Track Walk: St. Petersburg 2026

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

Coverage

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

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

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

Saturday:

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

Is Álex Palou Bound to Make More History?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who Can Conquer the Catalan?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greener Pastures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Rookie Trifecta

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Few Changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Road to Indy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast Facts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Predictions

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

2026 Road to Indy Preview

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

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

Indy Lights

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

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

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

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

Teams:

Andretti Global

Lochie Hughes: #26 The McGinley Clinic Dallara

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

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

Seb Murray: #27 Dream Racing Dubai Dallara

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

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

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

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

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

Josh Pierson: #29 The Crypto Companies Dallara

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

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

HMD Motorsports

Salvador de Alba: #17 Grupo Indi Dallara

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

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

Jack Beeton: #45 Tailored Investment Solutions Dallara

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

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

Enzo Fittipaldi: #67 HMD Motorsports Dallara

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

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

Tymek Kucharczyk: #71 Mubi Dallara

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

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

Abel Motorsports with Force Indy

Myles Rowe: #99 Force Indy Dallara

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

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

Abel Motorsports

Max Garcia: #12 USF Pro Championships Dallara

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

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

Jordan Missig: #48 GR1P Dallara

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

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

Colin Kaminsky: #57 Slick Locks Dallara

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

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

Chip Ganassi Racing

James Roe, Jr.: #8 TopCon Dallara

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

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

Bryce Aron: #9 Jaguar Land Rover Chesterfield Dallara

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

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

Niels Koolen: #10 Super B Dallara

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

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

Carson Etter: #11 Evisions Dallara

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

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

Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR

Matteo Nannini: #20 ENVE Motorsports Dallara

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

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

Nikita Johnson: #21 Java House Dallara

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

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

Juncos Hollinger Racing

Alexander Koreiba: #75 Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara

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

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

Ricardo Escotto: #76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara

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

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

Cusick Morgan Motorsports

Nicolas Stati: #15 The Track Dallara

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

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

Juan Manuel Correa: #68 Cusick Morgan Motorsports Dallara

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

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

A.J. Foyt Racing

Nicholas Monteiro: #4 EQR Dallara

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

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

Alessandro de Tullio: #14 AstroaPay Dallara

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

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

USF Pro 2000

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

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

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

Who should we keep an eye on?

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

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

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

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

Who could be a surprise? 

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

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

Who needs a good season?

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

U.S. F2000

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

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

Who should we keep an eye on?

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

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

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

Who could be a surprise? 

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

Who needs a good season?

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

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

Musings From the Weekend: And Now the Season is Here

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

The Olympics are over. The United States swept the ice hockey gold medals. Simona de Silvestro was 23rd in the monobob and 23rd in two-woman competition. Elsewhere, not much changed in Atlanta, except a winless streak ended. Formula One continued to test. Indy Lights went to Miami. MotoGP has decided to leave Phillip Island for Adelaide, and few are happy about it. World Superbike was at Phillip Island to open its 2026 season. Supercross had a pair of first-time winners in Arlington. NASCAR could have another prominent court case on its hands, but at least it is not against the series this time. February is nearly over, and with the first day of March comes the start of the IndyCar season after a lengthy period off.

And Now the Season is Here

I guess this is going to become an annual tradition of entering the first week of the IndyCar season with a look at the temperature in the series. It might be best to gauge where things stand before everything gets underway, and then you have a reference point for when everything ends in September. 

There is a sense of nothingness after this offseason. What really happened? Other than an additional race in Washington, D.C., which based on IndyCar history you cannot get too excited about, what really happened this offseason? What happened after September 2025? 

Think about how much of this offseason took place in the first 30 to 60 days after the first race of the season. 

Within the first 23 days of September we knew Will Power was leaving Team Penske, Rinus VeeKay was leaving Dale Coyne Racing, Colton Herta was going to Formula Two, Will Power was replacing Herta at Andretti Global, David Malukas was going to Team Penske and Dennis Hauger was moving up to race for Dale Coyne Racing. That meant only three full-time seats for 2026 were unaccounted for before we got through the first month of the offseason. 

By the middle of October, we knew VeeKay was going to Juncos Hollinger Racing and we knew before Thanksgiving that Caio Collet was joining A.J. Foyt Racing and Mick Schumacher was going to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Only one seat remained opened with 97 days left in the offseason. Whatever drama remained was the final Dale Coyne Racing seat, which ultimately went to the driver we all expected to be hired in the middle of September, and then there was Prema's implosion, which had as much excitement as watching an ice cube melt in the dead of winter. 

What else did we learn? Chevrolet and Honda are staying but there has been no public progress in a new chassis, no renderings shared, no development schedule official released. No ground has been made on a new engine manufacturer joining the series. IndyCar has a new, independent officiating board, but that is administrative work. No one tunes in for officiating even if IndyCar was borderline obligated in making a change after the conflicts of interest over infractions involving Team Penske in a Roger Penske-owned series in the last two seasons. 

Not enough happens in a six-month offseason to justify a six-month offseason. A fire could have been lit under Dale Coyne and he could have had Romain Grosjean secured before Christmas. The six-month offseason isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and we will live with a lot of hurry up and wait offseasons for years to come. 

It is difficult to feel all that excited for this new season. What is going to be different? Álex Palou is going to win five or six races. It will likely be enough for the championship. Is there much excitement in seeing Will Power at Andretti Global? Is Power enough to lift that organization to a championship after 14 years of waiting? Do we really care about David Malukas at Team Penske? Is that going to change IndyCar? 

It is going to be the same season we have seen for the last 15 years. Chip Ganassi Racing or Team Penske is going to produce the champion. There could be a race or two that has a fun winner and a mid-pack team could perform above expectations, but ultimately top out at eighth or ninth in the championship, and then it will be over and we will do it all again starting in March 2027. 

But there should be things we should be intrigued about. Team Penske is coming off its worst season in the 21st century. It cannot be that bad again, right? But maybe it is, and then what? It would mean Chip Ganassi Racing will become the most successful team in IndyCar history with an 18th championship. That doesn't mean nothing, especially since Ganassi hasn't even been around for 40 years. 

Will Arrow McLaren finally breakthrough with Patricio O'Ward or maybe Christian Lundgaard? How many races will Nolan Siegel get before he is kicked to the gutter?

Is Christian Rasmussen going to win again? Will Alexander Rossi wake up? Are Ed Carpenter Racing for real? 

Can Meyer Shank Racing make another step forward after having both drivers finish in the top eight of the championship? 

Is Mick Schumacher the missing piece for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing? 

Will a phoenix rise from Prema's ashes? 

There is not nothing, but it just doesn't feel that substantial. An IndyCar offseason is little more than rotating the couch cushions. The cars are the same. The engines are the same. The tires are the same. The rules are basically the same. We are always asking if another team can breakthrough, and they never do. Why believe 2026 will be anything different?

The mood is better entering this season. We know Chevrolet and Honda are locked in for a handful of seasons into the new engine regulations. With that set, progress to the 2028 regulations may continue. The teams have less angst and there is a better feeling of fairness with the new officiating panel. 

Teams are going to be mandated to run two stints on alternate tires on street courses, and that is fun. Things may end up the same way, but there are fun components to the season. A Schumacher is racing in IndyCar. Who would have ever thought that? It could be only for one season, it could be the start of a lengthy career! Let's see where it goes! 

McLaren is always burning out drivers. It already set the top ten in the championship as the ultimatum for Siegel. We will know by Mid-Ohio if that objective is achievable. If it isn't, how many replacement drivers will McLaren rotate through? Who could it bring out of the woodwork? Will 20 years from now we look back in the history book to see three or four IndyCar starts for Leonardo Fornaroli or Richard Verschoor?

We are also still going to see three of the greatest drivers in IndyCar history competing against one another. Time is becoming a little more valuable when watching Scott Dixon and Will Power compete. Dixon is one victory away from 60 in his career, and he is eight away from tying A.J. Foyt for the all-time lead. A special season makes the all-time record achievable. Will Power is five victories away from 50. Only three drivers have reached that milestone. 

As inevitable as it may be, Álex Palou is something special. We must remember that and cannot become sullied in seeing greatness. It is staggering how much he has achieved this quickly in his career, but that is what makes it special. No driver has won eight races in consecutive seasons since Mario Andretti in 1966 and 1967, but Palou could do that. He could become the second driver to win four consecutive championships, and we are pretty sure if he does that he will return in 2027 with a great shot at an unprecedented fifth consecutive title. We may never see this again. It is worthy of our attention. 

Palou also has to pay over $12 million in damages to McLaren for not honoring his contract, which makes ever race a little more fun because Palou is basically racing to pay off debt, and that could be the rest of his career. At least we have that to keep us entertained!

Winners From the Weekend

You know about the United States, but did you know...

Tyler Reddick won the NASCAR Cup race from Atlanta, his second consecutive victory to open the season. Reddick is the sixth driver in Cup Series history to win the first two races in a season, and he is the first to do it since Matt Kenseth in 2009. Sheldon Creed won the Grand National Series race, his first career victory in his 137th career start. Kyle Busch won the Truck race, his 68th in the series.

Broc Feeney (race one and three) and Anton de Pasquale (race two) split the Supercars races from Sydney Motorsports Park.

Nicoló Bulega swept the World Suerpbike races from Phillip Island. Jaume Masià and Albert Arenas split the World Supersport races.

Hunter Lawrence won the Supercross race from Arlington, his first career victory in the 450cc class. Pierce Brown won the 250cc race, his first race back after being injured last year at Tampa.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar opens in St. Petersburg. 

NASCAR will be at Austin but the Trucks will be in St. Petersburg.

MotoGP opens its season at Buriram.

Supercross has Daytona Bike Week ahead of it.

Let's Look at the League - 2026 Season

The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season is about to begin, and with the races about to actually happen, we bring back the fictional competition within a competition. The head-to-head, league format is back for an eighth season.

In case you need a reminder...

Imagine the IndyCar season as any other sports league season. Teams are placed in conferences and each week of competition the teams go head-to-head against one another with one team coming out as the winner and the other being the loser. Each victory counts in the league standings with a playoff to determine the champion while the worst teams are relegated. Meanwhile, in the division below, teams are fighting to earn promotion into the top league. 

This season is a little different because there have been some changes in IndyCar. Tentatively, the schedule is going to be 18 races, which poises a little problem. There is also a two-car team that will not be returning to the grid, at least not in a full-time capacity. There have been a few structural changes to keep in mind for this season. Let's face these one part at a time.

League One remains 16 teams, but with a potential 18th race, it does add an unnecessary week. Seventeen races works out nicely for this format. The regular season is 14 races. The final three races are the playoffs. Great! How do we handle an additional race?

We are keeping the double round robin within a conference. With an additional week, we add a 15th head-to-head matchup for each team in the regular season, and inter-conference play enters here. To make it easier, each team will face their respective equal in that 15th week. The top team in conference #1 ahead of this season will face the top team in conference #2 ahead of this season. That means the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing entry of Álex Palou will face the #5 Arrow McLaren entry of Patricio O'Ward.

As for when to schedule this additional week, we cannot be certain the Washington, D.C. race will happen. We still do not have a course map laid out. Keeping that in mind, the first 14 races will still be for the double round robin within each conference. The inter-conference matchups will all happen at Washington, D.C. If the Washington, D.C. race should not occur, it does not affect the standings and playoff qualification. Everyone will have completed the double round robin within each conference.

How does League One look this season?

Conference One

#10 Ganassi
#27 Andretti
#7 McLaren
#26 Andretti
#12 Penske
#2 Penske
#21 ECR 
#6 McLaren

Conference Two

#5 McLaren
#9 Ganassi
#60 Meyer Shank
#66 Meyer Shank
#3 Penske
#4 Foyt
#18 Coyne
#14 Foyt

The #10 Ganassi won the league championship last year and it has the #7 McLaren in its conference after meeting in the semifinals. The #26 Andretti entry was the top in Conference #2 in the regular season last year before losing in the quarterfinals to the #12 Penske entry. Of course, both those cars have two new drivers with Will Power now in the #26 Andretti entry after running the #12 Penske, and David Malukas is in the #12 Penske. The #2 Penske is back after surviving the relegation playoff final last year. The #21 ECR is back and the #6 McLaren rounds out the conference.

The #9 Ganassi lost in the championship final last year but it beat the #5 McLaren in the quarterfinals to get there. The #60 MSR entry is in the same conference as the #66 MSR entry, which is one of three teams to make it up via promotion. The #4 Foyt entry went 10-0 last year in League Two to win that league. The #18 Coyne entire made via the promotion playoff despite going 5-5 in the regular season and finishing sixth in the standings. The #3 Penske and #14 Foyt entry round out the Conference #2

Schedule

The first quarterfinal will be the first Milwaukee race with the semifinals held during the second Milwaukee race. Laguna Seca will host the finale. 

Though a 15th race has been added to the regular season, the relegation playoff remains. The top four teams from each conference will make the playoffs. Fifth from each conference will be safe for League One in 2027. Eighth place in each conference will be automatically relegated.

Sixth and seventh from each conference will go to the relegation playoff. In the first Milwaukee race, sixth-place from each conference will face seventh-place from the other conference. The winners will clinch safety for League One. The losers will face each other in the second Milwaukee race. The winner will secure a spot in League One. The loser will be relegated to League Two for 2027.

League Two

There is a bit of an issue in League Two, as the anticipated absence of Prema means there will be two fewer cars, and that will mean another format change, but the expansion to 18 races helps out. Instead of having 11 teams, we can do nine teams, and nine teams allow for a double round robin. Every League Two team can face each other twice. That is 16 matchups and each team can get two bye weeks to fill out an 18-race calendar. 

That does mean a pause on the promotion playoff. We are going to return to the top three League Two teams being automatically promoted. I know you are wondering, "What if Washington, D.C. does not happen and what would that mean for League Two?" The fall back is Indianapolis 500 qualifying. If Washington, D.C. does not happen, the week 15 results will use Indianapolis 500 qualifying results. It is not ideal, but it is a good fallback in this situation. 

Who is League Two?

#20 ECR

#8 Ganassi

#76 Juncos Hollinger

#15 RLLR

#28 Andretti

#45 RLLR

#77 Juncos Hollinger

#47 RLLR

#19 Coyne

The entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing organization and the entire Juncos Hollinger Racing organization are in League Two, and the remaining are a fun combination of teams. Ganassi and Andretti each have an entry in the second tier. Ed Carpenter Racing is there with Alexander Rossi. Then you have a Dale Coyne Racing entry because of course Dale Coyne Racing has a team in the lower league. 

Schedule

As is a custom, we will look at the league a few times over the 2026 season. We will look in after a few races have taken place, and then we will come back as the playoffs approach and as they are about to begin before recapping when the season is over sometime in September. 

2026 IndyCar Team Preview: Prema

We are only ten days away from the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg, and we have previewed all the team, except one. It is with good reason. We don't know if Prema will compete at all in 2026. 

Prema did not compete in any preseason testing, including the official IndyCar test which just concluded from Phoenix Raceway. The Italian team has experienced some ownership changes as team founder Angelo Rosin and his son Rene were among those who left the organization. The team has said it is still working to make the grid at some point in 2026, but that is far from a guarantee.

With this uncertainty we aren't going to preview Prema, but discuss the team's situation, and what has been lost with the team shrinking from a full-time program. 

2025 Prema Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 6th (Laguna Seca, Portland)

Poles: 1 (Indianapolis 500)

Championship Finishes: 21st (Callum Ilott), 24th (Robert Shwartzman)

Where does Prema stand?

At this moment, it will not be full-time, and its first race of 2026, if it ever makes it to the racetrack, appears to be unknown. Funding has been the major issue for the program, and Prema has been looking for new backers since the end of the 2025 season. Team CEO Piers Phillips has reportedly been seeking support throughout the offseason.

Both drivers from the 2025 season are believed to be under contract with the team. Callum Ilott has taken on a full-time IMSA role with Wright Motorsports in the GT Daytona class. The only IMSA race that clashes with an IndyCar round is the August 23 race from Virginia International Raceway. This was originally not a clash until the Washington, D.C. round was added to the IndyCar calendar earlier this month. Robert Shwartzman has no reported deals in any series for this year.

Rumors state Prema will not be on the grid until Long Beach at the earliest though there has been no official timetable to the team's 2026 season.

What is lost?

Losing a two-car team will create space on the track and in the pit lane, which should give everyone a little more breathing room. It also clears up any issues with entering open entries. With a 27-car limit to every grid outside the Indianapolis 500 and 25 spots reserved for the chartered entries, Prema took the two available spots at every race in 2025. Without Prema, the door is open for a team to run an additional car without a risk of missing the race. 

There have been no official words about any teams adding cars for any races outside of the Indianapolis 500, but once we are through the first two or three months of the season and we know how active Prema will be, we could see a few teams roll out additional cars later in the season. 

While the loss has created opportunities, it does mean the likes of Ilott and Shwartzman will likely not be competing in 2026. Ilott has been racing in IndyCar since the end of the 2021 season. While at Juncos Hollinger Racing, Ilott had some impressive drives to top ten and even top five finishes. As a rookie, Shwartzman had two top ten finishes, but his 2025 season will be remembered for an incredible pole position at the Indianapolis 500.

We saw plenty of growing pains for Prema in its first year, but it was making strides. Ilott had four top ten finishes in the final five races, and we cannot forget the speed the team showed at Indianapolis. 

What has Prema's experience told us about IndyCar?

Prema may have been a year too late with its entry to IndyCar. Entering in 2025 with the introduction of charters saw the team miss out at least one, if not two, guaranteed spots on the grid while also competing for Leader Circle funding. Prema could not control when IndyCar would change its business model in terms of prize money for the teams, nor could it plan on being entirely left out in the cold. 

Prema did announce its IndyCar intentions for 2025 before the charter system was introduced. The team could have been given a spot considering it was committed to running full-time, but Prema was left to fend for itself. 

Being a European-based team that had predominantly competed in juniors series previously. Prema was not the first such team to enter IndyCar. Less than a decade ago, it was Carlin. Both teams experienced the same learning curve, and in Prema's case it was not going to overcome it in year one.

Both Carlin and Prema struggled with funding. Carlin's introduction to IndyCar largely came down to the team being partially owned by Grahame Chilton, father of Max Chilton, and then-CEO of Gallagher Insurance, while also having a second car backed with sponsorship from Charlie Kimball. In the junior series, there is always someone willing to fund a seat, especially one for a quality team. In contemporary IndyCar, funded drivers help, but they are not going to turn a team into a contender, let alone keep them alive for long. 

After year one, Carlin's second entry was on life-support and dependent on other funded drivers. Kimball stuck around on a part-time basis, but then Patricio O'Ward came in before briefly becoming a Red Bull junior driver. Sage Karam and RC Enerson brought some money for a few races, but after one-year of that experiment, Carlin shrunk to one-car and it was out of IndyCar after two more years. 

Prema was on the same path. It was largely self-funded, but it did not have the infrastructure to court sponsors in the United States, just like Carlin. It had to attract some kind of partner after year one and it has come up empty. 

Such a business model has its shortcomings with IndyCar. For junior series drivers, bringing money to a team has promise if it is leading to something greater. A driver can bring $2.5 million to a Formula Two team because there is something larger down the line. A driver could move into Formula One and that sponsor supporting a driver could easily gets its money back having a small decal on a Formula One car. The investment is work the risk. In IndyCar, the money required to fill a seat is nearly double that of Formula Two, and there is nothing higher. IndyCar is the limit and its popularity, or lack thereof, makes the price tag hard to justify. With no chance of moving up to another level and seeing a greater return on investment and more required to enter the series, IndyCar becomes a less attractive option.

Financing any IndyCar team is a difficult task. Not having the manpower to scout for sponsors and make connections makes survival bleak. We must acknowledge even if Prema had a charter entry and two charter entries, it was having issues greater than that base payment. It would have helped, but the team had greater financial issues and likely would have still been in an uphill battle entering the 2026 season. 

What comes next? 

There is hope Prema makes the grid, even if it is under a different name should someone purchase the assets. It feels like we could see an entry from this organization appear on the grid at some point. It could be a legitimate part-time entry and run a handful of races. It could be an Indianapolis 500-only program. It could see Ilott or Shwartzman in the car. It could see neither and be an entirely different driver. The program could never materialize. 

For Ilott, it is the second time his career has stalled out in IndyCar. First was the unceremonious dismissal from Juncos Hollinger Racing. For all the fanfare from within the paddock, he is a driver that has not received the big call when opportunities have presented themselves. Another year mostly on the sideline and running sports car race could be the final straw. If a bigger team does not call, or if at least a team is willing to give Ilott structure, his IndyCar career is likely over.

As for Shwartzman, your guess is as good as mine. He has etched a spot in folklore somewhere along Fabrizio Barbazza. That isn't a bad place to be.

This will be an ongoing story over the first few months of the season. Once we get through the Indianapolis 500, we will likely move on from it, especially if a car never makes it to the grid. 

The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday March 1 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage will begin at noon Eastern.

2026 IndyCar Team Preview: Dale Coyne Racing

IndyCar's official open test from Phoenix Raceway is underway, and we are 11 days from the first race of the season from St. Petersburg. Normally, we end our team previews with the defending champions, but Dale Coyne Racing took so damn long to finalize its driver lineup that it has claimed the tail end of our previews. We have known about one of its drivers since September 24, 2025, 158 days prior to the 2026 opener. We learned about its second driver on February 13, 2026, 16 days before the first race. One driver is a rookie. The other is a returnee for Dale Coyne Racing, and IndyCar in general.

At A Glance... It is a pretty good lineup

Romain Grosjean is back in IndyCar after a year away as a Prema's reserve driver, and he is returning to Dale Coyne Racing after Grosjean made his IndyCar debut with the team in 2021. Grosjean will be driving the #18 Honda for the team. Meanwhile, Dennis Hauger will take charge of the #19 Honda in an entry that is run in partnership with Andretti Global.

It is a good lineup, and it could be fruitful. 

Grosjean did not win in his first four seasons in IndyCar, though he had a few close calls, including at Dale Coyne Racing. The lack of a victory, especially after a pair of seasons at then-Andretti Autosport, was a surprise. There were plenty of good days but Grosjean never broke through and it felt like a near certainty especially after some brilliant performances. 

We learned a lot about Grosjean, and for all the sparks of speed we will see, he is prone to falling into a rut and being in bad form for a few races. There would be those two or three races a year that would stand out, but we would then see Grosjean hit a stretch of races where he was not competitive, and he was not fighting in the top half of the field. It led to outbursts that could not be ignored. Moving to Juncos Hollinger Racing only set him further behind, and Grosjean had some impressive drives, but there was a limit to his success. 

This Dale Coyne Racing is arguably in a better spot than where it was in 2021. That was a good team as Grosjean had Ed Jones as his teammate with Vasser-Sullivan support. Coyne is coming off a good rebound in 2025 after a horrendous 2024, and combining where it was with an Andretti partnership for its second car, Coyne should be able to maintain where it was last season with Rinus VeeKay. A top fifteen championship performance is in play, but it should have two cars fighting to reach that level. 

Hauger is ready for IndyCar, and Andretti Global has great interest in his success. I am not sure the #19 Honda is going to be a de facto fourth Andretti entry, but it certainly will not be what the second Dale Coyne Racing car has been in recent seasons. I don't think Coyne should be worrying about an entry missing the Indianapolis 500 for a third consecutive year. 

Last year, Hauger showed he was better than Indy Lights, but he learned most of these circuits and is not joining the series blind. The support will be there, and he will be working closely with the Andretti group while also having a teammate that is rather comfortable and had plenty to teach the Norwegian. It is still IndyCar, and rookies have had teething problems in recent seasons, but Hauger is entering with more talent than most of the other recent rookies, and few have had this kind of support.

This is a sneaky good lineup. This could have been a Formula One lineup in a different universe where Grosjean doesn't have his career good sideways at Haas and if Hauger had more support in the ladder system. Instead, it is in IndyCar with one of the least resourced teams on the grid, but a group that has a history of punching above its weight. Coyne could be in for a memorable season. 

2025 Dale Coyne Racing Review

Wins: 0

Best Finish: 2nd (Toronto)

Poles: 0

Best Start: 5th (Barber)

Championship Finishes: 14th (Rinus VeeKay), 27th (Jacob Abel) 

Romain Grosjean - #18 Bitcoin MAX Honda

Numbers to Remember:

14.3906: Career average finish in IndyCar

3: Races where Grosjean led more than four laps

50: Percent of his starts have been lead lap finishes, 32 out of 64 starts.

What is the best possible outcome?

A sneaky run into the top ten of the championship. 

There is a reasonable season where Grosjean has a podium finish or two, about five or six top five finishes and has ten top ten finishes, and that gets him somewhere between eighth and tenth in the championship. Marcus Armstrong was eighth in the championship last year with one podium finish, two top five finishes and 11 top ten finishes. That is feasible for Grosjean, and you know what? He could win. VeeKay had competitive speed and was fighting for podium finishes. He was a little fortunate at Toronto that the stars aligned that he could be leading late, but Grosjean could be put in that same position. 

A race victory would be a terrific story and would cancel out whatever else happened during the season. Grosjean could be 15th in the championship and it would not matter. 

What is realistic?

We must look at the entire picture with Grosjean, because for all of his positives and all the promise he still has in IndyCar, this is a driver who never finished better than 13th in the championship and his most top five finishes in a season is four. In each of his final three seasons in IndyCar, Grosjean ended the year without have a top five finish in the final nine races, 13 races and nine races. Two of those seasons were with Andretti. We must also keep in mind Grosjean is returning after a year away from IndyCar, and he only competed in five aces last year, the five IMSA endurance races with Lamborghini.

Matching VeeKay's output would be a terrific return season for Grosjean. That would be a podium, two total top five finishes and seven top ten finishes. I think Grosjean could do a little better than seven top ten finishes, but Grosjean has never had more than seven top ten finishes in a season. Keep that in mind. 

There are going to be a few weekends where we hear Grosjean's frustration, but we will also have weekends where we see Grosjean as one of the more joyous drivers post-race.

Dennis Hauger - #19 Ault Blockchain Honda

Numbers to Remember:

21.24: Average championship finish of qualified rookies season since 2020

14: Best championship finish for a Rookie of the Year since 2020

95: Hauger is on track to be the 95th different driver to start an IndyCar race for Dale Coyne Racing

What is the best possible outcome?

Hauger is essentially another Andretti Global driver and he is constantly in the second round of qualifying and pushing the top ten. He is the best Dale Coyne Racing finisher more times than not, and that is a source of frustration for his French teammate. Hauger improves each race and top ten results slowly become top five results. There is a weekend or two where it clicks and he is in the Fast Six and pushing for a podium. 

It is somewhere in that eighth to tenth territory where a handful of top five finishes and a majority of top ten finishes sets Hauger above most of the competition.

What is realistic?

Rookies have struggled in IndyCar lately, and it feels like the hybrid system has not been making it easier. Hauger is still learning this year, and it is a new system he has yet to experience. Last year's rookie class was rather good, but Louis Foster and Robert Shwartzman each struggled. Shwartzman was running for an entirely new team, but Foster was with a good group, and even when we saw flashes, we saw Foster come back to earth during races and fail to finish in the top ten. 

Hauger could crack the top fifteen in the championship, but I believe he will be outside of that group. He will still have a few really good races and there could be a weekend or two where he is outstanding, but we must remember this is Dale Coyne Racing. Andretti Global's resources will help, but we just saw an Andretti car end up 20th in the championship last season. Not everyone can crack the top ten. Not everyone can crack the top fifteen. That doesn't mean the season is a failure. 

Any finishes in the top five with at least seven or eight top ten finishes is what Hauger should be shooting for. Remember, it was not long ago Kyle Kirkwood failed to finish better than tenth as a rookie and he was soon winning races. 

The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday March 1 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage will begin at noon Eastern.

Musings From the Weekend: Problem Solved, Problems Remain

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

The wait is over. Dale Coyne Racing confirmed Romain Grosjean will fill out its driver lineup for the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season. It was great timing as IndyCar's official test occurs this week from Phoenix Raceway. Coyne also confirmed the return of the #19 entry for Dennis Hauger. Meanwhile, Formula E had a doubleheader go unnoticed. Michael Jordan has won the Daytona 500, thanks to Tyler Reddick. A kangaroo dominated the stories out of Bathurst. Formula One testing resumed in Bahrain, and most drivers are not happy. However, there was some big news out IndyCar that should clam nerves, but does leave a lot left unanswered.

Problem Solved, Problems Remain

After a year of nervous anticipation, IndyCar has secured its current engine manufacturers in a multiyear agreement. Chevrolet and Honda will continue in IndyCar starting in 2027 and will remain through the next set of engine regulations, which begin for the 2028 season with the introduction of a 2.4-liter, twin-turbocharged V6 hybrid engine. 

Remaining in IndyCar has come with a perk for both makes as starting in 2028, both Chevrolet and Honda will receive a charter entry to be used as a factory entry on the grid. Each manufacturer will be able to use that charter with whichever team it wishes, expect for teams that already enter the maximum of three charter entries. In terms of whether these charters are coming from the existing allotment of 25 charters or if two will be added and the total number of charters will increase remains to be clarified. 

Everyone in IndyCar can breath easier after it felt like Honda was on the verge of exiting the series and putting everyone in a difficult position of needing to find a replacement to maintain the grid size, however, while this contract extension solves a problem and it keeps status quo, this agreement does not address the limitations of having two engine partners that have stressed this series. 

This is the first move, keep the ones you got, and it was important to address. IndyCar is in a better position now that Chevrolet and Honda are sticking around, but it does not change that both manufacturers have been at the limit of support when it comes to entrants, and now each manufacturer will effectively have another entrant to support in 2028 with their chartered factory entry. If anything, this deal has created more work for both groups. 

We are entering the 15th season of the current regulation, and this will be the 14th consecutive season with just Chevrolet and Honda involved after one infamous season with Lotus as a third manufacturer in 2012. The worrying thing about IndyCar is it doesn't appear to have the might to make a significant move to draw in an additional manufacturer or two. That is what we need to see now. The worrying thing is this deal feels like it takes care of those who are around, and it makes it feel like it is more unlikely to growth the manufacturer support within the series. 

IndyCar has taken care of Chevrolet and Honda with this agreement. Both manufacturers have equity in the grid. It will reap whatever is beneficial from the charter system. Both will be eligible for Leaders Circle prize money, which is a drop in a bucket, but those were drops neither Chevrolet nor Honda were eligible for receiving previously, and the slice of the Leaders Circle pie increased a little more this past offseason with it believed IndyCar will payout nearly $1.7 million per entry. 

But the sweetheart deal Chevrolet and Honda received likely is not going to be extended to a new manufacturer that will likely need it and expect it, and IndyCar has put itself in a box with this decision. 

Why would a new manufacturer join IndyCar if it was not given the same charter spot on the grid? 

The introduction of the charter size was supposed to limit the grid size and increase the value of a spot in IndyCar by making it scarce to compete full-time. If a third manufacturer is interested, it will expect a charter entry like Chevrolet and Honda has received, and soon the grid is up to 28 chartered entries, three more than originally awarded and the grid would now be larger than the 27-car limit that was imposed last season on all races outside the Indianapolis 500. Then what happens if a fourth manufacturer is interested?

It is unsurprising IndyCar put itself in a pickle. This is IndyCar after all. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. 

IndyCar has set a precedent that it will take care of manufacturers to a higher level and give them effectively a stake in the grid with an entry, and that now must be expanded to others who wish to enter the series. The manufacturer total will not increase if only Chevrolet and Honda have chartered entries because of loyalty while anyone else wishing to enter will be left out. This isn't a social club where legacy should be a perk. A professional motorsports series should be working equally with its partners and making sure they all receive the same support.

If it is unwilling to give a new manufacturer the same love it just gave Chevrolet and Honda then the grid is going to remain with two manufacturers for years to come, and the same strain both groups have experienced with each supporting a dozen or more full-time entries will remain as well, though it is something both Chevrolet and Honda would like IndyCar to address. 

An additional manufacturer would do a lot more to help Chevrolet and Honda than a factory entry for each. Both groups have been expressing a desire to do less in IndyCar, and both should be praised for all that it has done as IndyCar has grown, especially over the last six seasons. There should be some concern that this deal IndyCar has given suggests the series is fine with keeping the status quo when the series needs growth. 

We are fortunate Honda has decided to stick around. An exit for the manufacturer felt more imminent than ever before in the Japanese manufacturers' three-plus decades in American open-wheel racing. Who is to say in five or six years or whenever this current deal is up, Honda doesn't decide to walkaway after almost 40 years in IndyCar? Honda is at the limit. It has achieved all that you can in IndyCar. It has won many Indianapolis 500s, but at some point it must be acknowledged that the brand recognition Honda has from racing in IndyCar has maxed out and there is nothing more it can gain competing in the series. Either IndyCar must grow substantially that leads to a greater return on investment for Honda or an additional partner must come in to alleviate the pressure of running half the grid in the next few seasons if it hopes to avoid the stress it just faced over the last year.

If it doesn't do that, then what?

IndyCar is keeping itself in the same position it has been, but for long-term health of the series, it must find more support and more interested parties. 

The last year should have been a wakeup call because in the year 2026, I don't think IndyCar can find a single manufacturer willing to support 24 full-time cars and 33 cars for the Indianapolis 500. It definitely would not be a sign of strength to be back down to one manufacturer supplying all the engines. That would be a terrible blow to the series that would hurt every team and driver competing. IndyCar shouldn't wait until it hemorrhaging to take care of its health and make sure it is best set for the future. 

It solved a problem securing Chevrolet and Honda beyond 2026, but in the next year or so, it would be wise to make substantial ground in finding an additional engine partner or two to make sure we are not in this same spot in the not-so-distant future.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Tyler Reddick, but did you know...

The #888 Mercedes-AMG Team GMR Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel, Mikaël Grenier and Maxime Martin won the Bathurst 12 Hour.

Austin Hill won the Grand National Series race. Chandler Smith won the Truck race. 

Pascal Wehrlein and António Félix da Costa split the Jeddah ePrix.

Eli Tomac won the Supercross race from Seattle, his third victory of the season. Haiden Deegan won the 250cc race, his fifth consecutive victory.

Elfyn Evans won the 73rd Rally Sweden

Coming Up This Weekend

NASCAR moves up to Atlanta.

Supercars open its season at Sydney Motorsports Park.

World Superbike opens its season a little further south at Phillip Island.

Supercross will be in Arlington.