Track Walk: Barber 2026

The fourth round of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season sees an earlier trip to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. This will be IndyCar's earliest visit to the Yellowhammer State. Barber's previous earliest race was April 1. Kyle Kirkwood holds the championship leader after his victory at the Grand Prix of Arlington. Kirkwood is one of two drivers to have finished in the top five of all three races. He is also one of two drivers with top ten finishes in all three races. This will be the 16th Barber race. Thirteen times has the race been won from inside the top five and eight of those have been from the front row.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday March 29 with green flag scheduled for 1:17 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: 3:05 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 11:00 a.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:30 p.m. ET 
Sunday:
Warm-up: 10:00 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 1:17 p.m. ET (70 laps)

Do We Hear Four Different Championship Leaders?

Three IndyCar races, three different winners and each have led the championship after their victory. 

Álex Palou won the St. Petersburg season opener and picked up right where he left off last season. At Phoenix, Palou was out early due to an accident, and Josef Newgarden swept through for victory, which put Newgarden on top of the standings. Two weeks ago at Arlington, Kyle Kirkwood drove through the top ten to pass Palou with a daring move in the final corner of the couse while Newgarden had a spin. This combination of results lifted Kirkwood to the championship lead for the first time in his career. 

We have seen three different drivers lead the championship this season through three races. When was the last time there have been four different championship leaders through four races? Well, it just happened in 2024. Patricio O'Ward, Scott Dixon, Colton Herta and Palou all held the top spot through the first four races. It was the third time since 1975 there have been four different championship leaders after four races. It first happened in 1988 when Mario Andretti, Raul Boesel, Michael Andretti and Rick Mears each led the championship. The other time was 1995 when Jacques Villeneuve, Bobby Rahal, Paul Tracy and Scott Pruett each shared the championship lead through four races. 

Four drivers could leave Barber Motorsports Park as the fourth championship leader through the first four races of 2026. If Kirkwood starts the Barber race, any driver within 49 points could leave as the championship leader.

One of those is Patricio O'Ward, who sits 33 points off the championship lead. Besides Kirkwood, O'Ward is the only driver to finish in the top five of every race this season. He has nine top five finishes in the last 11 races. This is the first time he has opened a season with three consecutive top five finishes. He has won previously at Barber, back in 2022. O'Ward has not led the championship since after the 2024 St. Petersburg race.

Forty-one points off the championship lead is Scott McLaughlin. While he was second at St. Petersburg, McLaughlin's results have dipped over the last two races, dropping to eighth at Phoenix and 11th at Arlington, which ended a six-race top ten finish streak. McLaughlin has led the championship twice in his career, after the first two races in 2022. 

One point further behind Kirkwood in the championship is David Malukas, a driver who is looking to lead the championship for the first time in his career. Malukas rebounded from 13th at St. Petersburg to finish third and sixth in the last two races. In three Barber starts, Malukas has never finished better than 16th. Currently sixth in the championship, this matches the best Malukas has ever been in the championship. He was sixth after the 2023 Texas race, where he finished fourth, the second race of that season.

Christian Lundgaard has finished third, 13th and seventh over the first three races, giving Lundgaard 80 points. Forty-six points off the championship lead, there is a slim chance Lundgaard leaves Barber with the championship lead. Lundgaard has been ranked in the top ten of the championship after every race he has run with Arrow McLaren. Last year, he left Barber ranked second in the championship. 

Marcus Ericsson is 49 points behind his Andretti Global teammate Kirkwood, meaning the two drivers could leave this weekend tied in points. However, no matter what, Kirkwood will at least hold the tiebreaker. It requires a victory from Ericsson for the two drivers to leave Alabama tied in points, but no matter what Kirkwood would hold the tiebreaker. Each would have a victory, but Kirkwood's next best finish through the first four races would be second to Ericsson's fourth.

Eleven times since 1975 has the championship lead changed after each of the first four races though not always with four different drivers. In the last 51 years, there has never been a case where there have been more than four consecutive different championship leaders to open a season. The most consecutive races with a change in the championship lead to open a season is six, which happened in 2009.

Is This Dixon's Year?

Another year heading to Barber Motorsports Park means asking the long-unanswered question, is this Scott Dixon's year? One of three drivers to run all 15 races held at the circuit, Dixon has the most podium finishes at the track with nine. He has ten top five finishes and 13 top ten finishes and he has the third-best average finish all-time at the circuit at 5.0667, however, Dixon heads to Barber in one of his worst slumps in a long time, and it is a cause for concern.

Through the first three races, Dixon's best finish is seventh, and while he has finished in the top ten of the last two races, he is 12th in the championship. This is the first time he has not had a top five finish in one of the first three races of a season since his infamous 2005 season where he was 13th in the championship. Dating back to last season, he has six consecutive races without a top five result, another low that Dixon has not seen since the timeframe of 2005. It is his longest top five finish drought since a 26-race run from the fourth race of the 2004 season through the 15th race of the 2005 season. 

The only other time in Dixon's career he has gone six races or more without a top five finish were the final two races of his rookie season in 2001 through the first seven races of the 2002 season. The 2002 sesaon is the only other time he has not had a top five finish in one of the first three racaes of a season. 

Things are not trending well for Dixon in general or at Barber. 

While he has such an incredible track record, he has finished outside the top ten in his last two visits to the 2.37-mile road course. In three of the last four years, Dixon has not made it out of the first round of qualifying here. Last year, he started 26th. Dixon's qualifying form has been a cause for concern across the board recently. 

Last year, he started in the top five in only two race, both ovals. He has failed to make it out of the first round of qualifying in four of the last five road or street course and he has not made the Fast Six on a road or street course since the 2025 season opener from St. Petersburg. Dixon has failed to start better than 15th this season, and he has started outside the top ten in six of the last eight races. He has not had a front row start since the 2023 Texas race when he started second, and he has not started on the front row for a road or street course since Toronto in 2022. His most recent pole position was the 2022 Indianapolis 500. 

Going rather unnoticed is earlier this season IndyCar reached 100 races with the aeroscreen, reaching the landmark race at Phoenix with Arlington being the 101st race. 

In the first 50 races with the aeroscreen, Texas 2020 to Long Beach 2023, Dixon had an average starting position of 8.88. During that time he started 19 races in the top five and 31 races in the top ten. Only ten times did he start outside the top fifteen, and only two of those were starts outside the top twenty. 

In the last 50 races, Dixon's average starting position has dropped to 11.72. Only eight times has he started in the top five and only 23 times has he started in the top ten. His starts outside the top fifteen increased to 14 and Dixon has started four times outside the top twenty.

The middle race was coincidentally enough the 2023 Barber race where Dixon started fifth and finished seventh. 

While his starting position has dipped, his finishing position is not far off. In the first 50 aeroscreen races, Dixon's average finish was 6.76 with seven victories, 18 podium finishes, 29 top five results and 42 top ten finishes. In the last 50 races, Dixon's average has only gone down to 7.84, he has won six times in the last 50 races with 13 podium finishes, 23 top five finishes and 38 top ten finishes. 

In recent seasons, Dixon has had a knack of ending long winless streaks, even when it feels like we could be on the verge of the first winless season for the New Zealander in over two decades. He had a 22-race winless streak starting from the second Texas race in 2021 and ending with his victory at Toronto in 2022. He went a full year and five days between victories at Nashville in 2022 to his victory on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in August 2023, which saw kicked off a hot end to that season where Dixon won three of the final four races. 

Dixon's most recent victory at Mid-Ohio last July ended a 19-race winless streak. He enters Barber having not won in his last ten starts. 

Perhaps Someone Else Ends a Drought

Scott Dixon enters on a double-digit winless streak, but he is not the only one. A handful of drivers are looking to end droughts this weekend and would love to do them before getting to the April showers.

Two drivers we have already mentioned. 

Scott McLaughlin has gone 21 races since his most recent victory, the penultimate race of the 2024 season at Milwaukee. McLaughlin has not won on a road or street course since his 2024 Barber victory, and his last two road course victories have come at Barber Motorsports Park as he won here in 2023. He was third last year at Barber after starting next to Álex Palou on the front row. McLaughlin was 0.1469 seconds off Palou's pole position time, and then McLaughlin finished 23.4453 seconds behind Palou in the race. McLaughlin's most recent top five finish on a permanent road course was fourth at last year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. 

Christian Lundgaard has been pretty close to victory in his first 20 starts with Arrow McLaren. The problem is close has not been good enough. Lundgaard might have seven podium finishes in the last 20 races, second only behind Palou's 15, but none of those have been trips to the top step for the Dane. Lundgaard's winless streak since his first career victory at Toronto in 2023 is now up to 44 races. Last year, Lundgard was second to Palou at Barber. He has finished in the top six in the last three Barber races.

Marcus Ericsson cannot leave Barber as the championship leader, but Ericsson could end a 53-race winless streak. The Swede has not won since the 2023 St. Petersburg season opener. In that space of time, Ericsson has only three podium finishes and nine top five finishes, but Ericsson is off to his best start since 2023. He picked up his first career pole position at Arlington two weeks ago and finished fourth. Combined with sixth at St. Petersburg, this is the first time he has had at least two top ten finishes in the first three race since 2023 when he opened the season with eight consecutive top ten results. 

Will Power has won fairly recently, his most recent victory was only five races ago, but Andretti Global has gone nearly 12 years since it last won at Barber Motorsports Park. The team's only two victories came in consecutive years, and both at the hands of Ryan Hunter-Reay. Since then, the Andretti Global organization has a combined five top five finishes at Barber. It was second in 2018 with Hunter-Reay and second again in 2023 with Romain Grosjean. Andretti Global has failed to finish better than seventh in four of the last five Barber races.

It has also been a minute since Power has won at Barber. While being one of five drivers to win at the track multiple times, his most recent victory was in 2012, the second race of the DW12 chassis. At that time, Hélio Castroneves was one of Power's Team Penske teammates, Graham Rahal was driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, Rubens Barrichello was eighth driving for KV Racing, and Sébastien Bourdais got Lotus its lone top ten finish with a ninth-place result. It was also Josef Newgarden's second career start. 

Other drivers with notable winless streaks entered this weekend are Rinus VeeKay (81 starts), Félix Rosenqvist (95 starts) and Graham Rahal (144 starts).

Getting Late Early?

The fourth race of the season has been the quarter-pole of sorts in recent IndyCar seasons as there have only been 17 races. An additional race in 2026 does make the fourth race fell a tad earlier, but we have enough history to suggest the fourth race is a good measuring stick for how a season will be. 

Not everyone will get a victory within the first four races of the season, but a fair amount of the field could have a top five finish in that time. With 20 opportunities for top five finishes in such a span, most of the field could have a top five finish within the first four races. That is of course not the case. Scott Dixon is arguably the most notable driver without a top five finish this season, but he is not the only one. 

The only driver in the top ten of the championship who does not have a top five finish this season is Alexander Rossi. Rossi has finished sixth and ninth in the last two races, but for the third consecutive season and the sixth time in the last seven season, Rossi does not have a top five finish within the first three races of the season. Only five times in Rossi's ten IndyCar seasons has he had a top five finish in one of the first four races. His best finish at Barber is fifth, and most recently in 2019. 

Ninety-three of the 94 champions since 1947 have had at least one top five finish within the first four races of the season. Gil de Ferran is the lone exception. De Ferran's first top five result in the 2000 season was his victory at Nazareth, the fifth race of that season. Only one champion since reunification did not finish in the top five in one of the first two races. That would be Dixon in 2015. 

All 94 champions since the 1947 American Automobile Association season had at least one top ten finish within the first four races of the season. Seventy-three of those champions were top ten finishers in the first race of the season. Ninety-three of the 94 champions had at least one top ten finish within the first three races. The only champion that did not get his first top ten finish until the fourth race was Danny Sullivan in 1988. Sullivan cracked the top ten with a runner-up finish at Milwaukee that year.

Only eight drives have not had a top ten finish through the first three races of the season. Felix Rosenqvist had a top ten finish on the road in Arlington before a penalty for jumping the final restart demoted him to 20th. A penalty to Kyffin Simpson for avoidable contact at the end of the Arlington race has lifted Rosenqvist up a position to 19th ten days after the fact while Simpson dropped a spot to 20th in the final results. Rosenqvist had finished 12th in the first two races of the season. 

Caio Collet has yet to finish in the top ten in his rookie season, and he was 12th in the most recent race. Louis Foster has completed 20 IndyCar races and he has yet to finish in the top ten. Santino Ferrucci joins his A.J. Foyt Racing teammate Collet in not having a top ten finish this season. Ferrucci's best finish was 11th at Phoenix. 

Christian Rasmussen is arguably the driver who came the closest to victory this season not to win a race, and despite this he has yet to finish in the top ten this season, and he is 22nd in the championship out of 25th drivers. Rasmussen was 14th at the Phoenix finish after his late race misfortune saw him lose the lead late and bounce off the wall in the process. 

Sting Ray Robb enters having finished 21st in each of the first three races of the season. Nolan Siegel has finished 20th twice and 24th once. Mick Schumacher is last in the championship, and his best finish was surprisingly enough at Phoenix, though only 18th. 

Of the 18 champions since reunification, 11 of them won one of the first three races. Of the seven champions that did not win one of the first three races, five of them did not pick up their first victory until race six or later. In the last 12 seasons, the eventual champion has had his first victory come within the first seven races of the season.

Road to Indy

Indy Lights will be the lone junior series joining IndyCar at Barber, but this is the first of five doubleheader weekends this season. 

At Arlington, Andretti Global's Max Taylor pulled off a daring move into the final corner to take the lead and ultimately the victory from Enzo Fittipaldi. With the victory, Taylor moved into the championship lead on 92 points. He was second in the St. Petersburg season opener. Taylor is ten points clear of Cape Motorsports powered by ECR's Nikita Johnson, who followed his St. Petersburg victory with a sixth-place result in Arlington. 

Tymek Kucharczyk has been the surprise through the first two races as Kucharczyk has a pair of third-place finishes and that puts the Polish driver third on 70 points. He is the top HMD Motorsports driver in the championship. Lochie Hughes' pair of fifth-place results gives Hughes 60 points, and he is 32 points behind his Andretti Global teammate Taylor. Seb Murray makes it three Andretti drivers in the top five. Murray has 58 points. 

Fittipaldi's runner-up finish lifted him to sixth in the championship on 57 points. The Brazilian was 17th at the St. Petersburg opener. Juan Manuel Correa is seventh in the championship with 54 points for Cusick Morgan Motorsports while Myles Rowe is on 50 points for Abel Motorsport with Force Indy.

A.J. Foyt Racing's Alessandro de Tullio took a stunning pole position at Arlington only to go off track on the opening lap. With finishes of tenth and 11th, de Tullio is ninth in the championship on 40 points, four ahead of Abel's Jordan Missig. 

Matteo Nannini and Ricardo Escotto are tied on 35 points. Salvador de Alba will attempt to bounce back from a 20th in Arlington. De Alba is on 34 points as is Jack Beeton and Max Garcia. Josh Pierson sits on 33 points. 

The top Chip Ganassi Racing driver in the championship is Niels Koolen in 17th on 25 points. Koolen's teammate Bryce Aron is 19th on 24 points, James Roe is 21st on 22 pints and Carson Etter has 17 points in 23rd. 

The first Indy Lights race of the weekend will take place at 1:06 p.m. ET on Saturday March 28. Race two on Sunday March 29 will be held at 11:09 a.m. ET.  The first race will be 35 laps with the second scheduled for 30 laps. 

Fast Facts

This will be the fourth race to take place on March 29, and the first since 2015 when Juan Pablo Montoya won at St. Petersburg. 

Every race on March 29 occurred post-reunification. 

The first race post-reunification was held on March 29, 2008 at Homestead. Scott Dixon won that race. The other was at St. Petersburg in 2010 when the race was delayed a day to Monday due to weather, and Will Power took the victory.

This will be IndyCar's fourth race before the month of March has concluded. IndyCar has not had four races run in a single series before the end of March since technically the 1996-97 Indy Racing League season, which started in August 1996 and completed two races before the end of the calendar year before running two more races in the first three months of 1997. 

The last time four races were run before the end of March in a season that started in the same calendar year was 1975, but even that has a technicality as the first two races were qualifying races for the California 500 and each contained only half the field. 

You must go back to 1921 to find a season that had four races completed before the end of March, and that season started with five races at Los Angeles Motor Speedway, a 1.25-mile board oval, on February 27 of that year.

The average starting position for a Barber winner is 2.8667 with a median of second.

The worst starting position for a Barber winner is ninth (Will Power 2012).

Twenty-six consecutive races have been won from inside the top ten.

Forty-three of 45 podium finishers at Barber have started inside the top ten. 

The only two podium finishers to start outside the top ten at Barber have come in two of the last three races. In 2023, Will Power went from 11th to third. In 2024, Linus Lundqvist went from 19th to third.

Two drivers have had their first career victories come at Barber Motorsports Park, Josef Newgarden in 2017 and Álex Palou in 2021.

The average number of lead changes in a Barber race is 6.9333 with a median of seven. 

Eleven of 15 Barber races have had six lead changes or more. 

Ten of 15 Barber winners have led at least half the laps in the race. 

The average number of cautions in a Barber race is 2.1333 with a median of two. The average number of caution laps is 8.1333 with a median of seven. 

Last year was the first caution-free Barber race. Twelve of 15 races have had two cautions or fewer. 

Predictions

Álex Palou, but if it isn't Palou, it will be Scott Dixon even though everything from recent history says there is no way it will be Scott Dixon and it will more likely be Christian Lundgaard or Scott McLaughlin, but not an Andretti Global driver. Mick Schumacher gets his best finish in IndyCar and he is also the best finishing Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver. Sting Ray Robb does not finish 21st. Both top five finish streaks end. At least three drivers get their first top ten finishes of the season. No Team Penske cars make contact with one another. Sleeper: Marcus Armstrong. 

Musings From the Weekend: Are We Too Smart For Our Own Good?

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

Rain did not ruin MotoGP's return to Brazil, neither did a poor track surface but it was not the most accommodating conditions at Goiânia. Despite the troubles, Marco Bezzecchi made it two wins on the spin to open 2026 and four consecutive dating back to last season. Marc Márquez got to keep this sprint victory. There was a team orders row in Sebring. There was also a spectacular comeback in GTD, though it was mostly self-inflicted. NASCAR had a phenomenal race from Darlington. Max Verstappen’s team won on the road at the Nürburgring but was disqualified for using one too many sets of tires. Sadly, Grand Prix of Long Beach president and CEO Jim Michaelian passed away, aged 83. With a little less action this weekend, it was a chance for reflection over what we are seeing in every competition. 

Are We Too Smart For Our Own Good?

March has kept us all occupied. Through four weekends, each weekend fills a little more lively. With IndyCar and Formula One off, it allowed for more time to think, and my mind drifted over what we have seen over the last few weeks. It is hard to ignore the displeasure. 

IndyCar caught a break in the last two races that were fairly active and Álex Palou did not win. After the first race in St. Petersburg, there was plenty of angst over how the season started and the remaining races to come. A stellar Phoenix race and a battle in Arlington has quieted the disgruntled… for now. Formula One has not been as fortunate. 

The first two races have started out well, and we have seen active opening stints, so far between Mercedes and Ferrari. Cars have passed at the start. Cars have run closer together. Then the Mercedes pull away. That has been the theme over the first two races. There are portions of close racing at the front, and then the last two-thirds, maybe half the race, is a forgone conclusion. If anything, the battles have remained semi-frequent in the middle of the field and for the other points positions. The DRS trains have been eradicated with the new active aerodynamic pieces.

We have action and at an above average level for Formula One through the first two races, and yet there has been a notable portion of viewers that have been dissatisfied with what we are saying. Drivers are feeling the same way. Max Verstappen is the leading driver who is not enthused with the new regulations. However, Lewis Hamilton might be the biggest proponent saying this is the best racing he has ever had in his career. I am also sure the Mercedes group is pleased.

Are we too smart for our our good? Do we know too much about racing, what is going on, why thinks are happening on track and how the cars are driven, and does that prevent us from having any enjoyment in what we are watching? 

Over the last few years, my mind has wondered to what it was like being a motorsports fan in the 1960s or 1970s or even the 1980s. Coverage was not this abundant. You got races on televisions occasionally. Practice sessions were not televised. Qualifying was not televised. There was National Speed Sport News and a few other publications, but there was no way to consume an endless flow of information of motorsports. You got your weekly, or perhaps monthly update. If something was big enough to crack a newspaper, you learned a little more. Fandom was more innocent but also more relaxed. Those fandoms could live on a little because not much more existed. 

The closest thing I can imagine what the 1960s or 1970s were like is when I go to a race track as a spectator, and I have no clue what is going on during the race. I like to wander around a course with my camera and take photographs from different vantage points. I am watching. I know who started at the front. I know who is still at the front and who had problems, but I know so little. I can see the gap, but I have no clue the exact time between the two cars. Some areas have a public address system and video boards. You get snippets of the broadcast and you know who is leading and how the cars are running, but you still have to form your own picture of what is happening, and sometimes you aren’t sure why a car lost five positions. You figure pit stops will happen, but you are not sure when everyone last stopped and how long a pit window can actually be. 

That was the normal viewing experience for practically the entire 20th century. And people loved it! 

Do not mistakes this for a call to return to being a Luddite. We have so much at our disposal, and we should be happy that so much information is available to us. We know what tire compound is being used and whether those tires are worn or not in every IndyCar race and we can follow along to the tire strategy through Firestone’s live timing. That is incredible, but I feel we are missing out and expecting more to love because we believe we know exactly how a race should be. We also believe we know everything that is wrong. 

There must have been a time 50 or 60 years ago when people went to the racetrack because they loved motorsports, and races didn't come around that often. Think about how many fewer races there were back then. If IndyCar was coming to town, it was the highlight of the spring or summer. You were going because you loved the engineering and cars pushing the limits. It was your one chance to see it. The same goes for Formula One. People weren't dissecting the racing. In a way, all they wanted to see was fast cars on is racetrack. They weren’t worried about passing and downforce creating dirty air or how tire wear would play a role. In a sense, racing then wasn't racing as you think about it today. 

We have created a myth about what happened even if there is actual documentation. Race broadcasts exist. We can see what it was like, and it was nothing like we have today, and I don't mean the past definitively had better races. 

The racing of the 1960s didn't have 10,000 passes every race. They were not wide-open affairs that anyone could win. Races were different, but people just wanted to see the cars on the track, fall in awe of the speed and the level the drivers were competing at, and perhaps feel close to something dangerous, thrill-seekers even if they didn’t want to admit it. Pit stops were nearly non-existent. Everyone would use one set of tires, no re-fueling and just go for 100 miles or 200 miles. No one was worried about fuel strategy even if teams back then had a harder limit on fuel they could use during a race. In some cases, teams didn't last long enough for fuel to be a factor. 

It is not better nor it is worse. It is just different. Take a race from 1976. People were not showing up expecting a two-stop strategy or maybe a three-stop strategy but an early caution would force cars to save fuel and dictate the strategy. Every car was saving fuel, especially in IndyCar. There was a limit each team had each race, but not everyone was going to make it. A car had to go long enough before that could become a concern. 

Pieces broke left-and-right. Some engines were not meant to go further than halfway. Cars were falling out of the race or running conservatively enough just to get the car further in the race that it isn't like today. Every car can make it to the end. Every car knows how many laps they must make on a stint to have the race be done in two stops. Everyone is effectively on the same strategy because what other choice is there and why do something wild and stupid? That is what makes a modern race feel more dull. 

Fifty years ago, anyone and everyone could break down and from any position. You never knew if a car had to be nursed home and if that would allow someone to take control of a race. There was not urgency from 25 teams to save fuel from the immediate start of the race. At least ten of the teams likely didn’t expect to make it the distance, and if nearly half the field has no belief it will see the checkered flag that changes the makeup of the race. Every race had its unknowns, and they were arguably greater than today. 

What we have today is an evolution, whether we want to admit it or not. Everyone is going to make it to the end. It becomes tougher to get ahead when everyone is running essentially the same strategy. Everyone is trying to hit the same fuel windows. The field doesn't get spread out. Teams are not nursing cars to the finish. It becomes stagnant quickly. Attempts have been made to mix it up, and we just end up hating it. 

Hello, alternate tires which may force a team to stop ten laps earlier than for fuel because a car does not have any grip and is losing time. Hello, movable aerodynamic parts to decrease drag and potentially allow a car to have an advantage in traffic. Hello, push-to-pass, energy deployment systems and the like and the push for road relevance in an increasingly electric automobile world. 

And we hate it because it is not "pure" but few think about what purity means in this context. If it was what happened 50 or 60 years ago, I think many would hate it more should it be reincarnated in the year 2026. 

We think we know what we want or what is good. Good is subjective and constantly changing. That is a problem, especially for series trying to keep up with the expectations of the viewer. How are they to know when we change of minds? 

Do we get in our own way? 

The first two races of this Formula One season might not be like last year or the first two races of 2006, but the anger and dissatisfaction over it not being what we previously saw, whether it be yesterday or 20 years ago, is a waste of sorts. 

This is what it is, and if you focus on what it is and how it is playing out, you can see action and excitement. 

It is different. It doesn't feel comfortable from what we know. Energy recovery and speeds slowing at the end of a straightaway is a notable difference, but everyone is working on energy recovery and energy deployment. This is the new strategy. If you are going to discredit all action as artificial because battles and passes are down to when teams are recovery and deploying energy at different times, you are bound to be miserable. Nothing will be good enough, but the racing of 20 years ago is not returning, and even if it was you might not even like that either.

We have constructed our past as perfect but we are likely boosting the best moments and glorifying those as how it always was. It wasn't. There were definitely good times. There might have been more good times back then compared to now, but the amount is unlikely to be substantially greater than what we have today. 

As we have completed a quarter of the 21st century, I wonder if we are spoiled and use the 20th century, especially the second half of it too much as a measuring stick for how things should be across all walks of life. Everyone just wants the 90s or 80s or 70s. Everyone wants Lolas and Reynards. Everyone wants V10s. Everyone wants the past. And yet, everyone wants a past where innovation was plentiful and the cars were inspiring. How can you go backward and yet continue to innovate?

Nothing says progress like looking and moving backward. 

Every series could give you exactly what the viewer wants. Every series could develop a car that has as many passes as possible and as much speed as possible. We all know the elements of closer racing and the conditions that keep cars together... and even if that was given, there would be a segment of the fanbase that would hate it! You could get exactly as you wish, and then everyone would complain about things being stale (Hello, DW12 chassis!). 

Are we smart or are inconsolable to a point of obnoxiousness? Are we the only barrier to our own enjoyment and happiness? Are we too stubborn?

Perhaps, the best decision would be to change our mindset, and have greater openness. Perhaps what will cure most of our saltiness is if we stopped trying to return to something that is long gone and something we don't even accurately recollect anyway, and come to terms with what is in front of us and how it is exciting in its own way. 

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Márquez, but did you know...

The #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche of Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich won the 74th 12 Hours of Sebring. The #2 United Autosports Oreca-Gibson of Mikkel Jensen, Hunter McElrea and Phil Fayer won in LMP2. The #911 Manthey Racing Porsche of Klaus Bachler, Ricardo Feller and Thomas Preining won in GTD Pro. The #21 AF Corse Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Simon Mann and Lilou Wadoux won in GTD.

Daniel Holgado won the Moto2 race from Brazil. Máximo Quiles won the Moto3 race.

António Félix da Costa won the Madrid ePrix, his second consecutive victory.

Tyler Reddick won the NASCAR Cup race from Darlington, his fourth victory of the season. Justin Allgaier won the Grand National Series race, his second victory of the season. Corey Heim won the Truck race.

Hunter Lawrence won the Supercross race from Birmingham, his third victory of the season. Cole Davies won the 250cc East-West showdown race after Haiden Deegan received a penalty for cutting the course. 

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar keeps the Birmingham-area busy with its round at Barber Motorsports Park.

Formula One has the Japanese Grand Prix before an unexpected month off. 

MotoGP heads north to Austin, Texas.

NASCAR is at Martinsville.

World Superbike will be at Portimão.

GT World Challenge America opens its season at Sonoma.

Supercross will be in Detroit.

Track Analysis: Washington, D.C.

IndyCar has wrapped up three consecutive race weekends to open the 2026 season, and while we have seen three different winners from three different teams with each of those race winners leading the championship, there has been more than just the championship going on in IndyCar circles.

During this busy start to the season, IndyCar has also revealed the track layout for the inaugural Washington, D.C. race, which is scheduled to happen on August 23. The event was added to the schedule in late-January, a little less than eight months from the announcement to the green flag. It took a little more than a month , but a course layout was made public prior to the Grand Prix of Arlington weekend. 

The track will use part of the National Mall with the start/finish line in front of the United States Capitol building before using Pennsylvania Avenue and a combination of streets to complete the 1.7-mile track. 

It is not the most technical course. Of the seven turns, six are left-hand corners. It is a pretty condensed circuit. The longest straightaway is about a half-mile. It looks like a racetrack that was designed at the last minute and constricted to a very tight area. Some have expressed a lack of enthusiasm with the course design. We do not know how this track will run though, and just because it is not inspiring on paper does not mean it will not produce competitive racing.

We have seen enough street races in IndyCar that we can use the dimensions of the Washington, D.C. course and compare it to other tracks to set expectations. 

For starters, let's use the longest straightaway. Running from turn one to turn two, this part of the track will also host the pit lane on the inside. It is list as 0.4 miles in length. For context, the main straightaway at St. Petersburg is about 0.4 miles in length before a tight right-hand corner. This straightaway is nearly a mirror image of the opening part of the St. Petersburg course. That part of St. Petersburg generates a good amount of passing, but that is coming from a slower hairpin corner and this straightaway in Washington will follow a less tight corner, which could help carry more speed and allow cars to get a better run into the corner. 

After turn two, the course becomes pretty choppy. The run from turn two to turn three on 9th Street and the run from turn three to turn four on Constitution Avenue will each be a tenth of a mile in length. It is unlikely we will see much action there. A comparable section would be Toronto from turn four through turn six. It is a 90-degree left-hander between two straightaways that are each around a tenth of a mile in length. We saw passes in turn five of Toronto though not a crazy amount. This part of the Washington, D.C. course could see some action, though it is not likely.

The only saving grace could be if a car can hold the outside of turn two and turn three in Washington, D.C. it could form an advantage of having the inside of turn four. The cars will likely be going slow enough that it could stick. We saw drivers at Toronto be on the outside of turn three and have it turn into an advantage of being the inside of turn five. The difference though is turn four at Toronto was a slight left-hand corner and not a 90-degree left-hander like turn three in Washington, which should make it tougher to stick such an outside move.

The next portion of the course opens up, and the run from turn four to turn five, 7th Street, will be about 0.3 miles, not the longest run on the track, but not short either. At St. Petersburg, the straightaway from turn three to turn four is about a quarter-mile in length, and we see passes there, though they are less plentiful. They happen but we also know that part of St. Petersburg is not long enough that we constant passes there. Will the Washington, D.C. course benefit from that extra 0.05 miles heading to turn five? Maybe.

The next straightaway, Independence Avenue, is also about 0.3 miles in length from turns five to turn six, but the issue is turn six is barely a turn and it leads to what is barely a straightaway. Maryland Avenue is a blink from turn six to the final turn on the course, turn seven. It is less than a tenth of a mile in length. 

Think of Long Beach and the section exiting the fountain to the right-handed turn four or that brief straightaway at St. Petersburg from turn eight to turn nine. The only difference is at Long Beach and St. Petersburg there are slow corners leading to those brief straightaways while at Washington, D.C. it will come after a proper straightaway. I imagine cars will be lifting and coasting onto Maryland Avenue before having to brake for the final corner of the circuit, the left-hander onto 3rd Street.

It could be an active section where if the inside is open, a driver would have the opportunity to dive into turn seven to get a spot. It is also a portion of the track that is currently occupied with a fair amount of road furniture. There is a complete traffic island in the middle of the street that likely will need to be cleared. In its current configuration, it is not practical to race on, and it would be purely single-file. Turn six would be an actual corner if the island is still there, but there is no way two cars could fit side-by-side. A pass would need to be completed before corner entry. Any accident there would cause a red flag for track blockage. 

Outside of the island currently in the middle of turn six on Maryland Avenue, the only other street furniture that will need to be seriously addressed is a much smaller island in the middle of turn two. There are bollards and traffic lights that will need to be removed on Pennsylvania Avenue, which is likely a hassle and will require re-instillation after the race, but those will not require jackhammers and paving equipment. The work in turn two and turn six would require that. 

Taking what we see and know from the Washington, D.C. course and comparing it to similar elements on other recent IndyCar street courses, what can we expect?

There is possibly one good passing area and another decent one, but outside of that, it could be tight and lead to less action. 

Turn two and turn five are where we will likely see passes. Everyone thinks turn two is the one part of the course where drivers can make moves. Turn five will be another spot where it would not be surprising to see passes. We could see some type of passes attempted in turn six or turn seven depending on the road work that is done. The straightaway on Independence Avenue is long enough that someone could make an attempt, but the issue is how quick turn six will be and how tight will that section of the course be. If the island is cleared and paved over it could widen the track significantly enough that turn seven becomes a possible passing area. We must wait and see on that. 

It is a track that is probably most similar to St. Petersburg, minus the longer section of the course with the kink between turns nine and ten. The shorter straightaways are something basically every street course has in common. The difference is the combination of corners and what leads to those straightaways. 

Turn two through turn four will likely be slower and one of the slower sections of a track in IndyCar. The concern is that section of the course funneling everyone into a single-file line and it becoming more difficult to get a run to pass someone into turn five. If everyone is going 45 mph or slower for nearly a quarter-mile, the speed is not going to be great enough heading into turn five for a pass to be attempted. If you cannot make a pass there, you are likely not getting another chance at position until you are entering turn two again on the next lap. 

It is March and IndyCar is just about to have its first off-weekend of the season. There is still a long time between now and then, and we would think over the next few months we will see progress made toward setting up this event. They aren't going to start tomorrow. If you think about most street courses, the construction doesn't start until about two months prior to the race. Long Beach's course is constructed in 50 days. Long Beach is also an event with 50 years of history and has developed a rhythm. 

We shouldn't start wondering about progress and track construction until the start of June. With this race being thrown together so late and IndyCar's involved as it is essentially another series-promoted race, I don't think the ball will really get moving in Washington, D.C. until after Detroit, another series-promoted race. 

Based on what we know, we can set some sort of expectations. We reserve the right to adjust those based on how things are developing as we get into summer and closer to the actual race weekend.

Musings From the Weekend: Mo-Mo-Momentum

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

It was a sprint weekend in China, and a near 20-year drought ended. Formula One's April opened up as the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia rounds were postponed due to conflict in the Middle East. Max Verstappen confirmed his Nürburgring 24 Hour program with Mercedes-AMG. F1 the movie won the Academy Award for Best Sound. Conor Daly will drive for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at the Indianapolis 500. It was a generally positive weekend in Arlington where Kyle Kirkwood took victory, and IndyCar has concluded a three-week swing to start the season where it saw some actual momentum.

Mo-Mo-Momentum

Three weeks, three races, and IndyCar feels like it has established itself in 2026, something that would not be the case in the recent past. It has been well-covered IndyCar's struggles with scheduling, and for a long-time the start of the season has been disjointed. There would be St. Petersburg, but then there would be three weeks or four weeks until the next race, and then there might be another two weeks to the race after that. Even before the third race of this streak, IndyCar was seeing the benefit of being present. 

Viewership did not fall off the cliff from race one to race two as we saw in 2025, and for a Saturday afternoon race in Phoenix, viewership exceeded expectations. It is still early in the season, but IndyCar announced its presences to start 2026. It has not been hidden, and there is slim chance if you have been following either IndyCar or NASCAR or any Fox propety that you did not know IndyCar was back. The only question is what took so long? 

Some aspects of scheduling have been out of IndyCar's control, but IndyCar also made a choice not prioritizing a greater balance at the start of its season and making sure it was regularly active and available. It didn't necessarily need to be a weekly thing for the first part of March, it just had to be more present, and not go missing for a handful of weeks while NASCAR and Formula One were running at a consistent rate and the rest of the sports world remained busy. 

How long will this last? And this question covers two fronts.

In the macro, IndyCar's start to 2026 will need to carry over the entire season. Even for NASCAR, the viewership does not remain at the same level from the opening portion of the season to the very end. NASCAR has a great opening month or so, but viewership dips as spring starts and continues a decline into the summer. There are periods where it levels out. Even at the end of the season, the final races are pretty even, but far from where they started. 

IndyCar has actually been pretty consistent in comparison. The difference is the viewership is pretty low. IndyCar is aiming for a million viewers each race while NASCAR is somewhere in the four million range before dropping to the three million range and then settling the finish of its season somewhere in the two million range. 

Some IndyCar races hit a million. Some races falls short. For the opening two races to be over 1.2 million viewers is a big change for the series, and it is the level IndyCar should be looking for. It needs incremental growth. Last year was bolstered because of a big rise in the Indianapolis 500, but plenty of races were down, and there were eight consecutive races where IndyCar did not draw over 800,000 viewers from Gateway in June until the Nashville season finale. It needs more races to be over a million and in that 1.2 million range. If it can have half the races at that level, it will be a great season, and it will show how important a good start will be. 

Now, how long will this last? 

IndyCar was able to have three consecutive weeks of races to open 2026 and four race weekends during the five weekends of March, but it will not always line up that way. The Phoenix race was a combination weekend with NASCAR. Everyone was positive about the experience but that doesn't mean it will continue. That also doesn't mean NASCAR will not move Phoenix. If Phoenix is moved to late February, will IndyCar still tag along and have its season opener be on a NASCAR weekend when it will be third on the totem pole? What if Phoenix moves to the same weekend as St. Petersburg or Arlington? This is where you must be careful with what you wish for. It is an event IndyCar has no control over and it must make accommodations should NASCAR want it to continue. 

Even if it isn't three races on the spin, IndyCar needs to be around and keep people engaged, though I would argue a pair of races to start would be a good thing. It is a six-month off season. To have a race and then have it followed with a week off is not the start IndyCar needs. It would be good to return and remain around for a minute. People need to get back in the flow of the season. They have already have enough of a break. Some up and stick around for a while. Disappearing, even if only for a week, should be avoided. 

If there is anything to learn from this three-week period is IndyCar should make it a priority to be around. Some aspects of scheduling are out of its control, but it is ultimately IndyCar's choice how present it wants to be. Not being around for most of March should no longer be a choice. Even without Phoenix, it has three parts. We know we can trust on St. Petersburg and Barber Motorsports Park being around. Arlington just completed year one and street courses do not have long shelf lives, but the pieces are at least there for 2027, and IndyCar can make a choice to prioritizing filling the start of the season when considering future venues.

There is still an upcoming break. There is a week off before Barber on March 29, but then there will be two weeks off until Long Beach. One of those is Easter and there is a general acceptance that no race is going to draw well on Easter. It is a built in off-week. Is taking the following week off going to be too much? We will have to wait and see, but the difference from 2025 to 2026 is IndyCar will have four races in the bag by the time we get to Long Beach unlike last year when it had only two races in the six weeks prior.

We will see how far this momentum goes. Long Beach is the final race before the month of May, and Kyle Larson is not walking through that door. We will find out how well Arlington did soon enough and maybe we will find it fell back down to earth and was level to where things were in 2025. In that case, the work will continue, but if things carry over for another race, there will be good reason to feel positive. The hard part will be keeping it up over remainder of the season. It isn't supposed to be easy.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Kyle Kirkwood, but did you know...

Andrea Kimi Antonelli won the Chinese Grand Prix, his first career victory. George Russell won the sprint race. 

Max Taylor won the Indy Lights race from Arlington. Leonardo Escarpioni and Jeff Jeffers split the USF Pro 2000 races.

Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Cup race from Las Vegas, his 61st career victory. Kyle Larson won the Grand National Series race.

Takamoto Katsuta won Safari Rally Kenya, his first career victory.

Coming Up This Weekend

MotoGP makes its first trip to Brazil in over two decades.

It is 12 Hours of Sebring weekend.

NASCAR is not throwing it back in Darlington.

Formula E has its first race at Jarama.

Supercross returns from its week off with a round in Birmingham.

First Impressions: Arlington 2026

1. After missing out on the final round of qualifying yesterday for the Grand Prix of Arlington, Kyle Kirkwood looked poised to move forward, but with how difficult competition can be in IndyCar, sacrificing four or five spots on the grid can be too much to overcome for victory. He was always going to head forward, and with Álex Palou starting second, Palou was going to be the final boss Kirkwood would have to beat. In Kirkwood's case, seventh was not too much. 

After the final pit cycle, Palou led Kirkwood and Kirkwood had just come off his third slow pit stop of the race. However, despite the woes with tire changers, Kirkwood had the fastest car today, and with 21 laps remaining on the final stint, there was plenty of time for Kirkwood to close the two-second gap to Palou. It happened in no time, and it looked inevitable Kirkwood would get the top spot. He took the lead with plenty of laps to spare with a bold move to the inside of turn 14, reminiscent of what Andretti Global's Indy Lights driver Max Taylor pulled off to win the junior series race earlier in the day. Like Taylor, Kirkwood took the lead and then drove into the distance.

A late restart added a wrinkle, but Kirkwood's victory was never in doubt, thanks to Nolan Siegel running into the back of Romain Grosjean, but even before then, it was unlikely Palou or anyone else was going to surpass Kirkwood's pace in a 2.73-mile sprint to the finish. 

This is the type of start to the season Kirkwood needed, especially after how 2025 ended with no top five finishes in the second half of the season. Three consecutive top five finishes has Kirkwood in the championship lead. 

There are still plenty of areas where this team must improve. The qualifying pace was there in Arlington after two shoddy weekends, but the team botched the strategy and it was all due to poor communication and Kirkwood not knowing he was supposed to run a third lap on his final run. It wasn't the end of the world, but starting seventh versus potentially starting on pole position is a big setback. We have seen fast cars have to start in the middle of the top ten and then have to settle for a podium finish. It is also a point lost. Pole position pays a point, and we have seen championships decided by less. 

Then there was the pit stop problem. I cannot remember the last time a team had three sloppy pit stops under green flag conditions on a street course and won it. The team did Kirkwood no favors today, and Andretti Global has a history of this (see a handful of races Colton Herta lost due to poor pit stops). The team can celebrate but the debrief tomorrow will likely highlight where this race was nearly lost. It was a good day, but far from great.

2. Álex Palou was second-best today. So what? Palou was second-best to Kirkwood last year in the third race of the season. Who won the championship? 

We know Palou will be fine. The pressure will be on Kirkwood. Palou is going to probably finish in the top five in ten more races this year. Can Kirkwood keep up? This year, Kirkwood leaves the third race with a 24-point championship lead on the rest of the field. Is that going to be enough to hold off Palou? Probably not. 

Palou ran well today. He looked like he was toying with Marcus Ericsson on the first stint. It felt like Palou was just waiting to take the lead during the pit cycle. That is what happened. Palou was stuck behind Will Power during second-third of the race as Power ran a two-stop strategy and dragged out the alternate tires as long as he could. It worked. While Palou did take the lead as Power lost time with a slow pit stop, Palou being stuck behind Power allowed Kirkwood to close in and it allowed Kirkwood to win the race as the deficit was not as great as it could have been.

What Palou needed was to take the lead from Power on the track and run about five or six laps in the lead to open a gap that would have been too much for Kirkwood to overcome. It wasn't anything Palou did wrong. Power deserves praise for how he drove on the alternate tire. It sounded like Palou ran with extra downforce today, and on the long straightaways that was the difference and allowed Kirkwood to come out on top. 

Oh well. Palou is likely going to win in two weeks at Barber Motorsports Park. How is Kirkwood going to do? 

3. Will Power was the only driver to pull off the two-stop strategy and running a 22-lap stint and a 24-lap stint on the alternate tire allowed him to finish third. It was a bold strategy for a car starting fourth, and after the first stint, it felt dicey that it would work. Stretching one stint is manageable, but there was a reason no other team attempted to stretch two stints. To be honest, no one stratevch these tires like Power did. Power had the setup that allowed it and he didn't lose significant time. I was surprised he held onto the lead when Palou was in his wake. 

Power had his own slow stop. Without it, Power possibly comes out ahead of Palou and Kirkwood. I doubt that because both those drivers ran three laps longer. Power exited the pit lane behind Patricio O'Ward, which cost him time. Then he ran wide in a corner and that allowed David Malukas through when Malukas still had to make his final pit stop. Power still ran well today and he got a good result when he had one get away from him last week. Third is a great day for this group.

4. Even though he started on pole position, there was no expectation that Marcus Ericsson was going to win this race. I didn't even think Ericsson would be in contention for the podium. He really wasn't, but he remained in the top five. He had good pace in the opening stint, but he clearly did not have a race-winning car. He lost spots on the first pit stop, as was the case for every Andretti driver today, but Ericsson did not slip further than that.

After last season, Ericsson just needs good days. Being the third-best Andretti driver in a race doesn't sound great, but when it is third-out-of-three and you finish fourth, that is nearly a perfect day for the team, especially when the team was woeful across the board on the pit lane. The three drivers bailed out the organization today. It isn't often that every driver bailed out a performance of every pit crew. It is usually the other way around. 

5. Patricio O'Ward had another quiet day lead to a fifth-place finish. O'Ward was in the top five the entire race, but he was never a factor. He was never pushing Palou or the Andretti drivers. Fifth is right for him today. It is a third consecutive top five finish to start the season. These are good results. These are the results a driver needs if he wants to defeat Palou for the championship.

We know O'Ward can win races on a variety of disciplines, and he can be consistent throughout the season. He feels like a bigger threat to Palou than Kirkwood at this moment. This is a good start and we know O'Ward will find his own as we get on ovals and run some more familiar tracks.

6. David Malukas was moved up to sixth after Felix Rosenqvist was penalized for jumping the only restart, which we will cover in a moment, but Malukas had spent much of that final stint in sixth. He was in the top ten all day. He was the top Penske finisher in his third start with the team. It is good. He still doesn't have a top five finish on a road or street course and didn't look to be a threat for one today, but he got a sixth-place finish when he probably should have finished sixth. It is better than being seventh.

7. Moving up to seventh was Christian Lundgaard after the penalty for Rosenqvist. Lundgaard overcame a spin at the start when he was hit from behind. He earned this result and he looked strong despite the setback. He was still starting 18th today. Even without the contact, this is likely as good as it would have been. It is still a good recovery after a bad qualifying result.

8. Scott Dixon did the first four laps on the alternate tire and then did 11 laps on the alternate tire and satisfied the two-stint alternate tire requirement before the top three finishers even made their first pit stops. Dixon was on a four-stopper and he turned it into an eighth-place finish. He even had a set of new alternate tires for the final 11 laps. 

I think there is some surprise more teams didn't try this strategy. A few tried it, but I think the alternate tire did better than expected, and instead of teams being desperate to get off them in less than ten laps, teams could go 15 laps, or in Power's case, a full fuel stint. Dixon had to employ this strategy because he started 20th. Qualifying results are what this team must work on.

9. Alexander Rossi started tenth and he finished ninth. Rossi didn't do anything notable in this race. If anything, he caught a break that his Ed Carpenter Racing teammate Christian Rasmussen broke down four laps to the finish and there was an attempted restart, which immediately caused an accident and led to Felix Rosenqvist receiving a 14-spot penalty. Rossi was gifted a position, as was everyone that finished seventh to 20th. 

10. One Meyer Shank Racing driver's misfortune is another Meyer Shank Racing driver's reward, as Rosenqvist's penalty lifted Marcus Armstrong to tenth though Armstrong was probably one of the ten best drivers today. He might have been even better than that. Armstrong had to stop immediate at the start of the race due to a tire puncture. It set him back, but he was on a charge for this entire race. He was basically forced to the Scott Dixon strategy, except Armstrong had to end on the primary tire. He was pushing for tenth before the cautions at the end of the race. Without those, I think Armstrong was going to finish tenth. Even if he ended 11th, that would have been a fine result considering how his race started.

11. An argument can be made that Kirkwood, Armstrong or Scott McLaughlin had the best drive today. McLaughlin started last and he was a force in the first stint. He ran two quick stints on the alternate tire in the middle of the race. He was on the verge of the top ten at that point, and then his race stalled out. Once Armstrong was on fresher tires, McLaughlin had to play defense. Eleventh is a good day for McLaughlin. He might have had the best Penske car.

12. Let's breeze through the order: Caio Collet was 12th, the top rookie. Collet didn't do anything flashy, but he was hanging with Rossi, Armstrong and McLaughlin. That is a good race for Collet. 

Louis Foster was 13th after starting 13th. Foster ran the final three stints on the alternate tire. That isn't a bad strategy because all three of those were new sets but what must Foster do to get a top ten finish? Twenty starts and still no top ten finishes in his IndyCar career. That isn't good.

Rinus VeeKay was 14th. That is fine. There will be plenty of these races where VeeKay is 14th or 15th and that is the best Juncos Hollinger Racing was going to do. He did seven laps on his opening stint on the alternate tire. Then he did 20 laps on the alternate tire on the next stint. The team was committed to the strategy but adjusted when it saw Power running longer. The bed was made though.

13. Josef Newgarden probably should have been in the top ten, but exiting pit lane Newgarden had contact with David Malukas in turn three and it cost him a bunch of spots. It was innocuous, but it spun Newgarden sideways and it took him a while to get pointed forward. It felt like it was only going to cost him five or six spots and he would just outside the top ten. Instead, he was barely inside the top twenty. I feel like this screwed up the team's strategy because he went onto a used set of primary tire after that and then finished on a new alternate set. It got him a few spots, but it did not lead to a quick recovery.

14. Dennis Hauger was 16th. He did nothing special, but it was good he completed laps. 

Santino Ferrucci was a little fortunate to make the second round of qualifying yesterday. Ferrucci slid backward during the race. His car wasn't that great and he finished 17th. 

Graham Rahal had a rough weekend on a street course. That isn't new. The pace was not there. He started 24th and finished 18th. It could have been worse.

Kyffin Simpson hit his own tire on his first pit stop, and it ricochetted into Scott Dixon's crew as Dixon made a pit stop. It didn't really slow Dixon's crew down, but it was a hazard Simpson caused. It led to a penalty, and he never overcame that. He ended up finishing 19th and was a non-factor all race.

15. And we make it to Felix Rosenqvist! Rosenqvist was in for a solid top ten finish, and that is where he spent the entire race. However, in IndyCar's attempt for a restart with one lap to go, Rosenqvist saw an opportunity to get a spot. Unfortunately, Rosenqvist passed David Malukas before the restart line after the exit of turn 14. About five seconds later, Nolan Siegel plowed into the back of Romain Grosjean, and last ditch sprint was over in a blink. 

Rosenqvist passed Malukas before the restart line. Absolutely. It should not have been a 14-spot penalty and relegated him from what should have been seventh to 20th. Redress the positions. Move Malukas back to sixth and place Rosenqvist in seventh. If Rosenqvist had made this move and put Malukas into the tires and cost Malukas more positions beyond one, then yes, send Rosenqvist to the back of the order. That didn't happen.

IndyCar rushed to have a restart. Kirkwood was not behind the pace car when he started two laps to go. Cars were still on the long straightaway even when Kirkwood reached the pace car. Anyone watching knew there was going to be an accident in an attempt to run one more lap when the race result was already decided. There was too much bite in this penalty. We have seen far worse on-track contact not lead to such a penalty. Flip the spots but penalizing Rosenqvist 14 spots is like giving a prison sentence for jaywalking while vehicular homicide gets overlooked.

16. As for the lapped cars. Sting Ray Robb was 21st and did nothing. Mick Schumacher wasn't have a great race, and when he spun after a pit stop after a slight touch from Josef Newgarden, nearly a mirror image to what happened to Newgarden on the previous pit cycle, it was a gut-punch at the end of a tough day. These have been three challenging circuits for Schumacher to start his IndyCar career. He should feel better at Barber.

It appears Nolan Siegel plowed into the back of Romain Grosjean. Neither driver had a great race prior to that. Siegel just rubbed salt in both their wounds. Grosjean is likely not pleased. Siegel is another race closer to his dismal.

Does Siegel make it to the Indianapolis 500? Think about it! Would Arrow McLaren be better off with someone else in that car? McLaren has Patricio O'Ward, Christian Lundgaard was respectable last year, and it added Ryan Hunter-Reay. It has three contenders. It very well could find a fourth. There is no way you can believe in Siegel at this point. 

17. Christian Rasmussen was not having a great day either prior to his car breaking down with four laps remaining. Throw in his Phoenix result, and the first three races look worse than they actually have been for Rasmussen. 

Could we have just ignored his parked car with three to go? Rasmussen was stopped, but turns one through three were pretty slow. He wasn't in a position where he could easily be hit. If he was hit, it would have been another car spinning at 60 mph. He was right at pit exit. 

This is why IndyCar should have virtual safety car. If they could attempt to make a restart with one lap to go in this scenario, it could have virtual safety car, slow the field down and just pushed Rasmussen aside. It was basically what IndyCar did except it packed up the field and gave Siegel an easier target to hit. 

There could even be a modified virtual safety car. IndyCar could slow the section of the course where the car is stopped, in this case it could have been from the exit of turn 14 through turn three and the rest of the course could have been open for racing. That is essentially what Code 60 is in a handful of sports car championships. 

We have been talking about virtual safety car for over a decade, and IndyCar has made zero effort to adopt it even if it would help the series and allow for more green flag racing and less of a hassle with fully slowing down the field. It isn't happening. Though IndyCar did just attempted single-car runs for the final round of qualifying, so maybe it is possible. We will see it in 2035. 

18. It was a good race and a good weekend for Arlington. Where were all these people for the final five years of the Texas Motor Speedway event? Again, Texas Motor Speedway didn't go away because of the racing... it partially went away because of the racing (Do you remember how bad the high-line was those last few years?) It mostly went away because no one was there. Did no one show up because it was an oval? Because of the start time? Because of the lack of promotion? Some combination? 

Either way, it is another case of IndyCar returning to a market and immediately seeing a massive crowd in a new location. We saw it a decade ago when Road America returned. All of a sudden 50,000 people were there on race day when Milwaukee struggled to get 15,000. All that changed was where the race was held and who was promoting it. 

A great effort was put into Arlington. The race was good, and a crowd showed up. That is all you need. No one was complaining about cost, yet. Let's give it another year. Street courses do not last long. The tide can turn quickly. However, it was a strong start, and IndyCar should be racing in the state of Texas. This was the best option. 

19. And now we get an off-week. 

This was a fun start to the start. We saw the best driver in IndyCar beat down the field when it didn't look like it was going to happen, we saw a thrilling oval race that went to the closing laps, and we saw a high-speed street race where the winner worked his way forward from the middle of the top ten in a race that was practically caution-free until the very end. 

That is a pretty solid start to the season. Take a breather before heading to Barber. 

Morning Warm-Up: Arlington 2026

For the first time in his IndyCar career, Marcus Ericsson will start on pole position as Ericsson had the fastest lap at 94.3562 seconds in the final round of qualifying for the Grand Prix of Arlington. At 117 races, this is the fourth-longest wait for a first career pole position in IndyCar history. This is the eighth time in IndyCar history a driver has taken over 100 races to get his first pole position. It is Ericsson's first pole position in any series since June 29, 2013 when he started first for the GP2 feature race from Silverstone. Ericsson's last three top ten finishes have come on street courses. Unfortunately, he has 16 finishes outside the top ten in that time span. It has been 52 starts since Ericsson's most recent victory at the 2023 St. Petersburg season opener.

Álex Palou takes second on the grid after coming 0.4618 seconds shy of Ericsson's time. This is the 21st time in his career Palou is starting on the front row, however, he has only won from the second starting position once previously. It came last season at Road America. Palou has finished in the top five of the third race of the season every year in his career. His finishes in the third race of the season are third, fourth, third, fifth, fifth and second. 

Patricio O’Ward will start third, and O'Ward was 0.0273 seconds off making the front row. O'Ward was the only Chevrolet to make the Fast Six. This is his tenth consecutive race starting in the top ten. He is looking for his third consecutive top five finish. He has never had three consecutive top five finishes to open a season. With his fourth-place finish at Phoenix, O'Ward now has 50 top five finishes in his career and 70 top ten finishes.

Will Power has his best starting position of the season in fourth position. This is Power's first race staring in the top ten this season. After finishing 22nd and 16th in the first two races, Power is on the verge of his first season without a top ten finish in the first three races since 2017. Only one of Power's last 17 victories has come on a street course. That was Belle Isle in 2022. He has not won one of the first three races in a season since he won the 2014 season opener.

Felix Rosenqvist will lead an all-Meyer Shank Racing row three. Rosenqvist has finished 12th in the first two races of the season. It is the first time Rosenqvist has finished in the same position in consecutive races since he was tenth at Barber Motorsports Park and Long Beach in 2019, his third and fourth starts in IndyCar. Rosenqvist has not had a top five finish since he was runner-up at Road America, ten races ago.

Marcus Armstrong is on the outside of his teammate Rosenqvist. This is Armstrong's best start of the season, and it is his sixth consecutive time at least making the second round of qualifying on a street course. He has always made it out of the first round on a street course while driving for Meyer Shank Racing. Despite this, his best street course finish with the team is sixth, and he has failed to finish in the top ten in four of five street course starts at MSR.

Kyle Kirkwood fell 0.0415 seconds short of making it to the final round of qualifying, and Kirkwood will start seventh at Arlington. This is his 11th consecutive race without a top five start. Kirkwood was fastest in each practice session ahead of qualifying. He did win from eighth on the streets of Nashville in 2023. In the third race of the season, Kirkwood has finished tenth, first, tenth and first over his first four IndyCar seasons. 

Christian Rasmussen matches his career-best starting position of eighth, and it is his best starting position on a street course. He started eighth at Mid-Ohio in 2024. This is only the fourth time in the Dane's career he is starting in the top ten. Last week, Rasmussen led 69 laps at Phoenix. Entering that race, he had led only 46 laps in his career. Twenty-one of those laps were at Detroit last year, the only time he has led a street race.

David Malukas is the top Team Penske starter in ninth. This extends Malukas' top ten start streak to seven consecutive races. Two drivers had their first career Team Penske victory come in their their start with the team. Al Unser, Jr. did it in 1994 at Long Beach and Josef Newgarden did it in 2017 at Barber Motorsports Park. Malukas has led six laps in his career on a road or street course. He has never led more than two laps in a single road/street race. 

Alexander Rossi takes tenth on the grid. Rossi only started in the top ten once on a street course last season. He has four top ten finishes in his last five starts. He started sixth and finished sixth last week at Phoenix. Rossi has not had a top five finish on a street course since he was fifth at Detroit in 2024. He has not won on a street course since Long Beach in 2019.

Josef Newgarden overcame an accident in Saturday morning practice to qualify 11th. With a seventh at St. Petersburg and a victory at Phoenix, Newgarden could open a season with three consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since 2019 when he had four top five finishes to open the season. That is also Newgarden's most recent championship season. He has won previously from 11th on the grid. That was in 2015 at Toronto, his second career victory.

Santino Ferrucci rounds out the top twelve, however, this is Ferrucci's eighth consecutive race starting outside the top ten. Ferrucci has not completed a lap in a street course race since he finished second at Detroit last June. He missed the Toronto race after an accident in warm-up and the team could not get the car repaired in time for the race. At St. Petersburg, Ferrucci was collected in the opening lap accident and his car did not make it beyond the fourth corner.

Louis Foster fell short on getting out of group one in round one by 0.0972 seconds, and Foster will start 13th. Foster enters this weekend for his 20th start, and he has yet to score his first career top ten finish. Nine drivers have taken 20 starts or more to get their first career top ten finish in IndyCar history. Kyffin Simpson had his first career top ten finish come last year in his 20th start, which was also the third race of the season. 

Speaking of Kyffin Simpson, he missed out on advancing to the second round of qualifying by 0.0496 seconds, and he will join Foster on row two. At Toronto last year, Simpson went from 13th to third. He also went from 19th to fifth at Detroit and 17th to tenth at Long Beach. Simpson is looking for his second consecutive top ten finish after he was tenth at Phoenix last week.

Romain Grosjean takes 15th on the grid. This is the third time Grosjean will start 15th in his career, however, the first two times each came at Portland in 2022 and 2023. In both of those races, he finished worse than 15th. Due to a clutch issue, Grosjean was unable to start the Phoenix race. Two of his six career podium finishes have come on street courses, both of those were runner-up finishes at Long Beach.

Caio Collet has his best career starting position in 16th. Collet started 24th and 23rd in his first two races. This is the first time he has been the top starting rookie this season. In his two seasons Indy Lights, Collet never won a street course race. He had three podium finishes in four street course starts.

Mick Schumacher will start the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington from 17th. Schumacher started fourth last week at Phoenix, his maiden oval start, but he ended up finish 18th, two laps down. He is still looking for his first lead lap finish in IndyCar.

For the third consecutive time this season, Christian Lundgaard is starting outside the top ten as Lundgaard takes 18th on the grid. This is the fifth time in the last ten races the Dane is starting outside the top fifteen. Only once last season did Lundgaard go consecutive races without a top ten finish. He was 14th at Gateway and 24th at Road America. Lundgaard was 13th last week at Phoenix.

Dennis Hauger starts directly behind his fellow 2026 rookie Schumacher in 19th. Hauger won in both his street course starts in Indy Lights. Both of those starts came from pole position. Hauger led three laps at Phoenix during a pit cycle, the first laps led in his career.

Scott Dixon rolls off from 20th on the grid, his worst starting position of the season. This is the 22nd time in the last 37 races Dixon is starting outside the top ten. Without a top five finish in his last five starts, this is Dixon's longest top five finish drought since 2004-05 when he went 27 starts between top five finishes from fifth at Motegi in 2004 to his 2005 Watkins Glen victory.

Rinus VeeKay is starting 21st. At St. Petersburg, VeeKay went from 19th to ninth. Six of his last eight top ten finishes have come after starting outside the top ten. VeeKay has never finished in the top ten in the third race of the season. His finishes in the third race of the season are 13th, 20th, 13th, 26th, 17th and 19th. 

Nolan Siegel starts 22nd for the second time this season. Siegel started 22nd at St. Petersburg, but finished 20th, two laps down. He has finished 20th in each of the first two races this season. Siegel has finished outside the top fifteen in eight consecutive starts. He has failed to finish on the lead lap in the last four races. In seven career street course starts, his only lead lap finish was at Long Beach last year.

Sting Ray Robb was the slowest driver in group one of qualifying, and Robb will start 23rd, directly behind his Juncos Hollinger Racing teammate. This snaps a streak of five consecutive top twenty start for Robb. Robb has finished 21st in the first two races. It is the second consecutive season he has opened the season with consecutive results outside the top twenty. 

Graham Rahal's qualifying run left him 24th on the grid. This is the 13th time in the last 15 street course races Rahal is starting outside the top ten. Both his top ten starts in this stretch were at Toronto. A top ten finish this weekend will be the 150th of his IndyCar career. He has finished in the top ten at Toronto the last three seasons. His most recent street course top ten finish that was other than Toronto was sixth at St. Petersburg in 2023.

After clipping the barrier and drawing a red flag in the second group in round one, Scott McLaughlin will start last in 25th. This is the fifth time since the start of last season McLaughlin is starting outside the top twenty. In three of the four races he started outside the top twenty last season, McLaughlin ended up finishing outside the top twenty. In his three previous races in the state of Texas, McLaughlin has an average finish of 3.333. He was twice runner-up at Texas Motor Speedway and sixth in his other start.

Fox’s coverage of the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington begins at 11:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 12:17 p.m. ET. The race start was moved up an hour due to anticipated high winds in the Arlington area in the afternoon. Wind gusts are expected up to 40 mph. The race is scheduled for 70 laps.

Track Walk: Arlington 2026

The third round of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season sees a new event as for the first time the Grand Prix of Arlington will take place. Cutting through the streets and parking lots around the stadiums for the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, IndyCar will run 70 laps on the 2.73-mile course, the longest street course for modern IndyCar since running on the 2.795-mile Surfers Paradise course on the Gold Coast of Australia. The course will be comprised of 14 corners, nine right-hand corners and five left-handers. This is IndyCar's first trip to Texas since it last visited Texas Motor Speedway in 2023. Arlington will become eighth venue in the Lone Star State to host an IndyCar round.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday March 15 with green flag scheduled for 1:17 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: 4:05 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 9:35 a.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:35 p.m. ET 
Sunday:
Warm-up: 10:05 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 1:17 p.m. ET (70 laps)

Newgarden's Need For a Good Day on the Streets

Josef Newgarden is not only the most recent winner of a Texas IndyCar race, he is also the most recent IndyCar winner. After taking tires under the final caution in the Phoenix race last Saturday, Newgarden drove through the top ten to take his first victory of the season with only eight laps led. It was the 33rd victory in Newgarden's career, and eight laps led are his fewest in a victory since he won his first Indianapolis 500 in 2023 leading only five circuits. His Phoenix triumph gave Newgarden the championship lead for the first time since after his 2022 Long Beach victory.

However, that Long Beach victory remains Newgarden's most recent street course win, and Newgarden's last ten victories have come on ovals. His most recent non-oval victory was at Road America in 2022. 

If Newgarden has any hope of claiming his third championship, he will need to succeed on road and street courses, places where his form has dipped over the last few seasons. In 2024, while he was first on the road at St. Petersburg, he was disqualified after his team was found to have violated push-to-pass regulations. He did have three top five finishes on road and street courses, but did not win again. Newgarden had one top five finish on road and street courses last season, and that was third in the St. Petersburg season opener. In the other three street course races held, he had an average finish of 20th.

From 2017 through 2022, Newgarden had an average finish of 6.8636 in 66 road and street course starts. Over that time, he won 12 of those races, stood on the podium 38 times, had 34 top five finishes and 53 top ten finishes. Newgarden had only three finishes outside the top twenty in those 66 starts. 

In the 34 road/street course races since 2023, Newgarden has only finished on the podium four times with eight top five finishes and 14 top ten finishes. He has finished outside the top twenty in ten of those 34 races.

Newgarden's qualifying form has not been much better. Last season, he made the Fast Six only twice, and his best tarting position was fourth. He had five total appearances in the second round of qualifying in 11 road/street course races. His last front row start for a road or street course was the 2024 St. Petersburg race where Newgarden started on pole position before being disqualified. 

Entering Arlington, Newgarden has four consecutive top ten finishes, his longest top ten finish streak since the summer of 2023 when he was fifth at Toronto, swept the Iowa races and then was fourth at Nashville. His last five-race top ten finish streak was over the final five races of 2022. In each of his championship seasons, Newgarden won at least two on road and street courses, and his average finish on that discipline in those seasons was 4.818 and 6.5 respectively.

With his victory last week at Phoenix, it was the 12th consecutive season where Newgarden has won a race. That is the third-longest streak in IndyCar history behind only Scott Dixon's active 21-season streak and Will Power's 16-season streak from 2007 to 2022.

Palou's Unfamiliar Place

While Newgarden was in a familiar place when the Phoenix race was over, victory lane, Álex Palou left the desert in a different spot than we are used to seeing him. His accident from contact with Rinus VeeKay left Palou 24th in the final result, and Palou lost the championship lead for the first time since after the 2024 Road America race. The Catalan driver had held the championship lead since he won the Laguna Seca race on June 23, 2004. It was a streak of 621 consecutive days. 

Phoenix was the first time Palou had retired from a race since Detroit last June when David Malukas bumped Palou into the barrier in turn one. It was only his sixth retirement in 86 races with Chip Ganassi Racing. Twenty-one laps completed are Palou's fewest completed in a race since the second race of the 2020 Mid-Ohio doubleheader, where he was caught in an opening lap accident and only completed two laps over that race. 

Palou did not drop far in the standings. He is still fifth in the championship and he is only 19 points behind Newgarden. Palou has been ranked in the top five of the championship for 52 consecutive races, and he just made his 100th start at Phoenix last week. He has been ranked in the top five of the championship after 82 of his 100 career starts. After 59 of those races, he has been ranked in the top three of the championship. He has led the championship after 54 races, and he has led the championship after at least one race in each of the last six seasons.

While Arlington will be an unknown for everyone, Palou should find comfort fairly quickly. He has won at least one street course race in three of the last four seasons, including this season as he has already won at St. Petersburg. He has finished on the podium at all six street courses he has contested in his IndyCar career. In 25 street course starts, Palou has 11 podium finishes and 15 top five finishes. He was on the podium in eight of 12 road/street course races last season, and he has scored the most points on road and street courses in four of the last five seasons. 

Palou has not been outside the top five of the championship since the 2023 season opener when he was eighth in the championship after finishing eighth at St. Petersburg. He has never been outside the top ten of the championship while driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. He ended the 2020 season 16th in the championship while driving for Dale Coyne Racing. 

Entering Phoenix, Palou had 18 consecutive top ten finishes. He has not had consecutive finishes outside the top ten since the final two races of the 2024 season. He has not had consecutive finishes outside the top fifteen since 2021 when he was 27th in the August race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and 20th at Gateway. Palou has never had consecutive finishes outside the top twenty in his IndyCar career. 

Unappreciated Starts

Through two races, two names have gotten a fair amount of the attention, and we have covered them above. Newgarden and Palou aren't the only two drivers to have good starts this season.

Two drivers have started the season with a pair of top five finishes. Those drivers would be Kyle Kirkwood and Patricio O'Ward.

Kirkwood's finishes of fourth and second have him second in the championship on 73 points, five behind Newgarden. This pair of finishes is the first time Kirkwood has had consecutive top five finishes since last June when he won at Detroit and Gateway and then was fourth at Road America. Kirkwood has finished in the top ten in the last ten street course races dating back to his Nashville street course victory in 2023, and that includes four top five finishes in the last five street course races with his worst finish over that span being sixth. Four of Kirkwood's five career victories have come on street courses. 

O'Ward was fifth in St. Petersburg and fourth in Phoenix. This places O'Ward fourth in the championship on 63 points. Dating back to last season, he has eight top five finishes in the last ten races, and nine top five finishes in the last 12 races. O'Ward ended the street course portion of last season with a victory at Toronto. It was his second consecutive season in which he scored a victory on a street course. 

Sandwiched between Kirkwood and O'Ward in the championship is Scott McLaughlin. While he was not in the top five at Phoenix, that eighth combined with his runner-up finish at St. Petersburg has McLaughlin on 66 points. He had three consecutive podium finishes prior to Phoenix, but his streak of top ten finishes continues and it is now up to six consecutive races, his longest streak since he ended the 2024 season with five consecutive top ten results and then opened the 2025 season with a fourth at St. Petersburg. 

David Malukas' third-place finish at Phoenix has lifted him with sixth in the championship on 56 points, three behind Palou. Phoenix was the fourth podium finish for Malukas in his IndyCar career, and it was his sixth top five finish. All of those results have come on ovals. He has yet to finish in the top five on a road or street course. Last season, his best street course finish was ninth. In 16 street course starts, his average finish is 16.375.

Phoenix was not the greatest race for Christian Lundgaard, as Lundgaard started 17th and finished 13th in a race where he spent majority of the race outside the top ten. The Dane did lead eight laps, but those were all during a pit cycle. However, Lundgaard was third at St. Petersburg and he is placed seventh in the championship with 54 points. He does have three podium finishes in the last six races. 

Seldom mentioned, Marcus Armstrong is eighth in the championship after the first two races with 50 points, but he was fifth at Phoenix, Armstrong's seventh top five finish in his career, but it was his second career top five finish on an oval. He as third in the second Iowa race last season. Armstrong was 11th at St. Petersburg after starting seventh. While he had 11 top ten finishes last season, only one of those was on a street course. He was sixth at Detroit. 

Inaugural Race

While the 2026 IndyCar calendar has a few new events compared to the 2025 season, Arlington is an inaugural event, never contested before. It is actually the second consecutive season IndyCar has an inaugural event. Last year, it raced at Thermal Club located in Thermal, California for the first time, one year after the circuit held an exhibition event. Álex Palou won both the exhibition race and the lone championship race at Thermal.

IndyCar has had a few new tracks in recent seasons. 

Though not original, the new Detroit street course is different from the Renaissance Center course CART used from 1989 to 1991. Palou also won that inaugural event when IndyCar returned to downtown Detroit in 2023. Prior to that, IndyCar raced on the street of Nashville for the first time in 2021. In a chaotic affair, it was Marcus Ericsson taking the victory despite contact that lifted the Swede's front tires off the ground at one point. 

For those observant readers, you will realize the last three inaugural races in IndyCar history have been victories for Chip Ganassi Racing. 

The last inaugural event that Chip Ganassi Racing did not win was IndyCar's only race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. That is famously remembered for Colton Herta's first career victory only a week prior to his 19th birthday and it was Herta's third career IndyCar start. 

There have been only two other inaugural IndyCar events during the DW12-era. Prior to Austin, it was NOLA Motorsports Park, which saw an infamous race where weather disrupted the weekend and saw a clunky race in which 26 of 47 laps were run under caution. James Hinchcliffe took the victory. 

The only other inaugural event since 2012 was the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis in 2014. The first race on the IMS road course is remembered for an accident at the start as IndyCar was experimenting with standing starts at a few races. Sebastián Saavedra had started on pole position, but he stalled and collected Carlos Muñoz and Mikhail Alehsin. Simon Pagenaud took the victory in the first Grand Prix of Indianapolis for Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports. 

If you have remained observant you will realize that none of the last six inaugural events have seen a Team Penske victory. Don't worry, you don't have to go back any further than that because the next most recent inaugural race was the Grand Prix of Baltimore, and Will Power won that for Penske. 

There have been three other inaugural tracks since reunification in 2008, plus one event that saw a new circuit layout used while competing on the same property of an existing race. IndyCar made maiden trips to São Paulo and Barber Motorsports Park, it ran the Twin Ring Motegi road course in 2011 after damage to the oval from the Tōhoku earthquake required the change. Then there was Edmonton, which adopted a new circuit layout in 2011. 

Team Penske won three of those four events. Power won at São Paulo and the inaugural race on the second Edmonton layout. Hélio Castroneves won the inaugural Barber race. The only non-Penske victory was Motegi where Scott Dixon came home in first at Motegi, which happened after the first Baltimore race, meaning Team Penske has not won the last seven inaugural races in IndyCar.

If you have remained observant, you will notice a fair number of this inaugural events did not last long. Thermal, Austin and NOLA all lasted only one year. Motegi was only going to be one year as the 2011 race was already declared to be the last race of the event prior to the damage on the oval. Baltimore and Nashville each only made it three years. São Paulo got a fourth edition. Barber, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Detroit all currently remain on the schedule. 

Road to Indy

Two Road to Indy series, one of which will be opening its 2026 season, will join IndyCar for the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington.

For Indy Lights, this will be the second round of the season. Nikita Johnson took victory in St. Petersburg leading all 42 laps. It was Johnson's first career victory in his fourth Indy Lights start. He had not run an Indy Lights race since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis weekend last season. It was the first Indy Lights victory for Cape Motorsports powered by ECR.

Max Taylor was second from pole position at St. Petersburg while Tymek Kucharczyk was third on podium on his debut, and Kucharczyk was the best finishing HMD Motorsports driver in the opener. Sebastian Murray and Lochie Hughes rounded out the top five making it three Andretti Global drivers in the top five along with Taylor. 

Myles Rowe and Josh Pierson were sixth and seventh ahead of Salvador de Alba while Juan Manuel Correa was ninth. Three rookies took the next three spots in the finishing order. Alessandro de Tullio rounded out the top ten ahead of Jack Beeton and Max Garcia.

Indy Lights will race at Arlington will be 27 laps or 55 minutes. The green flag is scheduled for 11:06 a.m. ET on Sunday March 15.

USF Pro 2000 will be opening its 2026 season with a doubleheader in Arlington. It is the first race weekend of the season, a doubleheader in an 18-race calendar. Twenty-one cars are entered for the season opener. 

Exclusive Autosport has four cars entered with 2025 U.S. F2000 champion Jack Jeffers leading the group with Evan Cooley and Anthony Martella and Joey Brienza. VRD Racing has Teddy Musella, second in U.S. F2000 last year, in its three-car lineup with Colan Aitken and Frankie Mossman. Jacob Douglas is the top returning driver from last year's USF Pro 2000 championship and he will be Pabst Racing. G3 Argyros will be Douglas' teammate.

Michael Costello was eighth in the championship last year and he will be back with Turn 3 Motorsport in a five-car lineup. Tyke Durst is also back as is Sebastian Manson. Leonardo Escorpioni is running this weekend as the Brazilian competes in combination with the U.S. F2000 season. Escorpioni was third in both U.S. F2000 races at St. Petersburg. Brady Colan will be in the fifth car.

Andrés Cárdenas had good pace in testing and he leads the three-car Jay Howard Driver Development powered by ECR stable with Tanner DeFabis and JT Hoskins. Christian Cameron was also one of the quickest in testing and one of three TJ Speed Motorsports drivers alongside Thomas Schrage and Leandro Juncos, son of Juncos Hollinger Racing co-owner Ricardo Juncos. Logan Adams is back with Comet/NCMP Racing. 

The first race of the USF Pro 2000 season all be at 1:25 p.m. ET on Saturday March 14. The second race will be later that day at 5:55 p.m. ET. Both races will have a 40-minute time limit.

Fast Facts

This will be the third IndyCar race on March 15 and the first since 1998 when Michael Andretti won at Homestead. 

The only other March 15 race was in 1919. Cliff Durant won a 34-lap race in Santa Monica, which was held on a 7.36-mile course. It was the 15th and final race held on the streets of Santa Monica. The first 14 races took place on a 8.417-mile course. 

Two of those Santa Monica races were the American Grand Prix, the predecessor of the United States Grand Prix. Eddie Pullen won it in 1914. Howdy Wilcox and Johnny Aitken were co-drivers that won the 1916 edition. 

This will be the first IndyCar round to use single-car runs in the final round of qualifying. Each of the six participants will have one lap in the final round of qualifying to run for pole position, starting with sixth-fastest from the previous round and ending with the fastest car. The first two rounds of qualifying remain unchanged.

If the final round of qualifying should be disrupted due to weather or conditions that significantly change the track surface, IndyCar will have the option to revert to the standard procedure of a six-minute session with all six cars competing, or it can use results from the second round of qualifying to determine the starting lineup.

An Andretti Global driver or Scott McLaughlin have combined to win the last seven pole positions on street courses. 

The pole-sitter has won only two of the last seven street course races (Colton Herta at Toronto in 2024, Kyle Kirkwood at Long Beach in 2025).

Twenty-five consecutive races have been won from a top ten starting position, 16 of those have been a top five starting position. 

Honda has won seven of the last nine street course races, and Patricio O'Ward is responsible for the two Chevrolet victories. One of those was the 2024 St. Petersburg race, where O'Ward inherited the victory after Josef Newgarden was disqualified. The other was last year at Toronto where O'Ward won from tenth.

Dating back to 2023, Honda has won 12 of 14 street course races

Team Penske has not won a street course races since Belle Isle in 2022 with Will Power, the final Belle Isle race prior to the Detroit Grand Prix moving back to the downtown location. Team Penske had won the first three street courses in the 2022 season with Scott McLaughlin winning at St. Petersburg and Josef Newgarden winning at Long Beach. 

This will be the 67 IndyCar race held in the state of Texas.

The first race held in the state of Texas was July 28, 1913 in Galveston on a five-mile beach course. Louis Disbrow won the 100-mile race. There were two more races held over the next two days, both of which were also 100 miles. Amour Ferguson won the second day with Disbrow in second. Disbrow won the third and final race.

Scott Dixon has the most victories in the state with six. Dixon won five times at Texas Motor Speedway and once on the Reliant Park street course in Houston. 

A.J. Foyt and Hélio Castroneves are tied for second in state of Texas victories with four apiece. All four of Foyt's victories were at Texas World Speedway and all four of Castroneves' victories were at Texas Motor Speedway.

Four other active drivers have victories in Texas. Josef Newgarden and Will Power have each won three times. Graham Rahal and Patricio O'Ward each have won once. 

Thirty-nine drivers have won a race in the state of Texas.

Predictions

Álex Palou is going to win from a top five starting position, and if it isn't Álex Palou it will be Kyle Kirkwood from the front row. Palou still gets the championship lead back but Josef Newgarden does finish in the top ten. Newgarden will not be the best Team Penske finisher as Scott McLaughlin takes a podium position. Christian Lundgaard bests his Arrow McLaren teammate Patricio O'Ward in both qualifying and the race. There will be an opening lap accident but it will not be in turn one, it will be in turn four. Romain Grosjean will see the green flag this weekend. Mick Schumacher rises from lat in the championship and picks ip at least three spots. Will Power gains the most spots in the championship after this race. Sleeper: Felix Rosenqvist.