Morning Warm-Up: Phoenix 2026

David Malukas scored his first career pole position with a two-lap average at 175.383 mph, 41.0530 seconds, in qualifying from Phoenix Raceway. This will be the third time in the last four races Malukas has started on the front row. It will be his fifth consecutive start inside the top five. This will be his 15th time starting in the top five in his IndyCar career. However, Malukas’ average finish when starting in the top five is 14.2857 with one top five finish and four top ten finishes. Two Team Penske drivers have had their first victory with the team come in their second start. Gary Bettenhausen won in his second Penske start at Trenton on April 13, 1982. Danny Sullivan’s first Penske victory was also in his second Penske start, and it was the 1985 Indianapolis 500. 

Josef Newgarden makes it an all-Team Penske front row as Newgarden was 0.1963 seconds off his teammate’s pole-winning run. Newgarden has won the second race of the season three times in his career, including at Phoenix in 2018. He enters this weekend with three consecutive top ten finishes dating back to last season. It is the first time Newgarden has had three consecutive top ten finishes since 2023 when he swept the Iowa doubleheader and then was fourth on the streets of Nashville. 

Graham Rahal makes it three consecutive Americans on the grid as Rahal was 0.328 seconds behind Malukas. This is Rahal’s best start on an oval since Texas 2012 when he started third. He was second in that race. Rahal has finished outside the top ten in ten consecutive oval races. His last top ten finish on an oval was eighth in the second Iowa race in 2023. Rahal’s most recent top five on an oval was third in the second Texas race in 2021. 

Mick Schumacher’s oval debut will start from fourth on the grid, and it rounds out an all-Rahal Lettermam Lanigan Racing second row. This is the first time RLLR has multiple top five starters since last year’s Grand Prix of Indianapolis when all three car started in the top five. Schumacher is the first German to start an oval race since Timo Glock, who was eighth in the 2005 Las Vegas Champ Car race.

Scott McLaughlin is the worst Team Penske starter in fifth. McLaughlin was 0.4579 seconds off Malukas. McLaughlin has three consecutive podium finishes. He has never had four consecutive podium finishes. McLaughlin has finished outside the top twenty in the second race of the season the last two years.

Alexander Rossi takes sixth on the grid, matching his best starting position with Ed Carpenter Racing. Rossi was the fastest in the preseason test at Phoenix. He has not won a race in 55 starts. He has not won on an oval since August 19, 2018 at Pocono.

Patricio O'Ward is starting seventh. The most recent Phoenix race in 2018 was won from seventh starting position. O'Ward has 49 career top five finishes entering this weekend. He had five top five finishes in six oval races last season, and he has nine top five finishes in the last 13 oval races.

Rinus VeeKay slots into eighth. Twice has VeeKay opened the season with consecutive top ten finishes, however, in each of those seasons, he was sixth in the opening race. This was the second consecutive season VeeKay opened the year with a ninth-place results.

Nolan Siegel is directly behind his Arrow McLaren teammate O’Ward in ninth starting position. This snaps a streak of six consecutive starts outside the top ten for Siegel. He started eighth in the first Iowa race last year before getting into an accident. In 11 oval starts, Siegel's average finish is 17.5454.

Álex Palou rounds out the top ten on the grid. This is Palou’s worst starting position since he started 24th for the 2024 season finale at Nashville. Palou makes his 100th start this weekend. Six drivers have won in their 100th start, most recently Patricio O'Ward at Mid-Ohio last year. Palou enters this weekend on 74 career top ten finishes.

Kyle Kirkwood missed out on a top ten grid position by 0.0245 seconds, and Kirkwood has now not started in the top ten in ten consecutive races. He made up 11 spots last week to finish fourth at St. Petersburg, his first top five finish since he was fourth at Laguna Seca last June. 

Sting Ray Robb has his career-best starting position in 12th, his first career top fifteen start. Robb has finished in the top fifteen only twice in his career on ovals, 15th in the first Iowa race in 2024 and ninth at Gateway later that season. 

Marcus Armstrong is set to start 13th. Armstrong has seven top ten finishes in 13 oval starts. Last year, he started outside the top ten in eight races, and he finished in the top ten in five of those, and three of those were oval events. 

Marcus Ericsson is starting 14th. Ericsson has finished worse than his starting position in his last five races. For the second consecutive season, Ericsson was sixth in the season opener. His average finish last season on ovals was 19.1667.

Scott Dixon ended up qualifying 15th. Dixon is coming off his worst finish ever in a season opener, a 23rd in St. Petersburg. He had not finished outside the top ten in the season opener since 2015. That season, he finished outside the top ten in the first two races. Dixon ended that season as champion.

Louis Foster starts on the outside of row eight. Foster had an average finish of 17.1667 on ovals last season. He did finish better than his starting position in four of six oval races last season. His best improvement was a gain of ten spots at Milwaukee from 27th to 17th. 

Christian Lundgaard starts 17th. Last year, Lundgaard went from 17th to sixth at Milwaukee. He also went from 22nd to sixth in the second Iowa race last year. Lundgaard was third at St. Petersburg after starting 12th. It was his eighth podium finish since his only career victory at Toronto in 2023. 

Christian Rasmussen makes row nine an all-Christian and an all-Danish row. This is the 30th time in 33 starts Rasmussen is starting outside the top ten. He had five top ten finishes in six oval starts last season. He was last place in the other, and it was the most recent oval race at Nashville.

Kyffin Simpson is going to start 19th. Simpson had started in the top ten of the previous two races. He has finished better than his starting position in his last five oval starts. Simpson was fourth in the last oval race at Nashville. Prior to that, his best oval finish was 13th.

Romain Grosjean rounds out the top twenty on the grid. He was 1.0982 seconds slower than Malukas’ pole position time. Grosjean has four top ten finishes on ovals with his best result being seventh in the first Iowa race in 2022. Dale Coyne Racing has never had a top ten finish at Phoenix. The team’s best result was 11th with Ed Jones in 2016.

Santino Ferrucci occupies 21st. This is the eighth consecutive race Ferrucci is starting outside the top ten. He did go from 21st to second last year at Detroit. A.J. Foyt Racing has only one victory at Phoenix Raceway. That was November 9, 1975 with Foyt himself. Foyt won four times at Phoenix, three times with Anstead-Thompson Racing.

Dennis Hauger completes row 11. In four oval races last year in Indy Lights, Hauger had three podium finishes and he finished in the top five of all them. He started on pole position for three of the races. Dale Coyne Racing had one top ten finish on an oval last year. That was seventh at Gateway with Rinus VeeKay. 

Caio Collet will make his second career start from 23rd, one spot better than his first career start at St. Petersburg. In two seasons in Indy Lights, Collet had an average finish 7.625. He had three top five finishes last year in four oval races, and his best oval finish over his two season was third at Nashville in 2024 and at Gateway in 2025. 

Felix Rosenqvist had an accident in the opening practice and was unable to make a qualifying run. Rosenqvist will start 24th The Swede did run at Phoenix in Indy Lights in 2016. He was 15th after starting 13th in a 16-car race, but he did finish on the lead lap. That is Indy Lights' most recent visit to the track. Rosenqvist is the only driver from that Indy Lights entered this weekend in IndyCar.

Will Power spun in turn two on his qualifying run, and Power will start 25th as the final two spots are set via entrants’ points due to neither Rosenqvist nor Power setting a qualifying time. Not including last year’s Indianapolis 500, when Power started 33rd after his Team Penske entry was found with an illegally modified attenuator ahead of the Fast 12 session, this is his worst starting position since the 2021 Indianapolis 500, when he started 31st after running the last row shootout. Power enters this weekend having finished outside the top twenty in the last three oval races and in four of the last five. His average finish on ovals last year was 19.5.

Fox's coverage of the Good Ranchers 250 from Phoenix Raceway begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:20 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 250 laps.

Track Walk: Phoenix 2026

The second round of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series Season takes the series to Phoenix Raceway for a weekend that will be shared with NASCAR, which will have its top two divisions in competition as well. For IndyCar, it will be the 65th race held at the one-mile oval, a little shy of 62 years after the first time American open-wheel racing's top series visited. In 1964, the inaugural visit was the season opener, and A.J. Foyt took the first of what would be a record seven consecutive victories. Foyt went onto win a record ten races that season. In 2026, Phoenix is the second round and Álex Palou has already won a race. Palou has led the IndyCar championship since June 23, 2024 after a victory at Laguna Seca, 28 consecutive races entering this weekend.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Saturday March 7 with green flag scheduled for 3:20 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: 10:00 a.m. ET (60 minutes)

Qualifying: 2:00 p.m. ET 

High-Line Practice: 3:40 p.m. ET (80 minutes)

Final Practice: 5:10 p.m. ET (50 minutes)

Saturday:

Race: 3:29 p.m. ET (250 laps)

Early Oval Opportunity

Oval races have been few and far between in IndyCar over recent seasons, but they have been more common early in the season than we realize. While the last two seasons did not have an oval until the Indianapolis 500, this is the third time in the last six years an oval has occurred in one of the first two races, and it is the fourth time in that timespan an oval has occurred before the Indianapolis 500. 

It is a chance for some drivers to get a jump on the championship. 

The bad news is Álex Palou is a top oval driver. Last year, Palou scored the most oval points in 2025 with two victories and two runner-up finishes. His worst finish on an oval in 2025 was eighth at Gateway. The Catalan driver has nine top five finishes in the 13 oval races dating back to the 2024 season and 14 top ten finishes in the last 18 oval races dating back to 2023. 

Though Palou will be the man to beat, an oval race could be a great chance for someone to get ahead of him. 

Patricio O'Ward has scored the most oval points in two of the last five seasons, and he has finished in the top four of oval points in the last five seasons. Last year, O'Ward was second in oval points, and it got him second in the championship. Palou scored 252 oval points while O'Ward tallied 208 points on the circle tracks. O'Ward won at Iowa and he had five top five finishes on ovals last year. He won pole position for the Nashville finale before he got into the way and was classified in 24th. 

Josef Newgarden won that Nashville race to give him his one and only victory in the 2025 season. It was the tenth consecutive season in which Newgarden won an oval race, the longest streak in IndyCar history. He started 2025 with two finishes outside the top twenty. He was caught in an accident at Gateway while leading when Louis Foster spun. Newgarden recovered with a second at Iowa and he was in the top ten for the final four oval races.

Newgarden only had the fourth-most oval points in 2025 with 156. The driver with the third-most was Christian Rasmussen on 173 points. Rasmussen stood out at the end of 2025 when he scored his first career victory at Milwaukee with an impressive drive to the front. The Dane had five consecutive top ten finishes on ovals, including a third at Gateway, before he spun on the opening lap at Nashville and was the first driver out of the season finale. 

This will be a key weekend for Team Penske. While Penske only won one oval race in 2025, it has been the dominant force on the discipline for an extended period. Penske has won 17 of 33 oval races since the introduction of the aeroscreen in 2020. Newgarden has been responsible for 13 of those victories, but Scott McLaughlin won two of those races, and he was the top driver in oval points in 2024. However, last season was a downward turn for the New Zealander. McLaughlin was 12th in oval points as he failed to start the Indianapolis 500, had a mechanical issue leave him 24th at Gateway, and he was caught in an opening lap accident in the second Iowa race. McLaughlin did finish in the top five of the other three oval races, including finishing third in both the final two races of the season. 

Phoenix will be a opportunity for David Malukas to get an early victory with Team Penske. Malukas' best IndyCar results have come on ovals, especially short ovals. All five of his top five finishes in his career have come on ovals. His first two podium results each came at Gateway, second in 2022 and third in 2023. Last year, he was classified second in the Indianapolis 500, moving up a position post-race after a penalty disqualified Marcus Ericsson. In the Nashville finale, Malukas qualified second and look poised to be a threat for victory before having an accident in turn one when negotiating the back-maker Louis Foster. 

Rasmussen's victory last year at Milwaukee should inspire some that Phoenix could be the site of their first career victory. Along with Malukas, Santino Ferruci should be encouraged entering this weekend. Nine of Ferrucci's 11 top five finishes in his career have come on ovals. Ironically, two of his three podium finishes have been on road and street courses. He has had a top five finish on an oval in every season he has competed full-time in IndyCar, including two last year, a pair of fifths at Indianapolis and Gateway. Ferrucci was eighth in oval points last year with 140.

Last year, Kyle Kirkwood picked up Andretti Global's first oval victory since 2018 when he won at Gateway in a race that turn into a bigger fuel conservation battle than expected. Though he won at Gateway, Kirkwood's only other top ten finish on an oval was sixth at Nashville. The other two Andretti drivers in 2025, Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson, combined for zero top ten finishes on ovals, and the organization in its entirety, Marco Andretti's Indianapolis 500 also included, had an oval average finish of 17.1052.

A Return to Phoenix

IndyCar has a long history with Phoenix Raceway, and for the 21st century is has been fractured. While it hosted Indy Racing League events at the turn of the century, the series stopped racing at the circuit after the 2005 season. It would be an 11-year hiatus before the top division in American open-wheel racing returned to the one-mile oval. However, that second stint lasted only three season. Now, IndyCar returns after another eight-year break.

Not as many drivers as you think competing this weekend were around for the most recent Phoenix experience. The number is five, and two of them are past Phoenix winners. Scott Dixon extends back to the original run of Phoenix races, starting with the track's opening in 1964 on the USAC National Championship schedule, bridging splits between USAC and CART, and then CART and the IRL before ending in 2005. Dixon made three starts in the early 2000s, and his best finish was second in 2004. In 2016, he won on IndyCar's Phoenix return, leading 155 of 250 laps. He had top five finishes in all three appearances from 2016 to 2018. 

Josef Newgarden is the most recent Phoenix winner as Newgarden took the 2018 race ahead of Robert Wickens, Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon. Newgarden only led 30 laps. Will Power led the most laps in this race, but Power's race ended after he hit the wall when he got into the marbles after Rossi made a pass on the Australian. Newgarden took advantage of of taking tires under the last caution and he drove pass Wickens with four laps remaining to win the race. 

Prior that wall contact, Power had finished on the podium in his first two Phoenix starts in 2016 and 2017. Rossi's third in 2018 was by far his best Phoenix finish. He had finished 14th in 2016, and he was 15th in 2017 after an accident. 

The only other active driver who has started a Phoenix race is Graham Rahal. While Rahal was fifth in 2016, he was involved in an opening lap accident in 2017 and did not complete a lap, classified in last place. In 2018, he rebounded to finish ninth. 

IndyCar held its preseason test at Phoenix Raceway last month. 

Ed Carpenter Racing led the way with Rossi running the fastest lap over the two days at 20.6254 seconds. Newgarden was 0.0213 seconds off Rossi with Álex Palou in third, 0.0381 seconds behind. Christian Rasmussen made it two ECR cars in the top four, and Rasmussen was 0.0733 off his teammate. David Malukas rounded out the top five in the test, 0.0929 seconds slower than Rossi. 

Patricio O'Ward took sixth with a lap at 20.7247 seconds, and then the three Andretti Global cars landed on the timing sheet. Kyle Kirkwood led the trio at 20.7302 seconds with Will Power (20.7867 seconds) and Marcus Ericsson (20.7956 seconds) behind him. Marcus Armstrong rounded out the top ten at 20.8165 seconds with the other two New Zealanders Dixon (20.8340 seconds) and Scott McLaughlin (20.8786 seconds) right behind him.

Rahal, Felix Rosenqvist, Rinus VeeKay, Louis Foster and Nolan Siegel were the final drivers to run in the 20-second bracket. Mick Schumacher was the fastest of the three rookies in 18th, 0.4154 seconds behind Rossi. Romain Grosjean and Christian Lundgaard rounded out the top twenty. Caio Collet and Dennis Hauger were the next two on the time sheet. 

Kyffin Simpson, Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb rounded out the testing results. Robb was 0.7296 seconds off Rossi's top time.

How Bad is Not Completing the First Lap of the Season?

For two drivers, the first race of the 2026 IndyCar season could not have gotten off to a worse start. They have started more races this season than they have completed lap because Santino Ferrucci and Mick Schumacher didn't even make it through four corners in the St. Petersburg season opener.

Sting Ray Robb locked up going up the inside into turn four and with Robb sliding, he collided into Ferrucci, who nosed his car into the barrier, and Schumacher was collateral damage with no place to go but into the back of Ferrucci. 

Some would look at such an incident and wonder if it is an omen for the rest of the season. If you could not get through one place, how could you expect a full season to be good? Well, is that the case?

With Ferrucci and Schumacher each failing to make it through one lap, there have now been 36 occasions since 1946 where a driver started the first race of the season and failed to complete a lap. It is actually the second consecutive season where it has happened. Last year, Will Power spun exiting turn three and Nolan Siegel and Louis Foster were collected in the accident. 

This was actually the fourth time in the last six seasons where there has been an opening lap accident in the season opener where cars did not complete the opening lap. Prior to this run, it had not happened since 2011.

Is this a sign of a bad season to come? 

It is not a great start. 

Only twice has a driver failed to complete the first lap of the season and finished in the top five in the championship. Ten out of the first 34 drivers were able to finish in the top ten of the championship. Eighteen of the 34 drivers were outside the top fifteen in the championship at the end of that season. 

The two best drivers were Josef Newgarden in 2021 and A.J. Allmendinger in 2006. 

Newgarden was caught when Ryan Hunter-Reay spun going over the hill toward turn five at Barber Motorsports Park, and both drivers were out of the race. Newgarden recovered and finished second in the next race at St. Petersburg, and he had four consecutive top six finishes. He would go on to win twice and he ended up finishing second in the championship, 38 points off Álex Palou. 

Allmendinger's 2006 season was peculiar even by modern standards. He was involved in a four-car accident at the start of the Grand Prix of Long Beach. He had a good recovery over the next three races, but he was then fired by RuSport. Allmendinger did end up landing at Forsythe Racing, where he won his first three races with the team. Allmendinger won five times that season, and was third in the championship despite leaving the team prior to the season finale to start his moving to NASCAR. 

Newgarden and Allmendinger are the only drivers to win multiple times in a season after failing to complete the opening lap. Six other drivers have won a race in the season in which they failed to complete the opening lap. 

The first to do it was Elmer George, who didn't even start the first lap of the 1957 season. George and Eddie Russo made contact on the pace laps for the Indianapolis 500 and neither took the green flag. Later that season, George won at Syracuse. 

For the start of the 1996-97 Indy Racing League season, Robbie Buhl and Jim Guthrie had an accident on the first lap of the season at Loudon. Guthrie would go on to win three races later at Phoenix and Buhl would win in his return to Loudon, 364 days after he was unable to complete the first lap.

Jimmy Vasser could not make it one lap with his new team, Team Rahal, in 2002 as Vasser and Townsend Bell got together at the start of the Monterrey CART race. Nearly seven months later, Vasser took the checkered flag at Fontana in what was the fastest 500-mile race at the time. 

Marco Andretti started his 2011 season flipping at St. Petersburg after contact with Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon at the start of the race. However, Andretti would later that season at Iowa, and he would finish eighth in the championship.

We saw it last year. Power did not make it through the first lap at St. Petersburg, but he would get his day of glory at Portland, where he took victory. It was the highlight of Power's season as he finished ninth in the championship.

Looking at the immediate aftermath, no driver has failed to complete the first lap of the season and then won the next race. Along with Newgarden in 2021, Vasser was second in the next race in 2002 at Long Beach, and Paul Tracy was second at Houston in 2006 after not completing the first lap of the season in the previous round. Along with those three, seven other drivers were in the top ten of the next race.

The good news is no driver has failed to complete a lap in the first two races of the season. 

Shared Weekend History

This will be the fifth time IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series are running together at the same track on the same weekend. The first four occurred from 2020 to 2023, and all four times were at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The first get-together was over Independence Day weekend during the global pandemic in 2020. NASCAR was already scheduled to run the Brickyard 400 that weekend based on the original schedule. IndyCar had only contested one race at that point in 2020 and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis was added to the weekend to be run on Saturday July 4. It was just prior to NASCAR's second division race, which also took place on the IMS road course and was always scheduled to run on the IMS road course. 

Over the next three years, every race that weekend was held on the IMS road course as NASCAR experimented with using the configuration in place of the Brickyard 400 on the oval. 

Scott Dixon won two of the four IndyCar races held in companionship with NASCAR. Dixon won the 2020 race from pole position, but after a tough fight with Graham Rahal before Dixon took advantage of cautions and tire strategy. It was Dixon's second consecutive victory to open the season, and he went on to open that season with three consecutive victories before taking his sixth championship. 

In 2023, Dixon entered the weekend with zero victories, but he was breaking the IndyCar record for consecutive starts. It was his 319th consecutive start, and Dixon won from 15th using impressive fuel conservation. It would spark an end to the season that saw him win three of the final four races and take second in the championship.

Will Power won the 2021 race held with NASCAR as he led 56 laps on the IMS road course with Romain Grosjean finishing second for the second time on the track that season. Alexander Rossi won the following year, but Rossi's car had improper weight ballast in his car. Rossi kept the victory, but the team was docked 20 points for the infraction. Christian Lundgaard was second. 

On the NASCAR side, Kevin Harvick won the 2020 Brickyard 400 after Denny Hamlin suffered a right front tire failure while leading in turn one. It was Harvick's second consecutive Brickyard 400 victory and his third overall. In the first Cup race on the IMS road course, A.J. Allmendinger took a surprise victory as he was only competing in the road course races for Kaulig Racing. It was Allmendinger's first Cup victory in seven years and five days. Tyler Reddick won the 2022 race and Michael McDowell won the 2023 race.

In 2020, Chip Ganassi Racing had cars competing in each of the big races of the weekend, and the team fell a spot short of the sweep. Matt Kenseth was second in the #42 Chevrolet. Kenseth had taken over the car after Kyle Larson had been indefinitely suspended for using a racial slur during an sim racing event on Easter night of that year. Team Penske has also had drivers competing in both the IndyCar and Cup events, and it too fell a sport short of sweeping the weekend. In 2021, a day after Power's victory, Ryan Blaney was second behind A.J. Allmendinger.

Team Penske's success at Phoenix is not contained only to IndyCar. Penske has won six Phoenix Cup races, and it has won at the circuit in three of the last four seasons. However, five of those victories have come in the autumn race at the circuit. The only time Penske has won the early Phoenix race was in 2020 when Joey Logano took victory. Logano is a four-time Phoenix winner while Blaney won last season's Phoenix finale. Rusty Wallace won Penske's first Phoenix Cup race in 1998.

Fast Facts

This will be the first IndyCar race ever held on March 7. 

After today's race, there will be 76 days in the calendar year that have never hosted an IndyCar race.

The only day remaining in the month of March to not host an IndyCar race will be March 8.

The other days that have not hosted an IndyCar race that are not in January, February or December are May 8, May 17, May 18, May 20, November 10, November 15 and November 20.

This will be the 26th Phoenix race to take place in the month of March. This will be the earliest Phoenix race in the calendar year. The previous earliest was March 11, which occurred in 1979. Gordon Johncock won the race driving for Patrick Racing. It was the first CART race.

Team Penske leads all teams with nine Phoenix victories. 

McLaren is second amongst active teams in Phoenix victories with three despite the team having not run an IndyCar race at the track since 1979. Johnny Rutherford is responsible for all three victories (March 1975, March 1977, October 1978).

Scott Dixon's victory in 2016 is Chip Ganassi Racing's only Phoenix victory.

Five drivers have won consecutive Phoenix races: Al Unser (November 1969-March 1970), Bobby Unser (swept 1972 races), Gordon Johncock (October 1977-March 1978), Rick Mears (1989-1990), Tony Kanaan (2003-04).

Honda has won four of the last seven oval races after only winning once in the previous 14 oval races.

Four drivers had their first career victory come at Phoenix (Gary Bettenhausen, Roberto Guerrero, Robby Gordon and Sam Hornish, Jr.).

The average starting position for a Phoenix winner is 4.39 with a median of third.

The last four Phoenix races have been won from the fifth, sixth or seventh starting position. 

Four Phoenix races have been won from outside the top ten, three of those have been won from 19th or worse (Mike Mosley from 19th in March 1974, Roberto Guerrero from 22nd in 1987 and Buddy Lazier from 26th in 2000).

The average number of lead changes in a Phoenix race is 5.359 with a median of five.

IndyCar's most recent visit to Phoenix in 2018 had 12 lead changes, the most ever for a race at the circuit. The previous two Phoenix races had two lead changes and four lead changes respectively.

The average number of cautions in a Phoenix race is 4.628 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 35.628 with a median of 32.

Predictions

Let's be honest, we should just pick Álex Palou every week, because it is going to be right almost 50% of the time. If it isn't Álex Palo, this is Scott McLaughlin's weekend and he is going to lead north of 175 laps.  Josef Newgarden does finish in the top five and it is a good day as all three Team Penske cars finish in the top ten. The field will get through the first lap and they will go at least 55 laps before the first caution. Two of the rookies do not see the checkered flag. Christian Lundgaard has his best oval result. Christian Rasmussen touches a barrier this weekend. I am not saying it is going to be bad, but it will happen. Alexander Rossi will leave the weekend frustrated. Sleeper: Marcus Ericsson.

Musings From the Weekend: Playing Second or Third Fiddle

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

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

Playing Second or Third Fiddle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winners From the Weekend

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up This Weekend

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

The Formula One season begins in Australia.

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

Supercross has a Triple Crown event in Indianapolis.

First Impressions: St. Petersburg 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will talk about the tires in a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morning Warm-Up: St. Petersburg 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best of the Month: February 2026

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

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

Preseason IndyCar Tidbits

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

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

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

Álex Palou

Top 20 All-Time in Pole Positions

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

Ten Victories From Pole Position

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

50 Podium Finishes

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

Scott Dixon

7,000 Laps Led

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

Patricio O'Ward

12 Career Victories

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

Will Power

Sixth All-Time in Starts

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

Graham Rahal

Eighth All-Time in Start

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

Josef Newgarden

5,000 Laps Led

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

12 Consecutive Seasons with a Victory

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

Scott McLaughlin

60 Team Penske Victories

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

Team Penske

250 IndyCar Victories

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

Chip Ganassi Racing

150 IndyCar Victories

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

Kyle Kirkwood

First Career Third-Place Finish

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

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

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

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

Christian Lundgaard

First victory for car #7 since...

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

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

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

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

Santino Ferrucci

Potential Birthday Winner

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

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

Sting Ray Robb

Fourth-Most Starts without a Top Five Finish

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

Romain Grosjean

Most Second-Place Finishes without a Win

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

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

Ponder that thought for a moment. 

Caio Collet

New Brazilian Winner

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

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

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

Twelve Brazilians have won an IndyCar race. 

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

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

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

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

Mick Schumacher

Second German Winner

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

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

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

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

Second-Most Experienced German

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

Lessons From the Olympics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It should be considered. 

March Preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The season concludes in Valencia on November 22.

Other events of note in March:

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

The 12 Hours of Sebring is a few weeks ago. 

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

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

Formula E will race at Jarama.