And another month is gone. These are the dog days of summer, a period of monotony and the pace of life slowing to a drag, but it has been a rather speedy period. The heat didn't drain that much energy out of us, or so it seemed. We are not through it yet. August tends to be a little longer than July. Only then will summer feel near complete.
More on the Charter Sale
We already touched up Dreyer & Reinbold Racing's purchase of a charter from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, allowing D&R to return to full-time IndyCar competition for the first time since 2012. This will be the 11th full-time team in IndyCar.
More full-time teams are a good thing for IndyCar. It is another team with a stake in the series. The resources are not contained to a few organizations. It spreads out a little more. D&R will be the lone single-car team, which could poise difficulty. IndyCar hasn't had a single-car team since Juncos Hollinger Racing ran only Callum Ilott in the 2022 season. A technical alliance could be formed with another team. There is a belief this deal with RLLR could mean a partnership between the two teams, which would be somewhat fitting considering the history these two teams have.
D&R isn't an entirely new operation, but it will be an adjustment going from running only Indianapolis to running everywhere. The team hasn't run a street course race since São Paulo in 2013. This will be an unfamiliar territory for the team, and new organization experience growing pains.
Prema, Juncos Hollinger Racing, Carlin, DragonSpeed, none of these teams came in and showed great strength. They each may have had bright spots, but those were the exceptions. Anticipation should be the same for D&R. Indianapolis will be the one spot it will not have many concerns, but every other race will be an adjustment.
This entry is coming at an odd time for D&R, and it could be a year too early. D&R is returning to full-time competition in the final season for this ruleset, this engine and this chassis. While a possible technical alliance with RLLR would benefit the team, it would wasteful to flip to Honda engines for a season, especially since the team has been running Chevrolet engines since dropping Lotus ahead of the 2012 Indianapolis 500. Perhaps that is where the partnership helps D&R and it just receives all the equipment RLLR has been using for its third entry. It would help. It would likely also make 2027 a throwaway season.
The finer details will be sorted out at a later date. For RLLR, this sale caps off what has been a failure of an experiment running as a three-car team. When the team expanded to three cars in 2022, it was two years removed for winning the Indianapolis 500 and in the seven previous seasons at least one RLLR driver finished in the top ten of the championship.
While Christian Lundgaard was eighth in the championship in 2023, the average championship finish for RLLR entries in the previous four seasons was 17.75, and it had at least one entry finish outside the top twenty in the last three seasons. With six races remaining in 2026, the three RLLR cars rank 12th, 18th and 24th in the championship.
Perhaps this sale will allow RLLR to focus on its two cars and lift those entries up the field, creating a more competitive battle in the top ten with another team more regularly in the battle for race victories. We know RLLR can do it, though selling one entry may not be the magic bullet back to success.
It's a New Car!
Earlier this week, IndyCar released renderings of the new Dallara chassis due to debut in 2028, the Dallara IR28.
There were no signs this was coming though we were anticipating some sort of unveil as development testing is scheduled to take place over this offseason. The good news is the car has already been shaken down, and it is scheduled to test this weekend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course with Álex Palou and Alexander Rossi.
Guess what? It looks like an IndyCar. With a different wing design at the front and the rear and a little less towering aeroscreen, it isn't some revolutionary design, but we were not going to see something earth-shattering, nor would anyone embrace such a concept.
IndyCar is cornered because for as much as people want something breathtaking and pushing the limits, most of these people complain that the car does not look like it is not from the 1990s. How can you be revolutionary when everyone is calling for a return of 30 years ago?
What matters is when it takes to the racetrack and what the performance is like. It doesn't matter how it looks if it cannot race well.
The car will be about 100 pounds lighter than the current car while the aerodynamics have been designed to optimize the turbulent air from the leading cars to aid passing opportunities. This car will also adopt a single-source damper provider, an area of the car that has been open for development and been one of the key sources for differential between the grid. The IR28 will also see a return of the LED panels, which were last featured on the cars during the 2018 season. The hybrid system will evolve to the Energy Storage System from BOLD Technology, which has developed advanced battery systems for Formula One teams. The ESS will be have 14 times the energy storage as the current supercapacitor-based system.
We will be learning more about this car as testing take places over the rest of this year and the entire 2027 season. Most seemed pleased with the photos, plenty were always going to be angry, but looks can be deceiving. It will comedown to how it feels, and it will develop. There will be things that do not work and need massive adjustments. Problems will crop up unexpectedly and require everyone to return to the drawing board. It will be a long process, and the good news is there is at least 19 months until the first race, a.k.a IndyCar's sweet spot.
As we enter the final month of the 2026 season, the new car is here. It is no longer a hypothetical. There is something physical that has been produced, it has been on track, and the wheels are literally in motion. There have been plenty of delays, and now it feels like everything is on course to reach its target debut in 2028. That is progress as long as it may have been to develop.
August Preview
Remember last year when I wrote August doesn't have an event of note? That remains true. It is worse now that the Suzuka 8 Hours moved to July, which I just found out about. Congratulations to Honda, Takumi Takahashi, Jonathan Rea and Somkiat Chantra on the victory.
There will be four races to conclude the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, which means four races to determine the Chase/Playoff drivers. I will admit, I was fine calling it the playoffs. It makes more sense. It can be called playoffs and not have rounds and forced eliminations.
Austin Cindric is on the bubble with 518 points. Five drivers are within 100 points of Cindric, and they are Ryan Preece (-38 points), Erik Jones (-44), Brad Keselowski (-50), Michael McDowell (-76) and Ross Chastain (-82).
The drivers ahead of Cindric are Shane van Gisbergen (+19), Bubba Wallace (+22), Joey Logano (+27), William Byron (+50) and Daniel Suárez (+65). Christopher Bell is tenth in the championship and 91 points clear of Cindric.
How much can things change in four races? If you go back four races to after Sonoma, Ryan Preece was 15th and a point ahead of Cindric, A.J. Allmendinger was only 26 points on the outside, five points closer than Joey Logano. Also, Chase Briscoe was 11th, 67 points to the good and now Briscoe is seventh, 105 points clear of Cindric.
Iowa, Richmond, Loudon and Daytona conclude the regular season.
Other events of note in August:
The Formula E season will crown a champion after a doubleheader in London.
IMSA has an endurance race at Road America, and then a GT-only race at Virginia International Raceway.
MotoGP returns from its summer break with races at Silverstone and Aragón.
Formula One will return from its summer break with the final Dutch Grand Prix for the foreseeable future.
IndyCar has a bunch of races, as we have already mentioned.
