Musings From the Weekend: 2026 IndyCar Predictions: Revisited

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

It was mostly a good weekend for Joshuas. It was a great weekend for Italians. There was late heartbreak in Texas. NASCAR beat the rain in Darlington. The Indy Lights championship nearly took a turn with an accident while taking the green flag for the final race of the season. The IndyCar season ended, but not with an Álex Palou victory. Scott McLaughlin got off the snide and his victory ended a 35-race winless streak. As with the end of any IndyCar season, we turn our eyes toward predictions made long before the season started. 

2026 IndyCar Predictions: Revisited

Our annual tradition of reviewing predictions made in the cold of winter when the calendar has yet to flip to the New Year immediately following the conclusion of an IndyCar season has returned. There was hope for this year after 2025 predictions did not quite pan out. Especially with notable drivers changing teams, there was plenty to be excited ahead of the 2026 season. 

Without further delay, let's dive in.

1. Will Power finishes in the top three of street course points

Wrong! It was a difficult debut season at Andretti Global for Power, but street courses were where he had some of his best success. Power had a hat trick of third place finishes on street courses, picking up hardware in Arlington, Markham and Washington, D.C., coincidentally the three inaugural events on the 2026 calendar. However, Power still had his stumbles on the other three street courses, finishing 22nd at St. Petersburg, 19th at Long Beach and 12th at Detroit. 

Power scored 137 points on street courses, sixth-most this season behind Álex Palou (242), Kyle Kirkwood (220), Marcus Ericsson (175), Christian Lundgaard (171) and Patricio O'Ward (166). Of course, it is the other two Andretti Global drivers that finish in the top three of street course points! Some predictions just work out that way. 

2. Josef Newgarden will at least double his top five finish total

Wrong! Last season, Newgarden had only three podium finishes, a third at St. Petersburg, a second in the first Iowa race and a victory at Nashville. He had to crack six top five finishes this season for this prediction to be correct. There were also six oval races this season, which lined up nicely for Newgarden. He ended up with four top five finishes. Two were victories at Phoenix and Gateway. He was fourth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and second at Nashville.

In the other three oval races, he had an accident in the Indianapolis when fighting for a top five finish, and the pace wasn't quite there for a top five finish in either Milwaukee race, one of which he spun and grazed the wall and the other he finished seventh. Newgarden did have seven finishes between seventh and tenth this season, never once finishing sixth and one spot off a top five finish. Newgarden hasn't finished sixth since the 2022 Nashville street race, not that means anything but it is interesting to note.

3. Álex Palou will not lead the championship after at least six races

Wrong! This one didn't sound crazy in theory, Palou could still lead the championship for a dozen races and this prediction would have been correct. However, Palou for three races, rounds two, three and four this season. Josef Newgarden led after his victory in Phoenix. Kyle Kirkwood led after Arlington and Long Beach. Palou led after the other 15 events. 

Last season, Palou went wire-to-wire leading after all 17 races. Three is worse than last year but who are we kidding? It was still a sensational season and no one was all that close to him.

4. Scott Dixon will win a race where he leads at least the final 10% of the race

Wrong! Scott Dixon didn't win a race this year let along win a race and lead at least the final 10%. Dixon barely led at all in 2026. Seventy-nine laps led are the fewest for Dixon in a season since he led only 25 laps in 2005. This was Dixon's worst championship finish since 2005 and it was only the third time in his 26-year career he has finished outside the top ten of the championship. 

5. Meyer Shank Racing wins a race

Correct! It was basically a hunch that Meyer Shank Racing's improvement in pace over the previous two seasons would finally net a victory. I am not sure I expected it to be the Indianapolis 500, but Felix Rosenqvist won that race, and with the closest margin of victory to boot in the event's 110th edition. 

Meyer Shank Racing really should have had two victories this season. Marcus Armstrong was gone from the field at Road America only to lose an engine while leading. Rosenqvist also had another pair of promising runs at Long Beach and Portland, starting first on both occasion only to finish second to Álex Palou, because whom else would you finish second to?

6. Rinus VeeKay scores the most points for a Juncos Hollinger Racing driver

Correct! Entering 2026, the most points a Juncos Hollinger Racing driver had scored in a season was 268 points. This season, VeeKay reached 269 points at the 13th round of the season in Portland. VeeKay went further, ending with a career best 378 points and finishing a career-best tenth in the championship. 

VeeKay had four top five finishes, including a third in the first Milwaukee race, another personal-best. For the second consecutive season, VeeKay exceeded expectations and is heading into the offseason as one of the most impressive drivers.

7. Christian Lundgaard will have consecutive top five finishes and one of those finishes will be fourth or fifth

Wrong! Last season, Lundgaard had a stretch of three consecutive podium finishes and a pair of runner-up finishes. He had six total top five finishes, and they were all podium results. This year, what does Lundgaard do? He has one instance of consecutive top five finishes and it was his victory at Road America with a runner-up at Mid-Ohio following. His only finish of fourth or fifth was fifth at Detroit. It was the first time he finished fourth or fifth since he was fourth for the 2023 summer Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race, held in conjunction with the NASCAR weekend. 

What stings more is entering yesterday's finale, Lundgaard was classified in third in the most recent IndyCar race, though that is confusing based on how the Milwaukee weekend ended. All he needed was to finish fifth at Laguna Seca for this predictions to be correct. Where did Lundgaard finish? Sixth. 

That sounds about right.

8. Alexander Rossi will lead at least 100 laps

Wrong! Rossi led well fewer than 100 laps. He led ten laps, four of which were in the Laguna Seca finale. The other six laps were in the Indianapolis 500. I thought Rossi would have been more competitive this season on ovals. Ed Carpenter Racing showed good potential last year. It just wasn't Rossi leading the way. 

I thought we would see Rossi lead 40 or 50 laps at Gateway and combine that with 15 or 20 laps led at the Indianapolis 500 and another 30 or 40 laps at Milwaukee, plus another 20 or so laps through the road and street course races. That didn't happen, and it wasn't close to happening. 

9. Each Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry finishes better in the entrant's championship

Correct! Though this one turned out to be aided through circumstances we did not fully anticipate. 

Let's start with the good, or at least the better. Graham Rahal turned out to be better in 2026. Rahal's end to the 2026 season might not have been as strong as he would have wished, but he did have three podium finishes, all third-place results. He helped him finish 16th in the championship, a three-position improvement from 19th in the entrants' championship in 2025.

Louis Foster did a little better. Foster picked up his first career top ten finish with a seventh in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. He had three top ten finishes this season. After the #45 Honda was 23rd in the entrants' championship in 2025, Foster lifted the car to 18th in 2026. 

This is where the prediction loses some steam. With Prema withdrawing from the championship and not fielding two cars, the third RLLR entry improved in the entrants' championship by default. What was the #30 Honda in 2025 was 26th last year. Only 25 cars were competing full-time in 2026. No additional entries appeared outside the Indianapolis 500. This doesn't feel like some triumphant prediction. Mick Schumacher did place the #47 Honda 23rd in the entrants' championship. 

It is correct, but one of the RLLR entrants was guaranteed to do better because Prema closed up shop. That isn't a knock on the team, and we were expecting Prema to be on the grid when these predictions were made. 

10. Fewer than 50 points will separate Marcus Ericsson and Dennis Hauger

Wrong! This turned out to not even be close. Ericsson had a career revival in 2026 and ended up finishing seventh in the championship. He won at Markham and had four top five finishes along with 12 top ten finishes, including a streak of seven consecutive top ten results to close out the season. 

Meanwhile, Hauger started the season strong with a tenth at St. Petersburg, but he had only one other top ten finish the entire season, eighth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The Norwegian slipped to 22nd in the championship, 201 points behind Ericsson! These two drivers were in two entirely different zip codes.

11. Indianapolis 500 one-offs will lead fewer than a third of the race

Correct! In 2025, one-off Indianapolis 500 drivers led a combined 103 laps, and no full-time IndyCar driver led more than 17 laps. In 2026, one-off Indianapolis 500 drivers led a combined four laps, and Conor Daly was responsible for all four of those laps. Four drivers exceeded more than 17 laps led in this year's race, and all four were full-time drivers. Álex Palou led 59 times, Scott Dixon led 32, David Malukas led 30 laps and race winner Felix Rosenqvist led 25 laps. 

12. A country wins a World Cup match and an IndyCar race on the same day

Wrong! But it was so close to being correct!

There were three chances for this prediction to come out.

June 21: Christian Lundgaard won at Road America. Denmark didn't even qualify for the World Cup. In the four matches that day Belgium and Iran played to a scoreless draw while Uruguay and Cape Verde finished 2-2. Spain defeated Saudi Arabia 4-0. Unfortunately, Álex Palou was fifth. Egypt defeated New Zealand 3-1, but New Zealand led 1-0 at halftime. Talk about a parallel between Marcus Armstrong's engine letting go and New Zealand having this lead slip away. 

July 5: We were onto the round of 16 in the World Cup. Before the two matches that day, Patricio O'Ward won at Mid-Ohio and Mexico was playing England that night from Estadio Azteca. It ended up being one of the best matches of the tournament, but England eliminated the co-hosts with a 3-2 victory. Norway defeated Brazil 2-1 earlier that day. 

July 19: Spain won the World Cup Final 1-0 over Argentina in extra time. There was supposed to be an IndyCar race from Nashville immediately following this final. However, it rained... a lot... and the race was moved to Monday... where Álex Palou was the winner. 

This prediction was kind of correct. Palou did win within 24 hours of Spain winning the World Cup. It feels correct in spirit but incorrect in writing. I will not count it, but damn was it close.

Final score... 4/12... It is better than last year but it doesn't feel great. None of these predictions felt rather drastic or fool-hearted. There was logic placed behind them. The circumstances didn't win out. Who would have thought Lundgaard would have only one finish of fourth or fifth this season and it would not be before or after another top five result? Thinking Lundgaard with finish fifth and second in consecutive races isn't a wild prediction. It just didn't happen.

I am curious, how many of these predictions end up correct next year? I am not sure Rinus VeeKay and Juncos Hollinger Racing reset both their best seasons for a second consecutive year, but 2027 could be the year Rossi leads 150 laps, 75 of which come from a great run at Phoenix, and Scott Dixon ends up winning at Mid-Ohio while leading the final 24 laps. It is not impractical to think the rest of the IndyCar grid combines to lead the championship for at least six races over Álex Palou. We may need to do a retrospective on how some past predictions would have held up if they were made this year and in other subsequent years. 

At least this year was better even if there is still work to do to be classified as great.

2025: 2/12

2024: 7/12

2023: 9/12

2022: 6/12

2021: 4/12

2020: 8/11 (one prediction was about Richmond, which never happened)

2019: 5.5/12

2018: 6/12

2017: 8/12

2016: 6/12

2015: 8/12

2014: 10/14

Champion From the Weekend

You know about Álex Palou's championship from last week, but did you know...

Nikita Johnson clinched the Indy Lights championship with a pair of runner-up finishes at Laguna Seca.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Scott McLaughlin, but did you know...

Andrea Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Grand Prix, his seventh victory of the season, and Antonelli won from 19th on the grid.

Christopher Bell won the 77th Southern 500. Sheldon Creed won the NASCAR Grand National Series race, his second victory of the season..

The #50 AF Corse Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen won Lone Star Le Mans. The #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Mattia Drudi, Ian James and Zacharie Robichon won in LMGT3.

Nicoló Bulega swept the World Superbike races from Magny-Cours. Can Öncü and Roberto García split the World Supersport races.

Josh Pearson and Tymek Kucharczyk split the Indy Lights races from Laguna Seca.

Joshua Dürksen swept the Formula Two races from Monza. Taito Kato (sprint) and Nicola Lacorte (feature) split the Formula Three races.

Coming Up This Weekend

Formula One's debut on Madrid's Madring.

MotoGP is off to Misano.

The Suzuka 1000 km marks the penultimate round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge season.

The European Le Mans Series will be in Silverstone.

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads off to the Sachsenring. 

NASCAR races at Gateway.

Supercars has its first endurance round, The Bend 500 from Tailem Bend. 

The World Rally Championship continues its South America trek to Chile. 

First Impressions: Laguna Seca 2026

1. No better time than the finale for domination, and Scott McLaughlin ended his season with a thrashing in Laguna Seca. Pole position, most laps led, victory. McLaughlin was near-flawless today. The New Zealander did not run away from the competition, Kyle Kirkwood kept him honest until the very end. This result is a fair cap to McLaughlin's season. He was good, respectable, but until today we had not seen McLaughlin really be the driver to beat. If he had not won a race in 2026, it would have been a fair encapsulation of his season. Then today happened and he was unquestionably the best driver of the day. McLaughlin gets to head into the offseason with at least the second-most confidence behind our champion. Perhaps it will lead to a surge in 2027.

2. Kyle Kirkwood was second on the day and Kirkwood earned second in the championship with this result. That is where Kirkwood has been this season, and it is pretty much where he has been for the last two seasons. Kirkwood has been in Álex Palou's shadow the most. Sometimes, Kirkwood overcomes the Catalan driver. Most of the time, Palou is the best. Kirkwood can hold his own and put up impressive drives. He has been a regular winner the last two seasons. The hard part is going that step further. This season could have been championship-caliber not long ago. In the age of Palou, it is second at best.

3. We finally had a clean race from Alexander Rossi and it was a complete weekend. Rossi was quick all weekend, but we have seen numerous weekends where practice looks good for Rossi and Ed Carpenter Racing and as the weekend continues the team declines and is not a factor in the race. Rossi was competitive today. He ran a slightly different strategy and it put him in a podium position. Rossi didn't have the pace to defeat McLaughlin and Kirkwood, but it was important Rossi and ECR had this weekend. This has been a messy season for ECR between accidents, mechanical failures and unforced errors, another one we saw today with the sister car. This team should be more competitive than the record shows.

4. Felix Rosenqvist had a spirited battle with David Malukas for fourth and Rosenqvist took it in the later stages of the race to cap off Rosenqvist's most successful, and arguably most pivotal seasons in IndyCar. He won the Indianapolis 500. He was good, but still not spotless. There were a number of races that did not turn out his way. He lost a good result at Arlington for jumping a restart. There were still off days, but Rosenqvist was highly competitive. Now, he returns to McLaren where his career once went sideways.

5. David Malukas had a better season than likely any of us expected even if he did not win a race. Malukas ended the season with a fifth-place finish, he ended up fifth in the championship, the top Team Penske driver. Malukas is the one Penske driver that did not win a race this season. I don't think that is a knock against him. He drove the best we have seen on road and street courses after rarely being a threat on any of those in his first few seasons. He was inches away from winning the Indianapolis 500. There might be another level he must ascend to, but he made a great stride in 2026.

6. Christian Lundgaard may not have ended up second in the championship, but sixth in the finale clinched him best Arrow McLaren driver, and that is bragging rights as he leaves the team. It is still rather stupefying Lundgaard has been let go after winning two races and finishing third in the championship while being replaced by Scott Dixon, who is coming off his worst season in over 20 years and who is 46 years old. It feels like McLaren has bought legacy hoping it will equal success. Sometimes the past is gone. Lundgaard showed promise for the future, and he just had his best oval weekend to boot last week in Milwaukee. McLaren has made a gamble that could backfire fairly quickly.

7. Even a slight pit bobble didn't derail Marcus Armstrong's finale, and Armstrong was able to finish seventh. The results do not tell the full story of Armstrong's season, and he was better than the results. He lost an engine in three of four races over the summer, including one that took away a sure victory at Road America. That flipped his season. The entire Meyer Shank Racing team appeared rattled and could not have a clean weekend. Armstrong needed this race. It was a good race, a positive to end on. He will be the team leader in 2027. The result must be better even if the bad ones were not his fault.

8. And we arrive at our champion Álex Palou, who went off-strategy and attempted a four-stop race. It didn't work, but Palou had the wiggle room to try things today. He didn't have to win. He didn't have to follow McLaughlin and try to jump him during a pit cycle. Palou could run a little harder. It didn't work. It didn't need to. Palou already claimed the championship. He can throw this race away. It will not affect him one bit.

9. Marcus Ericsson caps his revival season with a ninth place finish after taking a late grid penalty for an engine change. We knew Ericsson was capable of this. He was a regular top ten finisher at Chip Ganassi Racing. It didn't immediately click at Andretti Global. I think Andretti Global has been ironing out some wrinkles in the team. The team was better this year and Ericsson benefitted because of it. Now the team believes in him. That driver never disappeared. He was always there and now he can shine at Andretti.

10. Kyffin Simpson closes out an impressive season with a tenth-place finish. Simpson isn't flashy. There are still many races where he isn't notable, but he has become a driver that can finish somewhat regularly in the top ten and occasionally pull off a stellar result. There has been plenty of conversation about driving standards and the IndyCar approval process. We will discuss it in greater detail later. Simpson's junior record was not glowing, but in IndyCar he has shown to be capable. Let's keep that in mind moving forward.

11. Patricio O'Ward did not end on a high note. He didn't quite have it this weekend, and this is a weekend we have not seen from O'Ward and McLaren much in 2026. This group had its handful of anonymous races for the last few seasons. Those didn't really happen this year. If anything, we saw O'Ward run fifth and just remain there, nothing moving forward or backward. This was an odd day for O’Ward. He never showed any threatening pace. 

12. We are going to handle a few drivers in chunks here.

Santino Ferrucci went from 21st to 12th. Ferrucci has this kind of race at least four times a year. Doesn't look quick, strategy works in his favor with a hair more speed. It is good to improve but he is constantly racing from behind that it limits his results.

Will Power's first season with Andretti Global concludes with a 13th place finish. Power had a brief off-track excursion. It was a yo-yo season for Power, but it mostly ended as a positive. You would think he should be more confident next year, but we also know Power is bound to throw away a few results a season. He did it speeding into pit lane while leading at Milwaukee.

Louis Foster was 14th. It is hard to tell if Foster improved in his sophomore season. The qualifying pace was not as good as last year, but he did get a few top ten finishes. How much of it is the driver and how much of it is the team?

Josef Newgarden struggled all weekend for speed and the best he could do was 15th. This is the second consecutive season where the takeaway is Newgarden must return to the drawing board. The comfort has not been there on road and street courses for arguably three years.

Rinus VeeKay held onto tenth in the championship though he was 16th in this race. Overall, a brilliant season for VeeKay and Juncos Hollinger Racing. It was VeeKay's best season in IndyCar. It was JHR's best season in IndyCar. This partnership was bountiful in success. Expectations only go up for next season as VeeKay is expected to return, but it is hard for the smaller programs to maintain this kind of success. VeeKay has shown a great ability to do more with less. The task might not be too challenging for him.

13. The Scott Dixon era at Chip Ganassi Racing ended with a 17th place finish and so mercifully ended a deflating season to an otherwise spectacular career. The winning streak is over at 21 seasons. The top-six championship finish streak is over after 20 seasons. Dixon exits 12th in the championship. Nothing lasts forever, but I think we all wished it ended on Dixon's term. Few drivers go out on top. All drivers lose it at some point. It is hard to wrap your mind around the fast ball being gone for Dixon.

Maybe this was just an off-year, but it doesn't feel like that is the case. We tell that to ourselves to save us from the truth. One of IndyCar's greatest has aged out. McLaren is taking a gamble on a 46-year-old driver recapturing magic for one, maybe two years. Maybe that is the case and all Dixon needed after 25 years at Ganassi. It doesn't feel like that is all we have witnessed.

14. Romain Grosjean ended the season in 18th, and he was 19th in the championship. Was the return to IndyCar worth it? He didn't seem as vocal with his frustration as we heard in the past. This was not a return to 2021 with Coyne. He will always have second at Markham.

Graham Rahal had such a season of polar opposites. At one point, he had three podium finishes and looked like a strong contender for a top ten championship finish. Then he was spun out of a podium finish at Road America, and his season never recovered. One top ten finish in the final ten races. I don't know where the form went. Every year, we are curious over what is happening at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and it is not the good kind of curiosity.

Caio Collet took a grid penalty and never recovered to finish 20th. It felt like Collet's season was inflated. The highs and promise did not feel as great as some led on. It wasn't a terrible season, but I don't think this is an astonishing talent.

A botched pit stop cost Christian Rasmussen any promising result, and he ended up 21st. It feels like Rasmussen's final results should be better, but if we looked back, his actual finishes might not have been that far over from how he actually ran this season.

Mick Schumacher coughed a golden opportunity to take rookie of the year with Dennis Hauger retiring on the opening lap of the season with an accident after Sting Ray Robb punted Hauger. That is kind of the tale of any driver at RLLR for the last four seasons. It is kind of the tale of this rookie class. None of them ran that strong to make a large gain if another had a poor result.

15. Sting Ray Robb was 23rd and Nolan Siegel was 24th. Neither result is surprising. Both futures are questionable.

16. Dennis Hauger will claim rookie of the year, but no rookie ended on a lower note than Hauger. This season was a big disappointment. Andretti Global supported Hauger's entry at Coyne, and the results were not up to standard. None of the rookies did well this year. None of the rookies have been competitive for the last four seasons. We haven't had a rookie crack the top fifteen in the championship since 2022.

I am not sure what it is about this current environment that makes it so difficult for rookies to find competitive speeds in IndyCar. I think all three rookies should get another season, almost every rookie should get more than one season, but they all need to be better should they get a second opportunity.

17. We had a typical Laguna Seca race to end the season. Start at the front, stay at the front. There were some battles, but it settled pretty quickly. It almost feels like the teams have so much information that there are no surprises or teams getting it that wrong on strategy. I don't know how you fix it. Laguna Seca is a different race. Kirkwood did close in and keep McLaughlin honest, but Kirkwood never quite got there for a challenge. Maybe Kirkwood never really had what it took to get the better of McLaughlin.

18. And now the season is over. We have six months and a day until the next race, about eight seats to fill and half the schedule to find out. There is almost too much time to review, but we will start tomorrow.

Morning Warm-Up: Laguna Seca 2026

Scott McLaughlin picked up the final pole position of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season with a lap at 69.1363 seconds around Laguna Seca during the final round of Saturday qualifying. It is McLaughlin's third pole position of the season, and he bookends the season with pole positions as he qualified first for the St. Petersburg season opener. He is the first driver to bookend the season with pole positions since Will Power did it in 2015. McLaughlin enters this weekend with a 35-race winless streak, the longest of his IndyCar career. It has been nearly 26 years since Team Penske's most recent Laguna Seca victory. Hélio Castroneves won on September 10, 2000. Castroneves led 81 of 83 laps that day from pole position and led a Team Penske 1-2 with Gil de Ferran finishing second.

Álex Palou fell 0.0177 seconds short of another pole position, and the 2026 champion-elect will start on the outside of row one, the third consecutive year Palou starts in the front row at Laguna Seca. It will be the 11th time this season Palou is starting on the front row. Palou has not finished on the podium in the last four races. He has not gone five consecutive races without a podium finish since the final 11 races of his rookie season with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020.

Felix Rosenqvist was 0.0568 seconds off McLaughlin's pole-winning time, and Rosenqvist takes third on the grid. Rosenqvist enters this weekend level with his worst top fifteen finish slump in his IndyCar career. He has not finished better than 17th in the last four races, matching his previous longest streak without a top fifteen result, a five-start streak in 2021. At Laguna Seca, Rosenqvist has two top five finishes and four results outside the top ten, three of which have been finishes of 19th or worse.

Alexander Rossi ends the season with his best starting position of the season on a road or street course in fourth. Rossi was 0.1884 seconds from pole position. His only other top five starting position this season was second for the Indianapolis 500. In four of six Laguna Seca starts, Rossi has finished in the top ten. His best finish at the circuit was third in 2024. That 2024 Laguna Seca race is the last time Rossi started in the top five on a road or street course.

David Malukas starts fifth for the final race of the season. This is the 13th time Malukas has started in the top ten this season, and this is his tenth time starting in the top five. He entered this season having started in the top five in 13 races previously in his career. Malukas has finished outside the top ten in three of four season finales in his IndyCar career. This will be Malukas' 79th career start. Only two drivers had their first career victory come at Laguna Seca, Gil de Ferran in 1995 and Bryan Herta in 1998.

Kyle Kirkwood missed out on the Fast Six by a little over a tenth of a second, but a grid penalty slides Kirkwood up to sixth. Kirkwood enters the finale needing to finish second in the championship to reach the 40 points threshold to qualify for a FIA Super License. With championship finishes of seventh and fourth the last two seasons Kirkwood has 14 points. Second in the championship pays 30 Super License points while third pays 25 Super License points. He could earn one Super License point for completing at least 100 km during a Formula One free practice session. The 40 points must be accumulated over a three-year period.

Marcus Ericsson takes seventh on the grid. It is Ericsson's tenth time starting in the top ten this season. Last year, he had seven starts in the top ten. Ericsson enters this weekend with six consecutive top ten finishes. The Swede has not had seven consecutive top ten results since a nine-race span that began at the 2022 season finale and ran through the first eight races of 2023. In five of his first seven season finales, Ericsson has failed to finish in the top ten. His best finale result was seventh at St. Petersburg in 2020.

(Update 11:55 a.m. ET - Marcus Ericsson will take a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change).

Kyffin Simpson will start eighth. It is only the fifth time Simpson has started in the top ten this season. He started outside the top fifteen in ten races this season, including the last three races. Simpson has had an accident in each of his two Laguna Seca starts. In 2024, Simpson was collected when Graham Rahal spun in front of him. Last year, Simpson ran into the back of Felix Rosenqvist at the start and did not complete a lap.

Marcus Armstrong starts ninth for the second consecutive race, and he finished ninth the most recent time IndyCar took the checkered flag in the completion of the first Milwaukee race last Sunday evening. In two of Armstrong's first three Laguna Seca starts, he finished eighth. Those were in 2023 and 2025. In 2024, he started 11th but was pushed off course racing Christian Lundgaard and spun. This left Armstrong two laps down in 22nd.

Louis Foster rounds out the top ten on the grid, the third consecutive race Foster has started in the top ten and the fourth time in five races. In the first 13 races, he had two top ten starts. In Milwaukee, Foster was 11th and tenth. He could have three consecutive top fifteen finishes for only the second time in his career. Last year, he had four consecutive top fifteen results, an 11th at Road America before three consecutive 14th-place finishes.

Christian Lundgaard made the Fast Six, but a six-spot grid penalty due to an engine change drops the Dane from fifth to 11th starting position. This is the 11th time Lundgaard has started outside the top ten this season. In 34 starts with Arrow McLaren, Lundgaard has been the top McLaren finisher 13 times while Patricio O'Ward has been the best McLaren driver 19 times and Nolan Siegel was twice the best McLaren finisher in that span. Lundgaard could become the seventh driver to complete every lap in a season.

Patricio O'Ward did not make it out of the first round of qualifying, but a grid penalty allows O'Ward to start 12th next to his Arrow McLaren teammate Lundgaard. O'Ward was 0.0090 seconds from advancing to round two. O'Ward is attempting to become the first driver to end a season with three consecutive victories since Jimmy Bryan did it in 1955. It would be the 59th time in IndyCar history a driver has won at least three consecutive races.

Will Power missed advancing from group two by 0.0575 seconds, and Power occupies 13th on the grid, the same grid spot he occupied for the season opener at St. Petersburg. In six Laguna Seca starts, Power has two podium finishes, three top five finishes and five top ten finishes. Power has finished outside the top twenty in the last two season finales. He has six consecutive top ten finishes in season finales held in California.

Mick Schumacher starts to Power's outside on row seven, the fourth time in the last five races Schumacher starts in the top fifteen. He had two starts in the top fifteen through the first 13 races. In the last three races, Schumacher has had three consecutive top fifteen finishes. In the first 14 races of the season, he had only one top fifteen result. Schumacher enters the finale 13 points behind Dennis Hauger for rookie of the year. When they take the green flag, Schumacher will make up ten points to the Norwegian based on grid position alone.

Nolan Siegel was only 0.0579 seconds from making the second round of qualifying, and the California-native starts 15th. This will be Siegel's 46th career start. It has been a career-year for Siegel as he has three top ten finishes, a personal best, and he enters the weekend 18th in the championship, four positions better than where he finished last year. Mathematically, Siegel could finish as high as 14th in the championship.

Scott Dixon's final start with Chip Ganassi Racing is from 16th position. Dixon hopes to avoid his first winless season since 2005. During that 2005 season, Dixon had two top five finishes and ten top ten finishes in 15 starts, including four consecutive top ten results to close out the season. He has three season finale victories in his career. He could join Johnnie Parsons, A.J. Foyt and Tom Sneva as the only drivers with four finale victories since 1946.

Christian Rasmussen will start on row nine for the third consecutive race, as the Dane claims 17th. It is the 11th time Rasmussen has started outside the top fifteen, and ten of those have been starting between 16th and 19th. At Milwaukee, Rasmussen finished fifth and eighth. It is the second time in his IndyCar career he has consecutive top ten finishes. The other was the 2025 Iowa doubleheader when he was sixth and eighth in the two Iowa races.

Caio Collet made the second round, but a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change relegates Collet from 12th starting position to 18th. This was the sixth time the Brazilian has made it out of the first round of qualifying this season. It is the second time he has taken a grid penalty after advancing to round two. His qualifying time was disallowed at the Indianapolis 500 as his car failed inspection. Last year, he swept the Indy Lights doubleheader at Laguna Seca.

Rinus VeeKay closes the season with four consecutive starts outside the top ten, as VeeKay rolls off from 19th. He had started in the top ten in the four races prior to this slump. In five Laguna Seca starts, VeeKay's best finish is 14th with an average finish of 19.8. The Dutchman has failed to crack the top twenty in the last two Monterey visits.

Josef Newgarden rounds out the top twenty, the fifth time Newgarden has started 20th or worse this season. This start marks the 250th of Josef Newgarden's career, the 19th driver to reach the milestone in IndyCar history. Only once has a driver won in their 250th start. That would be A.J. Foyt, whose 250th start was the 1977 season opener from Ontario Motor Speedway. Foyt won ahead of Al Unser. It was Foyt's 57th career victory.

Santino Ferrucci ends the season with four consecutive starts outside the top twenty with Ferrucci starting 21st in the finale. It is the ninth time he has started outside the top twenty in 2026, and the eight of those starts were from row 11. Ferrucci has not cracked the top ten in the last three races. His best Laguna Seca finish was ninth in 2024, but he has finished 17th or worse in his other three starts at the circuit.

Graham Rahal makes it an all-American row 11, and this is his worst starting position on a road or street course since he was 24th at Arlington in March. For the second time this season, Rahal has finished outside the top twenty in consecutive races. He is looking to avoid three consecutive finishes outside the top twenty for the first time since Edmonton, Mid-Ohio and Loudon in 2011.

Romain Grosjean leads an all-Dale Coyne Racing row 12. Laguna Seca is one of four circuits where Grosjean has multiple top five finishes. He was third at Laguna Seca in 2021 and fourth in 2024. He has two top five finishes on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Long Beach and Road America. Dale Coyne Racing has failed to produce a top twenty finisher in the last two Laguna Seca races and it has not had a top ten finisher in the last four Laguna Seca races.

Dennis Hauger will be to Grosjean's outside in 24th starting position. This is the fourth time both Coyne drivers start outside the top twenty this season, but the first three were on ovals. Hauger could become the second consecutive Indy Lights champion to win IndyCar Rookie of the Year in the following year. There has never been an instance where reigning Indy Lights champions have won IndyCar Rookie of the Year in consecutive seasons.

Sting Ray Robb starts last for the fourth time this season. It is the fourth consecutive race Robb has started outside the top twenty, his 13th time this season he has started outside the top twenty and the 56th time in his career starting 21st or worse. This will be Robb's 69th career start. He has made the fourth-most starts in IndyCar history without a top five five. Only Hiro Matsushita (117), Randy Lewis (81) and Jerry Karl (73) have made more.

Fox's coverage of the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 95 laps.

Track Walk: Laguna Seca 2026

The 18th and final race of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season will be a 95-lap affair around Laguna Seca. After a two-year spell in Nashville, IndyCar returns to Monterey, California for the season finale. This will be the 12th time Laguna Seca has hosted a season finale, and it is the sixth time the championship has been clinched prior to Laguna Seca hosting the finale. Plenty of positions are still undecided in the championship, and there are a few close battles that will have our attention. This is also the final weekend for a drivers with certain teams, crew members as well. Some are moving on and know where there future will lead them. Others are not sure what exists beyond this weekend, make it a little more poignant.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday September 6 with green flag scheduled for 3:05 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: 5:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 1:05 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 4:35 p.m. ET

Final Practice: 8:10 p.m. ET (30 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 3:05 p.m. ET (95 laps)

Palou's Encore

Álex Palou is already champion. Palou locked up the title in Milwaukee with a rather pedestrian weekend, but it was enough for the Catalan driver to take his fifth career title and his fourth consecutive. Palou joined Sébastien Bourdais as the only drivers to win four consecutive championships. With five championships, Palou sits third all-time behind only A.J. Foyt's seven championships and Scott Dixon's six championships. 

When the checkered flag waves, Palou will have led the IndyCar championship after 69 of his 116 career starts. That is 59.482% of his career. Only A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti have led the championship after more races, 81 and 71 respectively. When it comes to percentages, Palou is essentially alone at the top. Among drivers who started at least 30 races, the next closest is Nigel Mansell, who led the championship for 45.161% of his 34-race IndyCar career. If you increase the minimum starts to 50, Juan Pablo Montoya is second to Palou, having led the championship for 30.927% of his 97-race career.

This historic season extends beyond the championship lead. Palou has six victories and, with his victoy at Portland, he became the third driver in IndyCar history to win at least six races in consecutive seasons, joining Mario Andretti and Sébastien Bourdais. This season Palou became the 18th driver to reach 25 career victories. He is on 51 podium finishes, the 22nd driver to reach the half-century mark. With 673 laps led this season, Palou has led 2,402 laps in his career, and he surpassed Juan Pablo Montoya for 24th all-time in laps led in the Sunday afternoon race from Milwaukee. 

Palou's pole position for the Sunday afternoon race from Milwaukee was his eighth of the season. It is the most pole positions for a driver since Will Power had eight pole positions in 2011. One more pole position would make Palou only the fourth driver to win at least nine pole positions in a season. A.J. Foyt had ten pole positions in 1965. Mario Andretti and Danny Sullivan won nine pole positions in 1966 and 1988 respectively. His pole position from Milwaukee was also the 20th of his IndyCar career, the 16th driver to reach said milestone.

Where will Palou cap off his fifth championship season? His best track. 

Nobody has come close to Palou's record at Laguna Seca. In five starts, Palou has finished second, first, third, first and first. He has led 250 laps out of a possible 475 laps. The last two years has seen Palou win from pole position, though he was shuffled out of the lead for a fair portion of the 2024 race due to pit strategy. He still went on to lead over half the race.

Another victory would be Palou's third consecutive and fourth overall at Laguna Seca. He would join Bobby Rahal as the only drivers to win at least three consecutive Laguna Seca races, and Palou would match Rahal's record of four Laguna Seca victories. Rahal won four consecutive years from 1984 to 1987, all on the original perimeter Laguna Seca track configuration. Of the 16 tracks on the schedule, Palou is at least tied for the most victories at four circuits (Barber Motorsports Park, Detroit, Road America and Portland).

Coincidentally, the only time Palou has won the season finale in his career was 2022 at Laguna Seca, the last time Palou has not ended as champion. He has finished in the top five in four of the last five season finales. In 2024, Palou was 11th at Nashville. 

A Battle For Second

The title has been decided but the good news is the battle for second is incredible tight with 23 points covering four drivers entering the final race, and four points cover second, third and fourth in the championship. 

Christian Lundgaard enters the finale in second. Off the back of five consecutive top ten finishes and eight top ten finishes in the last nine races, Lundgaard has taken second on 507 points, 100 points behind Palou. Lundgaard had the best oval weekend of his career, and it could not have come at a better time. Lundgaard was third in the Sunday afternoon race, his first career top five finish on an oval let alone his first podium finish. In the conclusion of the race that started Saturday, Lundgaard took sixth place. It is the first time Lundgaard has had consecutive top ten finishes in oval races. 

Lundgaard snagged second from Kyle Kirkwood, but the Dane is only two points clear of the American. Kirkwood's Sunday afternoon race was encouraging with a sixth-place finish from 24th on the grid. In the resumption of the Saturday race, Kirkwood did not have the same speed and he ended up 15th. In the last six races, Kirkwood only has two top five finishes while also having two results outside the top ten. No matter what happens at Laguna Seca, Kirkwood will end the season not having consecutive top five finishes since he opened the year with five consecutive top five results. 

A doubleheader sweep in Milwaukee has put Patricio O'Ward in play for second in the championship. After Road America, O'Ward was fifth in the championship, 57 points off of second, 117 points off of Palou in the championship lead. Entering the Laguna Seca finale, O'Ward is a spot better in the championship, but he is only four points out of second. He has won three of the last six races, and three victories matches his most in a season. 

Twenty-three points behind Lundgaard is David Malukas, who had a pair of top five finishes in Milwaukee buck a rough run of form. Malukas had three consecutive results outside the top ten prior to the Milwaukee weekend. Not only has Malukas remained in play for second, but last weekend clinched Malukas a top five championship finish, and it clinched him top Team Penske driver for the 2026 season. Scott McLaughlin is a spot behind Malukas, but McLaughlin is 56 points back with only 54 points on the table. Josef Newgarden is eighth, a further 20 points behind Malukas. 

Among these four drivers at Laguna Seca, O'Ward has the best record. Five starts, five top ten finishes, five times starting in the top ten, and he has an average finish of 6.8. Lundgaard has finished in the top six three times in four starts, including finishing second last year to Palou. Kirkwood and Malukas have struggled at Laguna Seca. Malukas has never finished better than 13th in four starts at the circuit. While Kirkwood was fifth in 2024, he has finished 16th or worse in his other three starts.

Battles Elsewhere

Second isn't the only place where drivers are fighting for championship positions. 

Malukas has locked up the top Penske driver, but the other two Penske drivers would like to finish sixth. McLaughlin is 20 points ahead of Newgarden. McLaughlin went fourth and second in Milwaukee, the first time McLaughlin has had consecutive top five finishes since a three-race running spanning the end of last season and the start of this season. He was third in the final two races last year and then opened 2026 in second at St. Petersburg. 

Newgarden has not had a top five finish since he was second at Nashville, a five-race drought without a top five finish. His only top five finish on a road or street course was fourth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. He hasn't had a podium finish on a road or street course since he was third in the 2025 St. Petersburg season opener. 

Marcus Ericsson has thrown his hat into the ring for a sixth place championship finish. With six consecutive top ten finishes, Ericsson is only 21 points behind McLaughlin for sixth and a point behind Newgarden. With 11 top ten finishes, it is Ericsson's most since he had 14 in 2023. One more top five finish would be his fifth of the season, matching Ericsson's most in a season. He had five top five results in 2022. 

McLaughlin is on track for a four-spot improvement in the championship from last season. It will be his fifth consecutive season finishing in the championship top ten. Newgarden missed out on the championship top ten last season. This will be his 11th time finishing in the championship top ten. Ericsson has finished 15th and 20th the last two seasons. The best Ericsson has finished in the championship is sixth, where he finished in three consecutive seasons from 2021 to 2023. 

Rinus VeeKay is sitting in tenth, and the Dutchman is on the verge of his career-best championship finish and Juncos Hollinger Racing's first championship top ten finish. VeeKay is on 364 points, 13 points ahead of Will Power, and only 13 points behind Felix Rosenqvist for ninth. VeeKay has four top ten finishes in the last five races. Power had three consecutive third-place finishes before suffering two finishes outside the top ten at Milwaukee. 

Rosenqvist has a 28-point cushion to being outside the championship top ten, but the Swede has not finished better than 20th in the last four races. Season finales are not Rosenqvist's strong suit either. In seven season finales, he has only two top five finishes and an average finish of 13.285 with three results of 18th or worse. Rosenqvist is hoping to hold on for this second consecutive finish in the championship top ten.

VeeKay's previous best championship finish was 12th in 2021 and 2022. He cannot finish worse than 11th. Power has finished in the championship top ten in 16 consecutive seasons. Andretti Global has not had three cars finish in the championship top ten since 2020.

Dixon's Ganassi Goodbye

We arrive to Laguna Seca on the verge of Scott Dixon's final start with Chip Ganassi Racing. A 25-year member of the organization, Dixon agreed to join Arrow McLaren for the 2027 season in July.

Dixon signed with Chip Ganassi Racing on May 29, 2002 after PacWest Racing, the home for his first 23 starts, closed due to financial difficulties. His first Ganassi race was June 2, 2002 at Milwaukee driving the #44 Target Lola-Toyota. He qualified fourth and finished sixth. Four drivers entered this weekend were not born when Dixon made his first Ganassi start (Dennis Hauger, Louis Foster, Kyffin Simpson and Nolan Siegel).

It took Dixon 17 starts to score his first victory for the team, but it came in Dixon's Indy Racing League debut as Ganassi fully committed to the IRL ahead of the 2003 season. At the end of that season, Dixon had his first championship. 

Five more championships followed, as did 57 more race victories. His six titles and 59 victories are both second all-time behind only A.J. Foyt. Dixon's 434 starts is the all-time record. Laguna Seca will be Dixon's 412th start at Ganassi. He hasn't missed a race in over 22 years, a record streak of 371 consecutive starts. Dixon has led the second-most laps in IndyCar history (6,991), he has most podium finishes (146), and he is the only driver to surpass the 200 top five finish milestone, sitting on 218 entering this weekend.

This exit is not coming at a high point. It is actually a historic low for Dixon. 

There is a great chance Dixon will finish outside the championship top ten. He had finished in the top six of the championship for 20 consecutive seasons prior to 2026. For Dixon to crack the championship top ten, he must win the race with Rinus VeeKay finishing last with no bonus points and Will Power finish 12th or worse with no bonus points. If Dixon takes a maximum points victory, it opens up some wiggle room. It would allow VeeKay to finish no better than 22nd and Power could finish as well as tenth.

Dixon has yet to win a race this season, and his streak of 21 consecutive seasons with a race victory is on the verge of ending. Dixon's lone podium finish was third at Long Beach. In 2002, 2004 and 2005, Dixon had only one podium finish, but Dixon has finished at least first or second in every season he has been in IndyCar.

After the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Dixon ranked sixth in the championship, tied with Patricio O'Ward on 148 points, 89 points off the championship lead, but Dixon held the tiebreaker thanks to that third in Long Beach. His average finish in the first six races was ninth. In the last 11 races, Dixon has one top ten finish, seventh at Washington, D.C., and his average finish is 15.363.

Since IndyCar returned to Laguna Seca in 2019, Dixon has the third-best average finish at 6.667 behind only Álex Palou (1.667) and Romain Grosjean (6.25). Dixon was the winner of the 2023 Laguna Seca race. He won from 11th and led the final 20 laps. In the last four Laguna Seca races, Dixon has started no better than tenth. 

The $1.7 Million Dollar Rookie Battle

The 2026 season has ended up with a rather unexpected rookie of the year fight, and it is more valuable than anyone likely expected. Any of the three rookies that started this season could finish as the top rookie. Whichever one does end up on top will likely clinch his team a Leader Circle spot for the 2027 season, a $1.7 million share of the championship prize money that goes to the top 22 teams in the championship. For the other two, no additional funding will be rewarded.

Dennis Hauger has been the top rookie since the very start of the season. Hauger opened 2026 qualifying third at St. Petersburg, and on debut he finished tenth. No one else has been the top rookie in the championship since. However, Hauger's results never quite matched his start of the season. While he had two top ten finishes, including an eighth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and four top fifteen finishes in the first six races, Hauger has not finished in the top ten since. He has only four finishes in the top fifteen in the last 11 races.

This has dropped Hauger to 22nd in the championship, the final driver in a Leader Circle spot with one race remaining. 

Eighteen points behind Hauger is Mick Schumacher, who started the season suffering a wrist injury in an opening lap accident at St. Petersburg. Schumacher has carried that injury throughout he season, and his form was atrocious through the first four-plus months. In the first 11 races, his best finish was 16th. He had an average finish of 20.181. In the last six races, Schumacher has an average finish of 14.1667 with four finishes in the top fifteen, including his first career top ten finish, an eighth at Nashville. 

Caio Collet had been the driver on the cusp of a Leader Circle spot for most of the last two months. While Collet scored his first career top ten finish with a ninth place finish at Washington, D.C., he has finished 19th or worse in five of the last six races. The Brazilian has dropped to 24th in the championship, and he is 30 points outside the Leader Circle entering the final race. 

Hauger has a healthy margin. While clinching the final Leader Circle spot regardless of what the other two competitors does would require the Norwegian to score at least 37 points, third place with at least two bonus points, that would mean Schumacher would have won the race with the maximum 54 points. Schumacher has stated in the top ten only once on a road or street circuit. That was tenth at Markham. 

Head-to-head this season, Hauger has finished ahead of Schumacher nine times, but Schumacher has gotten the better of Hauger in the last three races. The most spots Schumacher has finished ahead of Hauger was nine at Gateway and nine at Milwaukee. Five of the eight races Schumacher has bested Hauger were ovals. The other three were by three spots at Road America, by one spot at Mid-Ohio and by four spots at Washington, D.C.

Collet must finish third to have any shot at the Leader Circle spot. He did start eighth at Road America, his best starting position of the season. 

Last season, Hauger's Dale Coyne Racing entry and Schumacher's Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry were two of the three cars to finish outside the Leader Circle spots. Collet's A.J. Foyt Racing entry was 11th in the entrants' championship last year. The #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing entry missed out on the Leader Circle last year, and it will miss out this year as well.

Hauger could become the third Dale Coyne Racing driver to win rookie of the year. Alex Lloyd did it in 2010 and Ed Jones did it in 2017. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing could claim its second consecutive rookie of the year and its third in five seasons with Schumacher. A.J. Foyt Racing has never produced a rookie of the year.

Indy Lights

We have reached the final round for the Indy Lights season, and all that remains is a doubleheader at Laguna Seca. With 108 remaining on the table, it is technically a six-driver battle for the championship in the final weekend, but it will likely be one of three drivers. 

Only 29 points cover Nikita Johnson, Enzo Fittipaldi and Tymek Kucharczyk with two races remaining. 

Johnson re-took the championship lead with a fifth-place finish at Milwaukee while Fittipaldi finished seventh. This put Johnson on top with 505 points, three more than Fittipaldi. Kucharczyk dropped to 12th in the final results and he is 29 points behind with two races to run. 

Johnson has not won a race since the third race of the season at Barber Motorsports Park. However, he hasn't finished worse than eighth this season. While Johnson has seven podium finishes, four of those came within the first five races. Fittipaldi leads the series with four victories, including sweeping the Mid-Ohio doubleheader. However, Fittipaldi has also finished outside the top ten in four races this season. Kucharczyk opened the season with seven consecutive top five results and 12 consecutive top ten finishes. In the last three races, the Polish driver has finished 18th, fourth and 12th.

Max Taylor is still alive at 77 points back. Taylor has three consecutive top five finishes, but his only victory remains at Arlington. Alessandro de Tullio is riding eight pole positions into the season finale, but de Tullio is 99 points behind Johnson. De Tullio has two victories but he has also been outside the top ten in four races. Lochie Hughes is 103 points behind Johnson and he will be eliminated the moment Johnson or Fittipaldi takes the green flag for the first race this weekend. Hughes won the first Road America race this season. 

Myles Rowe is seventh in the championship on 353 points, two ahead of Jack Beeton. Juan Manuel Correa is ninth on 339 points after finishing runner-up at Milwaukee. Milwaukee winner Max Garcia rounds out the championship top the on 337 points, 20 points clear of two-time winner this season Matteo Nannini. 

Johnson could become the first Indy Lights champion for Cape Motorsports in its fifth season of competition. Cape's previous best championship finish was fifth with Salvador de Alba in 2024. Fittipaldi or Kucharczyk could become the third champion for HMD Motorsports. Linus Lundqvist and Christian Rasmussen won the title for HMD in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

The penultimate race of the Indy Lights season will be at 6:38 p.m. ET on Saturday September 5, and it is scheduled for 35 laps or 55 minutes. The final Indy Lights race will be at 12:38 p.m. ET on Sunday September 6, and it is scheduled for 30 laps or 50 minutes. 

Fast Facts

This will be the 17th IndyCar race to take place on September 6, but the first since Dario Franchitti won at Vancouver in 1998. 

That was Franchitti's second career victory and it came three weeks after Franchitti scored his first career victory at Road America.

Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden are the only active drivers with multiple season finale victories. Dixon won the finales in 2010, 2015 and 2023. Newgarden won the 2020 finale and last year's finale.

Simon Pagenaud is the most recent champion to cap off his season with a victory in the final race. Pagenaud did that in 2016 at Sonoma. Pagenaud is also the most recent driver to win consecutive season finales. He won the final race of 2017 as well, which was also held at Sonoma.

Álex Palou's only victory in 2022 came in the final race from Laguna Seca. This is the most recent time a driver had their first victory of the season come in the finale. 

Since 1946, 13 times has the season finale produced a first-time winner. The most recent was Ed Carpenter at Kentucky in 2011.

Bobby Rahal has the most victories in IndyCar history to have never won a season finale. Rahal won 24 races in his career. Emerson Fittipaldi won 22 times, but Fittipaldi never won a season finale either. Patricio O'Ward has the third-most victories all-time without a season finale victory with 12.

The average starting position for a Laguna Seca winner is 3.035 with a median of first. 

Eighteen of 28 Laguna Seca races have been won from pole position. 

Twenty-four of 28 Laguna Seca races have been won from a top three starting position. 

The average number of lead changes in a Laguna Seca race is 3.428 with a median of three. 

Four of the six Laguna Seca races since 2019 have had at least six lead changes. Prior to this stretch, only three of the first 22 Laguna Seca races had at least six lead changes.

Last year's race had two lead changes. Álex Palou led the first 25 laps, Nolan Siegel led the next 11 laps, and Palou re-took the lead and led the final 59 laps.

The average number of cautions in a Laguna Seca race is 2.178 with a median of 1.5. The average number of caution laps is 8.535 with a median of eight.

The last three Laguna Seca races have had at least five caution periods. Prior to 2023, only once in the first 25 races at the track had more than four cautions. That was the 2001 race, which had eight cautions.

The 2023 Laguna Seca race had a record-tying eight cautions and a record-breaking 35 caution laps.

There have been six caution-free races at Laguna Seca, most recently in 1997.

This season, there has been an average of 12.4705 lead changes per race with a median of eight.

This season, there has been an average of three cautions per race with a median of three. The average number of caution laps this season has been 22.294 with a median of 23.

This season, the average starting position for a race winner is 3.705 with a median of third.

Predictions

Álex Palou, and it will be Álex Palou with the Alex Zanardi tribute livery. It could be Álex Palou with 95 laps led from pole position and let's throw the fastest lap in there to boot. Scott Dixon ends his Chip Ganassi Racing tenure with a top ten finish. Josef Newgarden will start outside the top ten and finish at least six spots better than where he started. Will Power will take tenth in the championship. Marcus Ericsson keeps his top ten finish streak going into 2027. Dennis Hauger wins rookie of the year and he will gain a spot in the championship. There will be fewer than three cautions. Sleeper: Romain Grosjean.

Musings From the Weekend: That Wasn't Ideal

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

It turned out to be win-and-in after all in NASCAR's regular season finale from Daytona. It was also another big weekend for first time winners. The MotoGP grid could be in trouble. Trackhouse had a rough weekend on multiple continents. Filming took place in Monaco. It was a busy weekend in Wisconsin, and perhaps needlessly so. Though I don't know if it hurt anyone. Patricio O'Ward swept the Milwaukee doubleheader, the first driver to win multiple races in a days since Rick Mears in 1982. Álex Palou clinched his fifth IndyCar championship and fourth consecutive title. IndyCar's penultimate race weekend of the season ended with sunshine, but it did not quite go as planned. 

That Wasn't Ideal

We made it through IndyCar's doubleheader weekend from Milwaukee, though it was more obnoxiously difficult than anyone had hoped.

Saturday rain delayed the start of the opening race, and a second shower caused a red flag. IndyCar waited as long as it could to complete the race on its scheduled date, but the weather won out on Saturday causing a clustered Sunday with more racing than anticipated for the final day of the weekend. 

The first plan was to resume the delayed IndyCar race at 9:00 a.m. Eastern (8:00 a.m. local), and there would be an hour and 25 minutes to complete the race. The checkered flag would wave at the end of lap 250 or 10:25 a.m. Eastern, whichever came first. From there, the rest of Sunday would take place as scheduled with a 1:20 p.m. green flag for what was the second scheduled race. 

The rain continued into Sunday morning, and it was apparent "Plan B" would not happen. The decision was made to delay the conclusion of the first 250-lap race until 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

None of it was ideal. It is rather frustrating when weather cannot cooperate and a schedule cannot be followed. The waiting is the hardest part. It is at least bearable when a timetable can be kept. 

It is easy to look at this weekend and say IndyCar did everything wrong. It was a lose-lose situation. We can acknowledge things could have probably been done better. 

There was not much that could have been done on Saturday. The rain came between qualifying and race. Unless the race started at 11:00 a.m. local, this was not a case of starting earlier would have solved all the problems. The showers were on and off all day and night on Saturday. Even if temporary lights had been brought in for Milwaukee, this race might not have made it the full distance, and is it really worth stretching a 250-lap race over nine or ten hours just to get to halfway for the race to be official? 

Also, IndyCar isn't bringing in temporary lights unless it is going to use temporary lights. That is not an expense to have as a safety net in case it rains. It is never going to be an option unless IndyCar wants a night race at Milwaukee. Let's rule that out for the future.

Sunday could have been handled better from the start. Resuming a race at 8:00 a.m. local is incredibly stupid. It is even more so when people will attempt to attend only to find out the resumption has been delayed until the evening. 

If 6:00 p.m. Eastern was always an option, IndyCar should have just chosen 6:00 p.m. Eastern from the start. It does cause a clunky scenario where a full race is taking place with another race to complete. It would be nice if one race could be put to bed before starting another, but it didn't work out that way. IndyCar didn't want to use its Sunday television window to complete the final 60% of a race and delay a full race until later that evening for cable television. That is understandable. Attempting to rush the completion of a race at 8:00 a.m. local is utterly foolish. 

It is a lose-lose situation, but there is a worst option. IndyCar is disrespecting the spectators and itself running at 8:00 a.m. local on a Sunday. It is hiding its race running at that hour, viewing it as a chore it is attempting to get out of the way versus a proper race it cares about and should celebrate. Such an early start only makes it harder for everyone to watch, from those at home and the track, and the viewing experience should not be a chore. Running over 400 laps in one day means it will be a long day no matter what, but starting first thing in the morning is ridiculous. 

A more accommodating schedule existed and IndyCar should have considered that first and not looked to get the racing over with as quickly as possible. 

IndyCar should have kept the regular Sunday schedule intact, and allowed spectators to keep their Sunday morning routine, and added the race resumption to the end of the day. The spectators plans should not have been altered from a 10:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. arrival. The plan should have been to run the scheduled race first with a 12:20 p.m. green flag and then have the afternoon where spectators could watch the USF Pro 2000 race in the interim and hit the concession stands before the 5:00 p.m. local resumption. It was always going to be an eight or nine-hour day but it is a much easier eight or nine-hour day arriving just prior to noon than arriving just after sunrise. 

We should hold ourselves from chasing hyperbole over what this meant for IndyCar and calling it a disaster. We had two Toronto races on the same day in 2014. We all lived. It wasn't that long ago a Texas race began in June and ended in August. IndyCar didn't collapse in on itself after that weekend. Two weeks ago, we had a weekend where an entire practice day was lost due to incomplete course construction. It is never the end of the world. IndyCar is going to be just fine. 

This weekend wasn't ideal. It could have been better, but the schedule is going to be jumbled whenever it rains at an oval. If IndyCar knew this was going to be the forecast, it probably would not have scheduled Milwaukee for this weekend. The series cannot control the weather or know what Saturday will be the one with persistent showers. 

I do not believe everything must be turned upside down because of this one weekend. Doubleheaders are still a great value for the fans, and it is the better weekend format, especially for ovals. For as much as IndyCar oval racing has been celebrated since the introduction of the DW12 chassis, it hasn't been attracting fans like flies to honey. They are still the toughest weekends to sell, especially when one day of the weekend is practice and qualifying and a lot of down time. Two races help make it a more full weekend. A strong argument can be made that outside the Indianapolis 500 every oval weekend should be a doubleheader. It would allow for a greater presence in a market, give more to sell to the spectators and it would be another race on television. There are inherent risks in such a weekend. Rain does make it much more complicated should it occur. 

How can we solve some of the complications? 

More could be done to accommodate doubleheader weekends. The schedule is not perfect, but doubleheaders could be scheduled so there is an off-week either before or after. This year, there was supposed to be an off-week before. Then Washington, D.C. was added. There are only so many things IndyCar can control with its calendar, but it can position a doubleheader so it has enough time before or after to lessen the burden on teams. 

Every team should start a doubleheader weekend with a new engine, and it should be in the regulations. If everyone is starting with a new engine, there are no advantages, there is no need for any grid penalties, and teams wouldn't need to change engines between races. It would decrease the work necessary between the races and hopefully give the teams less work post-race Saturday. If teams must change engines between races then it would be a grid penalty but everyone would start fresh and start the weekend knowing it shouldn't need to do it on Saturday evening.

Each team should have a backup car ready to go, engine fitted and everything, in case of emergency on a doubleheader weekend. It would require more preparations, but a doubleheader is a different weekend. The regulations should accommodate the teams in case there is an accident, especially if both races must take place in the same day. Milwaukee was an odd circumstance where an accident in the first race could have meant a team could not resume the other race. Ninety-nine times out of 100 we are never in this scenario, and that wasn't the case this weekend, but for the one time it happens, IndyCar should allow the teams to be ready so no one misses a race. 

Communication must improve between the series and spectators. This isn't just a doubleheader issue. This is across the board when it comes to delays. When the weather is bad, sometimes it is clear there is no update. If we are onto our fifth consecutive hour of rainfall, guess what? The status has not changed. With any weather delay, it is very fluid. There is no set plan until track drying commences. You can lay out a plan but that doesn't mean it can be followed accordingly. Weepers furthered delays on Saturday evening. You cannot plan for weepers. 

Where IndyCar dropped the ball is stretching out Saturday to a point where we all knew it was a race to sunset, which really meant getting to halfway and whatever number of additional laps beyond halfway was gravy. By the time IndyCar announced its plans, there was about 75 minutes to sunset and the cars weren't even close to being pushed to the grid. Any onlooker with half a brain could have figured out we were going to see at most 40 minutes of racing if Saturday evening's plan stuck. We would have cleared lap 125 and been able to call it a night, but we would have been lucky to reach lap 150 in that case. 

It wouldn't have been the first race called early due to darkness and it would not be the last. The entire decision-making process felt dragged out and to the benefit of no one watching in the stands or at home. 

Should there be a hard out on a race day even if there is daylight remaining? IndyCar would not win anyone over if it changed its regulations to make an official race only need two completed laps like in Formula One. No one would have been satisfied only seeing a 90-lap race that may pay half-points. It would solve a problem but it wouldn't make anyone happy. 

Maybe there should be a cap on how long a delay can be. If a race is not restarted in two hours or three hours it will be finished the following day. It sounds good on paper but we know there will be scenarios where such a stipulation would not make things better, like if a track has lights, or if a delay happens at 1:15 p.m. after 15 laps of a 250-lap race were completed and the rain will end at 3:00 p.m. with sunset not until after 8:00 p.m. You can write a logical regulation but there are instances where common sense will be the way to go even if not written down. 

It is easy to be angry, and frustration is understandable. There is a limit on how devastating any disruption will be to the course of life. IndyCar didn't catch two breaks this season when it really could have. Nashville was delayed a day after being scheduled to follow the World Cup Final. Milwaukee became a hectic weekend after IndyCar drew considerable amount of attention from the Washington, D.C. race. If IndyCar had not scheduled a race at either of those times, a fair number of people would have been upset over those decisions. 

Life is always lose-lose when you are looking for something that was not perfect. I am not going to fall in that boat. Even with everything that happened at Milwaukee on Saturday, two full races still got in. Sunday turned into a beautiful day for racing, and IndyCar showcased itself at its highest on track. There are still things that should be taken away from this weekend and adjustments made for the future. 

It is important to keep perspective. IndyCar has been regularly running doubleheaders since 2013. This was only the second time the first race was delayed and both races had to be held on the same day. Doubleheaders have been held at Iowa, Gateway, Texas and even at Milwaukee prior to this weekend and this was the first time the Saturday race was postponed.

More times than not, things will stick to the schedule. Every now and then, it will not. That is not the end of the world even if you are led to believe otherwise. 

Champions From the Weekend

You know about Álex Palou, but did you know…

The #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Lucas Auer clinched the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup championship with a fourth-place finish in the 3 Hours of Nürburgring.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Patricio O'Ward, but did you know...

Marc Márquez won MotoGP's Aragón Grand Prix, his fourth victory of the season, and Márquez won the sprint race as well. Alonso López won in Moto2, his first victory since the 2024 season opener in Qatar. Máximo Quiles won in Moto3, his seventh victory of the season.

Ryan Preece won the NASCAR Cup race, his first victory in 249 career starts. Ryan Siege won the NASCAR Grand National Series race, his first career victory in 424 starts.

Max Garcia won the Indy Lights race from Milwaukee, his first career victory. Thomas Schrage won the USF Pro 2000 race.

The #007 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin of Marco Sørensen, Mattia Drudi and Nicki Thiim won the 3 Hours of Nürburgring.

The #29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg won the GT World Challenge America race from Road America. The #33 Blackdog Racing McLaren of Tony Gaples and Michael Cooper and the #028 RS1 Porsche of Spencer Pumpelly and Luca Mars split the GT4 America races. Memo Gidley swept the GT America races.

Sami Pajari won Rally del Paraguay, his third consecutive victory.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar closes its season at Laguna Seca.

Formula One has its first visit of the season to Italy. This will be to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix.

The 77th Southern 500.

The FIA World Endurance Championship will cook for six hours in Austin.

World Superbikes extended summer break ends with a round at Magny-Cours.

First Impressions: Milwaukee 2026 Race One

1. Call it a clean sweep for Patricio O'Ward, though the victory in the first race from the Milwaukee Mile came after taking over a day to complete and after a fumbled restart from leader David Malukas. For the surprise that came from O'Ward's victory in the Sunday afternoon race, we can comfort he had one of the best cars of the weekend with this performance. A little stumble from a competitor may have helped O'Ward in this one, but he capitalized on the opportunity and blew through to the lead, never looking back. 

This has been an odd season for O'Ward as he started the season regularly finishing in the top five, it was just never better than fourth or fifth. This is his third podium finish of the season. All his podium finishes have been victories. Three victories is a great season, nine times out of ten, and I think this has been a great season for O'Ward. It has been strange to say the least. 

2. We will pause on going through the rest of the field to acknowledge Álex Palou clinched his fifth career IndyCar championship, and his fourth consecutive with a tenth-place finish. Palou didn't have to do more than ride around today. That goes for both races. It was that way prior to the weekend. He may have coughed up 42 points with a messy Washington, D.C. race, but he wasn't going to do that again. All he needed was clean days. He didn't do anything wrong. Tenth was enough. It helped that the rest of the competition was not perfect. 

We will discuss Palou's legacy later. We have an entire offseason. We were content on Palou had clinched this title after Detroit. Through eight races he had four victories, six top five finishes and seven top ten finishes. Prior to last week, he had finished in the top five of every race this summer. No one was close to matching that output. It is no longer good enough to be great in IndyCar. You must be flawless to beat Palou. They all know it. None have been able to do it.

3. Back to the finishing order, David Malukas took second when it looked he was on his way to his first career victory. Malukas had strategy play in his favor as he had a pit stop before the red flag yesterday and he had the speed later in a stint to maintain a gap to the field. When Malukas had to make his pit stop, he had the tire advantage and carved his way through the field and back into the lead when everyone else had to stop. It looked like Malukas was firmly in control. 

Then the final restart happened. A stutter in the engine allowed O'Ward to fly up the inside into turn one and that was curtains. Malukas remained close but O'Ward eventually pulled away. Lapped traffic never went in Malukas' favor. Overall, fourth and second on the day is a great day. This was Malukas' sixth career runner-up finish and his fourth of the season. It is deflating to be this close and have it not come through.

4. Rounding out the podium was Rinus VeeKay, who used the lapped car of Scott Dixon as a pick to pass Scott McLaughlin in the closing laps. VeeKay had the car at the end of the race to threaten for a great finish, and the Dutchman got it. This has been an outstanding season for VeeKay, and it is on the verge of being a career-best. He was brilliant this weekend and was running with the big boys. There is something special here.

5. Scott McLaughlin comes home in fourth. Malukas went fourth-second. McLaughlin goes second-fourth. McLaughlin didn't need strategy help to get this finish. He didn't quite look as strong as O'Ward and Malukas. A podium would have been a respectable result. I said this a few weeks ago but this feels like where McLaughlin is stuck at the moment. Really good, but not quite the driver to beat.

6. Christian Rasmussen capped off the day with a fifth-place finish. Rasmussen needed this weekend. It has been an underwhelming season. There have been more bad results, some of his doing, some of the team's failings, than you would have expected. We know the oval speed is there. It didn't always show or get the finishes this season. It stood out in Milwaukee. It likely will be enough to secure a Leader Circle position. It is a small victory. It should be a starting point for next season.

7. If you were told on Wednesday, "Christian Lundgaard would finish third and sixth at Milwaukee," you likely would have called it poppycock. Well, it happened. Lundgaard drove two solid races at Milwaukee, and the driver being shown the door at McLaren due to his oval form ended with the best oval races of his career. He has a comfort with Milwaukee. He was comfortable with Iowa as well. There are more than two ovals and Iowa isn't on the schedule. Lundgaard probably still has some mental barrier he must break down especially with quicker ovals, but he is getting there. I am sure Chip Ganassi Racing will get him over that hump. 

8. That extra set of tires did come in handy for Josef Newgarden, the only problem is Newgarden slipped down the running order early in this race resumption and was fighting from behind. It also didn't help that over 15 cars were on the lead lap so the likelihood of riding those tires to an improbable victory was slim-to-none. It was surprising how much Newgarden struggled with the balance of his car this weekend. He has never had a grip on Milwaukee since it returned to the schedule in 2024, which is odd because when IndyCar left, Newgarden had two incredible drivers in 2014 and 2015. A lot can change in a decade. 

9. The top Honda was Marcus Ericsson in eighth. Ericsson had a racy car at the end but it never came close to cracking the top of the field. This was by far Honda's worst race of the season. I don't think they were particularly bad. It was more misfortune today than anything else. If Palou had more to race for, he might have been more of a factor. 

10. In ninth was Marcus Armstrong. Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing took fuel just before the race restarted. This group was throwing things at the wall in terms of strategy in both races. In this one, it led to a ninth-place finish. It gets Armstrong off the snide. He can head to Laguna Seca with an increase in confidence. 

11. We will cover all of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing here because Louis Foster and Mick Schumacher were 11th and 12th respectively. Graham Rahal was 23rd, three laps down. For a banged up driver, Foster drove stellar this weekend. He was icing his hand as he is still carrying the knocks from the Markham accident. I am surprised he drove this well at Milwaukee considering how off he was at Washington, D.C.

Schumacher overcame a spin after slight contact with Dennis Hauger to finish 12th. We are all surprised Schumacher did this well on ovals. We all expected that he would improve but I don't think we expected him to be starting as well as he did and being a threat for top tens, especially with this team. 

Which leads us to Graham Rahal. I don't get it. You don't get it. It doesn't make sense that the 20-season veteran is one of the slowest cars on the track while his teammates are pushing for the top ten. RLLR had its oval woes for a half-decade or so. Rahal appears trapped in a bottle with all the oval suffering the team went through. We saw Rahal run well on ovals earlier this season. I don't get where it went while everyone else at RLLR took a step forward.

12. Nolan Siegel took 13th, and Siegel benefitted from Will Power's caution. Siegel was running long on that stint and was still on the lead lap in eighth while needing to make a pit stop. When Power, McLaughlin and Lundgaard came upon the slower car of Siegel, Power went to the outside and ended up in the marbles. Power hitting the wall allowed Siegel to make a free pit stop and finish on the lead lap. Power was not particularly happy after that on. 

Siegel was in the way for much of these two races. He has been better this year, we cannot deny that. We started this season with Tony Kanaan saying Siegel had to push for the championship top ten to retain his ride. We knew Siegel would never come close to that. He is closer to 20th than tenth. I don't know if he will get another opportunity in IndyCar. We can do a post-mortem after the season is over. From the beginning, this felt like an unnecessarily rushed move. Everyone is being proved correct on that thought.

13. There was brief thought during the afternoon race that Ed Carpenter Racing is the biggest fraud in the series as it has somewhat frequently shown great pace in practice only for both of its cars to be struggled to run in the top fifteen during the race. Rasmussen somewhat disproved that. Alexander Rossi did no favors against that allegation. Rossi dropped like a rock after this race restarted. He didn't crack the top ten in either race. He has one top ten finish in the last five months. Where have you been, Alex? Should we put your face on a milk carton?

14. We covered in the First Impressions for the afternoon race that the points were not there for Kyle Kirkwood to keep the championship alive into Laguna Seca. If the afternoon race was a brilliant drive, this conclusion was burning your hand on the hot plate. We ended yesterday thinking Kirkwood was on the move and the afternoon race proved it. In the resumption, Kirkwood struggled on that set of tires. He lost ground and never recovered. He nearly caught the Schumacher caution at the right time but he was a hair later entering pit lane. The team took a gamble putting on slightly used tires and it did not net him any more positions. I think Kirkwood was better than 15th. I wish we got two uninterrupted Milwaukee races. I don't think Kirkwood would have been 15th if this race ran in its entirety yesterday. 

15. Kyffin Simpson and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the lead lap finishers. In two races in one day, I don't think I heard Simpson's name once. I am not sure where Rosenqvist went in this one. Yesterday looked very promising and he vanished in thin air in both races today.

16. Scott Dixon was a lapped car that Rinus VeeKay used as a pick to finish third. That is a sentence you did not expect to be reading when this season started. Dixon was never competitive this weekend. It was hard to watch those closing laps. It has been hard to watch this entire season. 

17. Pretty much everyone from 19th on back was caught a lap down when the red flag came out yesterday and they remained a lap down through the checkered flag today. Romain Grosjean couldn't work his magic like he did in the afternoon race. Santino Ferrucci was a disappointment. Dennis Hauger got screen time for nudging Schumacher into a spin. Sting Ray Robb didn't do anything wrong but he didn't do anything great either. We covered Graham Rahal. 

I am sure all five of these drivers are thinking they would have been better off leaving after the afternoon race and they all would have been home before the delayed race resumed. 

18. Add Caio Collet as the sixth driver who likely wishes he did not restart this race. Collet was already off the lead lap and slow. Pinballing off Josef Newgarden and into the front straightaway barrier was the final nail Collet did not need in his coffin. Newgarden was quick and Collet was in no man's land. The brief brush with greatness put the Brazilian in the barrier and mercifully ended his weekend. 

It was never going to get better. I think it is safe to think Collet will be making his final start with A.J. Foyt Racing at Laguna Seca. The Brazilian money might be enough for him to stay, but it sounded ominous after the last few races. It has flipped drastically from where we were only a few months ago. That is professional motorsports.

19. This was a classic Will Power weekend. Blinding speed, incredible car that can work its way through traffic, lost result because of something absurd. In the afternoon race, it was Power speeding on pit entry for the final stop. In this race, it was coming upon Nolan Siegel, who was trudging along on old tires hoping for a timely caution and who inadvertently helped cause said timely caution. There is a world where Power finishes first and fifth this weekend or second and seventh. Instead, it is 14th and 25th, and that three-race run of third-place finishes feels might far away. 

20. This was a longer day than expected. This was a longer doubleheader than expected. Considering the first race that took the green flag this weekend did not end until after 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, you cannot say this was a smooth weekend. We will go into greater depths tomorrow. It wasn't IndyCar's greatest weekend. It was far from the worst either, but it had its frustrating moments and while the series cannot control the weather, it didn't handle what it can control the best either

With that said, we should acknowledge two 250-lap races were completed this weekend. The weather on Sunday was nice, even if there was a threat of rain as the evening race resumed. The event still looked good for all the hiccups, and Milwaukee is a track IndyCar should be at, and others agree as the series has a contract through 2030 to race at the facility. No tracks are lining up to host IndyCar. Anyone that is willing to give a four-year deal is one worth sticking with. 

21. These races were fun today. There was plenty of action. It isn't a high-speed oval. It isn't two-by-two for ten rows. The speeds aren't pushing 230 mph, but these drivers are on the ragged edge and there is a substantial amount of precision in the passes that are made. They take time but are enthralling to watch develop. I see this race and wonder why IndyCar isn't trying to organize a race in Loudon. After Gateway and this race, how is the series not dying to get to Richmond? Those are two worn tracks where tire falloff plays a key role in the NASCAR races. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to what we saw today. If only there were a few more one-mile ovals in this world... 

22. We can ponder that thought throughout the night. It could be a nice distraction from the reality that in seven days the season will be over. One more checkered flag will wave at Laguna Seca and then a six-month offseason will begin. We can think about that next week.

First Impressions: Milwaukee 2026 Race Two

1. Not often do you review the second race of a doubleheader before the first race, but that is the case of the 2026 Milwaukee doubleheader, and with a second race about to start in just over three hours, we are going to make it quick on this race. 

Patricio O'Ward took the victory after being rather unnoticed until the final stint when the took the lead through the pit cycle. O'Ward didn't make many, if any, waves over the first 190 laps. The most notable thing was a botched pit stop early when the right rear tire was not secured before O'Ward was dropped off the pneumatic jack. It dropped O'Ward from a podium spot to just outside the top ten, but it was early enough for a recovery.

O'Ward found his pace and kept the car in the top ten. When it came time for the final stop, he was able to leap into the lead. We saw plenty of competitive cars in this race, and we saw plenty of teams shoot themselves in the foot. That played a factor in O'Ward winning this one. If Will Power doesn't speed entering pit lane on the final stop, I am not sure we are talking about an O'Ward victory.

2. Scott McLaughlin's team decided not to stop under caution with just over 100 laps to go, and McLaughlin was able to hold his ground on older tires. It kept him at the front while he was mostly in the middle of the top ten to that point. O'Ward got out ahead of McLaughlin in that final stop. McLaughlin had a few chances to make a pass on O'Ward, but O'Ward was better getting through traffic, and McLaughlin will settle for second.

McLaughlin's run on older tires was reminiscent of what Álex Palou did last year when Palou was on older tire and facing Christian Rasmussen. Palou held off Rasmussen for a good portion of time before Rasmussen got through, but even on the older tires, Palou took second. In this case, McLaughlin used older tires to place him at the front. It could have gone wrong. Scott Dixon also stayed out and dropped like a rock. 

3. Christian Lundgaard was probably the better Arrow McLaren driver today, and Lundgaard will have to settle for third. This was Lundgaard's best oval race of his IndyCar career. He deserved the podium finish. There is another race to finish. We can dissect his oval form this weekend and what it could mean moving forward in a little bit. He looked comfortable today. Comfort goes a long way on an oval.

4. David Malukas did not look set for a good finish and then he was up in the top ten and pushing the top five just by stopping earlier. For almost half this race, it felt like Malukas was not going to have a good day. Finishing fourth is a great result considering where he spent most of this race.

5. The championship is essentially over. Álex Palou was fifth and Kyle Kirkwood was sixth. Palou's championship lead is 97 points, however, Palou will get at least five points for the race that must be completed. That makes the championship lead 102 points. Kirkwood must outscored Palou by 48 points to get back within 54 points. That means Kirkwood must win and Palou finish last in the race to finish. That is asking a lot since 90 laps are complete.

If we are honest, Kirkwood must be within 48 points to win the championship because Palou is going to start Laguna Seca in a week, another five points to Palou. Palou holds the tiebreaker, which means Kirkwood would need to win the championship outright. The points are not there for Kirkwood to leave Milwaukee within 48 points of Palou. Kirkwood is essentially down 102 points and must outscore Palou by 54 points in the Milwaukee race to be completed when the most points Kirkwood can make up is 48 points. 

It is over despite what you are being told.

As for Palou's race, he looked good but not great. A lot of drivers were chasing tire strategy and stopping early to avoid losing time but I think Palou had the speed that he could have run long and sacrificed time to get it back at the end of subsequent stints. Teams could not get away with running 40 laps of every stint. Palou probably had the speed to have a few stints go 50 laps to trap those teams short stinting. 

6. Kirkwood was in the same boat as Palou. Kirkwood had good speed at the end of stints, but once everyone started making pit stops 35-40 laps into a run, everyone jumped at it. Kirkwood was brilliant making up spots early after starting 24th, and he had great pace later in tire life. I think the tail wagged the dog a bit and Kirkwood, like Palou, should have just run 50 laps and traded time at the end of a stint to get it back later. They would lose some spots, but eventually the other teams would be caught out making an extra stop. 

It could have been the circumstances of today with the extra race to complete that teams didn't want to take too much of a risk going long on tires. The last thing a team wanted an accident because of a lack of grip, but it feels like going ten laps longer for two stints was a strategy that could have paid off for a few teams, Kirkwood's included.

7. Rinus VeeKay was strong early and then was shuffled back during pit cycles. For Juncos Hollinger Racing, pit stops have actually been competitive this season compared to the likes of Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing. It feels like a bit of shame for VeeKay. For a good portion of this race, he looked like a podium contender if not a possible winner.

8. Christian Rasmussen recovered for finish eighth. Ed Carpenter Racing didn't start strong. Like Malukas, halfway through this race I was not expecting Rasmussen to finish in the top ten. This result significantly helps Rasmussen and ECR's Leader Circle fight as Caio Collet was 23rd and Collet is not doing well in the other race, and Rasmussen was five spots ahead of Schumacher in this race. There is still one more race to complete, but Rasmussen has already created breathing room.

9. I am not sure Marcus Ericsson was mentioned once during this race, but he finished ninth. Ericsson has been the third-best Andretti Global car all week, but still respectable on pace.

10. Louis Foster hung on for a top ten finish. This has been an odd weekend for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The team looks good one moment and then you see Graham Rahal putzing around in 22nd, three laps down, and Rahal is doing just as poorly in the race that is to resume. 

11. Alexander Rossi took 11th but he was never competitive. 

The best Santino Ferrucci looked was in the final stint when he was a lap down. Ferrucci has not been good this weekend, and that is a surprise.

Mick Schumacher did well. It was only his fifth oval race. I think he learned a lot and these were not easy conditions with tire wear. I am not sure Schumacher has ever been in a race where the tires are done after 35 miles. 

An unforced error cost Will Power victory. We know Power is prone to this. He has been doing this almost his entire career. His last few years at Team Penske he was due for at least two of these races a season. Power and Kirkwood were both carving up the field in the early stages. It is a damn shame Power didn't see this one through.

Scott Dixon never had the pace. Dixon gambled like McLaughlin. The difference was McLaughlin had a good car. Dixon didn't. It showed immediately. Finishing 15th is probably a just result for how Dixon was running.

12. Neither Meyer Shank Racing car was competitive. Marcus Armstrong was 16th, one lap down. Felix Rosenqvist was stunningly 20th, two laps down, and Rosenqvist was running so well in the first Milwaukee race, and he will still be running well when it resumes, as Rosenqvist is second. 

Nolan Siegel did a great job being a road block today. He held up everybody at some point.

Sting Ray Robb didn't cause much trouble and was 18th.

Kyffin Simpson went unnoticed in 19th. 

Dennis Hauger was 21st, and didn't really have a word said about him. 

We touched about Graham Rahal being slow. I almost think Rahal should volunteer to driver for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing next year. Then we will know for sure if it is the car or driver. The other two RLLR drivers have looked competitive this weekend. Rahal hasn't one bit.

Caio Collet was slow. Since he retired from three of the first four oval races, I sense Collet could not afford an accident, but if the pressure is on for him to finish in the Leader Circle, he cannot got out there timid. I feel like that is how he has been driving. He cannot have an accident but he does not feel confident to push. It doesn't help that A.J. Foyt Racing doesn't quite have the speed. It isn't like Ferrucci has been a threat this weekend.

13. Two accidents in this race. Romain Grosjean spun twice. The first time off of turn two was no harm, no foul. It cost him spots after Grosjean was tearing through the field early. The second put him in the wall on a restart. The first spin ruined a promising start.

Josef Newgarden also spun exiting turn four and nudged the wall enough to ruin his day. Newgarden struggled on the long run, which was surprising because in the first stint he caught and passed Álex Palou for the lead. Newgarden was dictating the pit cycle and was one of the first cars to stop almost every cycle. He spun because he did not have grip. The car was still good enough for the top five. Newgarden didn't have control over it.

14. It is odd to write this and know 90 laps of another race have already been completed. We know how the next race is going. Which makes this race a little unusual. 

What happened to Rosenqvist and MSR? 

Even Rossi and ECR? 

Why did teams that looked strong in the first 40% of yesterday's race not show the same muscle in this full race?

How will this race resume? 

Are we going to see everything pick up as status quo or will the conclusion of the first Milwaukee race flip toward what we just saw? 

15. Teams used a lot of tires in this race. The teams only had ten or 11 sets for the entire weekend. I think everyone really only used one set in yesterday's race. Some may have been on their second. Everyone in the top fifteen but McLaughlin made five pit stops in this race. Armstrong made an extra pit stop under the Grosjean caution to try and go off strategy and that did not work. The tires Armstrong took off the car were not that worn. I don't think they had a full green flag lap on them. 

Basically every team but McLaughlin, Grosjean and Newgarden used six sets of tires. Minus the set or two from the first portion of race one and then minus a set or two from practice. Everyone might have two sets remaining for the final 160 laps. This is rough math and very unofficial. 

The conclusion of the first Milwaukee race could be extremely different because everyone was willing to burn through tires in this race. It very well could come down to McLaughlin and Newgarden having an extra set and that could dictate the race.

Based on fuel, the upcoming race conclusion is a two-stopper, but as we saw on tires, everyone will want to make three if not four stops over those 160 laps. The outcome of this race very well could play into Team Penske's favor, at least for two of its drivers. 

16. We will be back in about four hours to wrap up this head-spinning Milwaukee weekend. Stay tuned!