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.
