment Solutions Dallara

What did he do in 2025: 13th in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship and 13th in the Formula Regional European Championship. Beeton won the FRMEC season finale at Lusail International Circuit in Qatar. In 19 FREC starts, he had eight finishes in the points with his best finish being sixth. 

What to expect in 2026: Not much. Barely competitive in the Formula Regional divisions. Indy Lights is much tougher. This is a much larger grid than past seasons. Top fifteen finishes could be good days.  

Enzo Fittipaldi: #67 HMD Motorsports Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Sixth in the European Le Mans Series LMP2 class with CLX Motorsport. His best finish was third at Circuit Paul Ricard.

What to expect in 2026: Prior to last season, Fittipaldi had spent the better part of four seasons in Formula Two. Results were good as he was eighth in the championship in 2022 and seventh in 2023. His struggle was with consistency, and with Fittipaldi adjusting to ovals it could cost him. He should be in the championship top ten, but it is hard to envision him higher than about seventh.

Tymek Kucharczyk: #71 Mubi Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Euroformula Open champion on 392 points with six victories in 24 starts.

What to expect in 2026: Euroformula Open is not a deep championship. This is a big jump to Indy Lights. He and Beeton are in a similar boat.

Abel Motorsports with Force Indy

Myles Rowe: #99 Force Indy Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Fourth in Indy Lights on 458 points with two victories, six podium finishes and ten top five finishes.

What to expect in 2026: Rowe made a big leap in 2025. He should be a championship contender alongside the likes of Lochie Hughes. Finishing in the top five of the championship is the bare minimum for this season, and it would be good if he could win a road or street course race. It isn't out of the question, but it will be tougher.

Abel Motorsports

Max Garcia: #12 USF Pro Championships Dallara

What did he do in 2025: The USF Pro 2000 champion on 495 points with nine victories, 13 podium finishes and 17 top five finishes in 18 starts.

What to expect in 2026: Abel can produce quality cars, and Garcia was rather stellar in 2025. The grid is packed, but I think results will start to turn in Garcia's favor as the season goes along. A few podium results would be a good year. 

Jordan Missig: #48 GR1P Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Ninth in the Indy Lights championship on 273 points with his best finish being sixth in the opening are of the season from St. Petersburg.

What to expect in 2026: A step back from 2025. This grid is more talented and Missig wasn't that threatening last season. I do not expect a big change. 

Colin Kaminsky: #57 Slick Locks Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Nothing. Kaminsky sat on the sideline. He last competed in 2024 in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America championship, Kaminsky made eight Indy Lights starts in 2023 where his best finish was sixth at Barber Motorsports Park. 

What to expect in 2026: We saw bursts for Kaminsky in the Road to Indy, but nothing has quite stuck. I expect the same. A few top ten finishes but not much more than that. 

Chip Ganassi Racing

James Roe, Jr.: #8 TopCon Dallara

What did he do in 2025: 12th in Indy Lights on 235 points, and Roe, Jr.'s best finish was seventh.

What to expect in 2026: Roe, Jr. has yo-yoed all over the Indy Lights championship in his first four seasons. He looked like a possible race winner at Andretti Global until last season. I don't see Chip Ganassi Racing being much better. He could be in the championship top ten or he could be 12th again. 

Bryce Aron: #9 Jaguar Land Rover Chesterfield Dallara

What did he do in 2025: 11th in Indy Lights on 260 points with one top five finish.

What to expect in 2026: There was a slight regression last year for Aron. Results could improve in 2026, but they will likely be around where he was in 2024, which was ninth in the championship.  

Niels Koolen: #10 Super B Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Eighth in Indy Lights on 288 points with one top five finish. 

What to expect in 2026: With a deeper grid, I think Koolen takes a step back and likely finishes outside the top ten in the championship.

Carson Etter: #11 Evisions Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Etter was 17th in the USF Pro 2000 championship on 117 points. He was the worst driver in the championship among those that started every race, and his best finish all season was sixth in the final race of the season from Portland. Prior to that, his best result of the year was 12th.

What to expect in 2026: Etter is making a big leap into Indy Lights. I don't know how he ended up at Chip Ganassi Racing (Money is the answer, I know that, but on principle, how?). He should be the bottom of the fourth Ganassi drivers. It will put him at the bottom of the championship as well. 

Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR

Matteo Nannini: #20 ENVE Motorsports Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Nothing. Nannini has not competed in any series since he made seven Indy Lights starts in 2023 where he won in the wet on the IMS road course, but he had an average finish of 14.667 in the other six races. 

What to expect in 2026: Your guess is as good as mine. It has been nearly three years since Nannini last competed. Results will be better than some, but it is unlikely he will be a regular challenger and turn some heads.

Nikita Johnson: #21 Java House Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Johnson made three Indy Lights starts and his best finish was seventh on the IMS road course. Johnson made 12 starts in the GB3 Championship and he started eight races in Formula Three with his best finish being 13th in the Monza sprint race.

What to expect in 2026: Johnson was a rising start a few years ago. A brief spell in Europe has slowed his development in the American junior system. However, he is back and focused. He could be a sleeper this season. Do not be surprised if he winds up on a few podiums and could challenge for a victory or two. A championship run is slim but not impossible.

Juncos Hollinger Racing

Alexander Koreiba: #75 Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Nothing. Koreiba was the 2024 HSR Prototype Challenge champion. Prior to that, he ran one IMSA round in the LMP3 class in 2023 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was second in the 2022 IMSA Prototype Challenge championship with Memo Gidley as his co-driver.

What to expect in 2026: Nothing brilliant. I am not sure how so many drivers who have done nothing for years are ending up in Indy Lights. 

Ricardo Escotto: #76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara

What did he do in 2025: 19th in Indy Lights after only contesting the first nine races with top ten finishes in his first two starts.

What to expect in 2026: Things were not going great in the first half of last season. I don't think Escotto is going to be a top ten challenger.

Cusick Morgan Motorsports

Nicolas Stati: #15 The Track Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Competed in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship and Formula Regional Americas Championship. His best finish in FRAC was third on the IMS road course and he contested only 12 of 22 races.

What to expect in 2026: Stati is a complete unknown and all these circuits are new. This is essentially a new team. He is going to be toward the bottom of the results every race. 

Juan Manuel Correa: #68 Cusick Morgan Motorsports Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Correa made nine starts in Indy Lights and was third in Detroit with four top ten finishes. He was 17th in the championship on 176 points.

What to expect in 2026: There were brief sparks of promise last season for Correa. This is a new operation. That could be a hinderance considering some of the drivers he is racing against. He should have enough to crack the championship top ten.  

A.J. Foyt Racing

Nicholas Monteiro: #4 EQR Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Tenth in the USF Pro 2000 Championship on 185 points and his best finish was sixth. Monteiro made his Indy Lights debut at Portland and finished 14th. 

What to expect in 2026: Monteiro has not been that impressive in his Road to Indy career. He never finished in the top five in 52 USF Pro 2000 starts. That is not going to change now. Any top ten results will be good days.

Alessandro de Tullio: #14 AstroaPay Dallara

What did he do in 2025: Fourth in the USF Pro 2000 Championship on 342 points with four victories and seven podium finishes. 

What to expect in 2026: After starting strong last year, de Tullio was a surprise but the results could not remain that high for the entire season. He looked good in testing, and a few good results could follow this season. It does feel like he will fall short of the championship top five. 

USF Pro 2000

USF Pro 2000 will have an 18-race season, but it will not start until the Grand Prix of Arlington with a doubleheader. The series will then have a near-two month break before running two races on the IMS road course. The first oval race will be at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Memorial Day weekend. 

After a month off, USF Pro 2000 returns with a doubleheader from Road America. The first of two triple-header weekends will be at Mid-Ohio. There will be another month off before a Portland doubleheader. USF Pro 2000 is scheduled to join IndyCar for the inaugural Markham weekend. 

Milwaukee will be the final oval event, but the season will end after the IndyCar season. Road America will host a triple-header over September 24-26 to close out the USF Pro 2000 season.

Who should we keep an eye on?

The top four from the 2025 U.S. F2000 championship are moving up to USF Pro 2000 for 2026. Jack Jeffers took the title with six victories and 13 podium finishes. Jeffers will be with Exclusive Autosport, the same team he won the U.S. F2000 championship with.

Teddy Musella wound up 67 points behind Jeffers, but he had a pair of victories and nine podium finishes. Musella will drive for VRD Racing. Thomas Schrage won three times and was only a point behind Musella in the championship. Schrage is set to drive for TJ Speed Motorsports. G3 Argyros was a distant fourth, 81 points behind Schrage. Argyros did not win a race but had four podium finishes, all third-place results. He will drive for Pabst Racing.

The top returning driver from the 2025 USF Pro 2000 championship is Jacob Douglas, who will be Argyros' teammate at Pabst Racing. Douglas was fifth in the championship last year, and he did win a race while having eight podium finishes. 

Michael Costello is also back after finishing seventh in the championship last year. Costello had a pair of podium finishes, but he finished outside the top ten in seven races. He will drive for Turn 3 Motorsport.

Who could be a surprise? 

Jay Howard Driver Development (JHDD) powered by ECR had stunning pace out of the gate at the preseason Homestead test with both drivers JT Hoskins and Andrés Cárdenas. Cardenas is coming over from Eurocup-3, a Formula Regional equivalent series in Europe, and he did win the final race of the season. Hoskins is leaping from USF Juniors to USF Pro 2000. Hoskins was 11th in the USF Juniors in 2025. That testing pace could be too good to be true. 

Christian Cameron was the fastest at the Homestead test with TJ Speed Motorsports. Cameron was 11th in U.S. F2000 last year with his best finish being fourth. He is the cousin of five-time IMSA championship Dane Cameron.

Who needs a good season?

Frankie Mossman is about to enter his third full season in USF Pro 2000, and he has yet to win a race. Mossman was quick in testing at Homestead driving for VRD Racing. He has never finished better than eighth in the championship at this level.

U.S. F2000

The season begins with a doubleheader from St. Petersburg, but there will be over two months until the next U.S. F2000 round, and it will be a triple-header held over the Grand Prix of Indianapolis weekend. Like USF Pro 2000, U.S. F2000 will have a race at Indianapolis Raceway Park over Memorial Day weekend. 

The second triple-header of the season will be at Road America before a doubleheader at Mid-Ohio. One month later, U.S. F2000 returns to competition at Portland, and U.S. F2000 will also race at Markham. U.S. F2000 concludes its season with a triple-header from Road America over September 24-26.

Who should we keep an eye on?

Sebastián Garzón was blisteringly quick in Homestead testing for DEForce Racing, and he is back for his second season in U.S. F2000. Garzón ended last season on a high note with three consecutive top five finishes. 

Liam Loiacono was the next fastest driver at the Homestead test with JHDD powered by ECR, and Lolacono was second in USF Juniors last season. VRD Racing had a trio of quick drivers with João Vergara, Ryan Giannetta and Colin Aitken. Naim Salih was another JHDD driver to keep an eye on. 

Leonardo Escorpioni was the 2025 USF Juniors champion, and he will run full-time in U.S. F2000 for Zanella Racing, but Escorpioni spent the entire Homestead test running in USF Pro 2000. Escorpioni had six victories, 14 podium finishes and was in the top four in 15 of 16 races last year in USF Juniors. 

Who could be a surprise? 

Evan Cooley is the top returning driver from last year's championship. Cooley was sixth and he only had two podium finishes and five top five results. Like Escorpioni, Cooley tested at Homestead in USF Pro 2000. It is tough to judge how he stacks up entering this season.

Who needs a good season?

Anthony Martella did win a race last year with the Canadian finishing first at Indianapolis Raceway Park. However, it was one of only two top five finishers he had all season as he was seventh in the championship, three points ahead of Garzón.

Indy Lights will open the season this weekend in St. Petersburg with a 45-lap race on Sunday March 1 at 10:00 a.m. ET. The first U.S. F2000 race of the weekend will be on Friday February 27 at 11:30 a.m. The second race of the weekend will not be until 3:00 p.m. on Sunday March 1. Bot races will be 20 laps or 40 minutes.