1. No better time than the finale for domination, and Scott McLaughlin ended his season with a thrashing in Laguna Seca. Pole position, most laps led, victory. McLaughlin was near-flawless today. The New Zealander did not run away from the competition, Kyle Kirkwood kept him honest until the very end. This result is a fair cap to McLaughlin's season. He was good, respectable, but until today we had not seen McLaughlin really be the driver to beat. If he had not won a race in 2026, it would have been a fair encapsulation of his season. Then today happened and he was unquestionably the best driver of the day. McLaughlin gets to head into the offseason with at least the second-most confidence behind our champion. Perhaps it will lead to a surge in 2027.
2. Kyle Kirkwood was second on the day and Kirkwood earned second in the championship with this result. That is where Kirkwood has been this season, and it is pretty much where he has been for the last two seasons. Kirkwood has been in Álex Palou's shadow the most. Sometimes, Kirkwood overcomes the Catalan driver. Most of the time, Palou is the best. Kirkwood can hold his own and put up impressive drives. He has been a regular winner the last two seasons. The hard part is going that step further. This season could have been championship-caliber not long ago. In the age of Palou, it is second at best.
3. We finally had a clean race from Alexander Rossi and it was a complete weekend. Rossi was quick all weekend, but we have seen numerous weekends where practice looks good for Rossi and Ed Carpenter Racing and as the weekend continues the team declines and is not a factor in the race. Rossi was competitive today. He ran a slightly different strategy and it put him in a podium position. Rossi didn't have the pace to defeat McLaughlin and Kirkwood, but it was important Rossi and ECR had this weekend. This has been a messy season for ECR between accidents, mechanical failures and unforced errors, another one we saw today with the sister car. This team should be more competitive than the record shows.
4. Felix Rosenqvist had a spirited battle with David Malukas for fourth and Rosenqvist took it in the later stages of the race to cap off Rosenqvist's most successful, and arguably most pivotal seasons in IndyCar. He won the Indianapolis 500. He was good, but still not spotless. There were a number of races that did not turn out his way. He lost a good result at Arlington for jumping a restart. There were still off days, but Rosenqvist was highly competitive. Now, he returns to McLaren where his career once went sideways.
5. David Malukas had a better season than likely any of us expected even if he did not win a race. Malukas ended the season with a fifth-place finish, he ended up fifth in the championship, the top Team Penske driver. Malukas is the one Penske driver that did not win a race this season. I don't think that is a knock against him. He drove the best we have seen on road and street courses after rarely being a threat on any of those in his first few seasons. He was inches away from winning the Indianapolis 500. There might be another level he must ascend to, but he made a great stride in 2026.
6. Christian Lundgaard may not have ended up second in the championship, but sixth in the finale clinched him best Arrow McLaren driver, and that is bragging rights as he leaves the team. It is still rather stupefying Lundgaard has been let go after winning two races and finishing third in the championship while being replaced by Scott Dixon, who is coming off his worst season in over 20 years and who is 46 years old. It feels like McLaren has bought legacy hoping it will equal success. Sometimes the past is gone. Lundgaard showed promise for the future, and he just had his best oval weekend to boot last week in Milwaukee. McLaren has made a gamble that could backfire fairly quickly.
7. Even a slight pit bobble didn't derail Marcus Armstrong's finale, and Armstrong was able to finish seventh. The results do not tell the full story of Armstrong's season, and he was better than the results. He lost an engine in three of four races over the summer, including one that took away a sure victory at Road America. That flipped his season. The entire Meyer Shank Racing team appeared rattled and could not have a clean weekend. Armstrong needed this race. It was a good race, a positive to end on. He will be the team leader in 2027. The result must be better even if the bad ones were not his fault.
8. And we arrive at our champion Álex Palou, who went off-strategy and attempted a four-stop race. It didn't work, but Palou had the wiggle room to try things today. He didn't have to win. He didn't have to follow McLaughlin and try to jump him during a pit cycle. Palou could run a little harder. It didn't work. It didn't need to. Palou already claimed the championship. He can throw this race away. It will not affect him one bit.
9. Marcus Ericsson caps his revival season with a ninth place finish after taking a late grid penalty for an engine change. We knew Ericsson was capable of this. He was a regular top ten finisher at Chip Ganassi Racing. It didn't immediately click at Andretti Global. I think Andretti Global has been ironing out some wrinkles in the team. The team was better this year and Ericsson benefitted because of it. Now the team believes in him. That driver never disappeared. He was always there and now he can shine at Andretti.
10. Kyffin Simpson closes out an impressive season with a tenth-place finish. Simpson isn't flashy. There are still many races where he isn't notable, but he has become a driver that can finish somewhat regularly in the top ten and occasionally pull off a stellar result. There has been plenty of conversation about driving standards and the IndyCar approval process. We will discuss it in greater detail later. Simpson's junior record was not glowing, but in IndyCar he has shown to be capable. Let's keep that in mind moving forward.
11. Patricio O'Ward did not end on a high note. He didn't quite have it this weekend, and this is a weekend we have not seen from O'Ward and McLaren much in 2026. This group had its handful of anonymous races for the last few seasons. Those didn't really happen this year. If anything, we saw O'Ward run fifth and just remain there, nothing moving forward or backward. This was an odd day for O’Ward. He never showed any threatening pace.
12. We are going to handle a few drivers in chunks here.
Santino Ferrucci went from 21st to 12th. Ferrucci has this kind of race at least four times a year. Doesn't look quick, strategy works in his favor with a hair more speed. It is good to improve but he is constantly racing from behind that it limits his results.
Will Power's first season with Andretti Global concludes with a 13th place finish. Power had a brief off-track excursion. It was a yo-yo season for Power, but it mostly ended as a positive. You would think he should be more confident next year, but we also know Power is bound to throw away a few results a season. He did it speeding into pit lane while leading at Milwaukee.
Louis Foster was 14th. It is hard to tell if Foster improved in his sophomore season. The qualifying pace was not as good as last year, but he did get a few top ten finishes. How much of it is the driver and how much of it is the team?
Josef Newgarden struggled all weekend for speed and the best he could do was 15th. This is the second consecutive season where the takeaway is Newgarden must return to the drawing board. The comfort has not been there on road and street courses for arguably three years.
Rinus VeeKay held onto tenth in the championship though he was 16th in this race. Overall, a brilliant season for VeeKay and Juncos Hollinger Racing. It was VeeKay's best season in IndyCar. It was JHR's best season in IndyCar. This partnership was bountiful in success. Expectations only go up for next season as VeeKay is expected to return, but it is hard for the smaller programs to maintain this kind of success. VeeKay has shown a great ability to do more with less. The task might not be too challenging for him.
13. The Scott Dixon era at Chip Ganassi Racing ended with a 17th place finish and so mercifully ended a deflating season to an otherwise spectacular career. The winning streak is over at 21 seasons. The top-six championship finish streak is over after 20 seasons. Dixon exits 12th in the championship. Nothing lasts forever, but I think we all wished it ended on Dixon's term. Few drivers go out on top. All drivers lose it at some point. It is hard to wrap your mind around the fast ball being gone for Dixon.
Maybe this was just an off-year, but it doesn't feel like that is the case. We tell that to ourselves to save us from the truth. One of IndyCar's greatest has aged out. McLaren is taking a gamble on a 46-year-old driver recapturing magic for one, maybe two years. Maybe that is the case and all Dixon needed after 25 years at Ganassi. It doesn't feel like that is all we have witnessed.
14. Romain Grosjean ended the season in 18th, and he was 19th in the championship. Was the return to IndyCar worth it? He didn't seem as vocal with his frustration as we heard in the past. This was not a return to 2021 with Coyne. He will always have second at Markham.
Graham Rahal had such a season of polar opposites. At one point, he had three podium finishes and looked like a strong contender for a top ten championship finish. Then he was spun out of a podium finish at Road America, and his season never recovered. One top ten finish in the final ten races. I don't know where the form went. Every year, we are curious over what is happening at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and it is not the good kind of curiosity.
Caio Collet took a grid penalty and never recovered to finish 20th. It felt like Collet's season was inflated. The highs and promise did not feel as great as some led on. It wasn't a terrible season, but I don't think this is an astonishing talent.
A botched pit stop cost Christian Rasmussen any promising result, and he ended up 21st. It feels like Rasmussen's final results should be better, but if we looked back, his actual finishes might not have been that far over from how he actually ran this season.
Mick Schumacher coughed a golden opportunity to take rookie of the year with Dennis Hauger retiring on the opening lap of the season with an accident after Sting Ray Robb punted Hauger. That is kind of the tale of any driver at RLLR for the last four seasons. It is kind of the tale of this rookie class. None of them ran that strong to make a large gain if another had a poor result.
15. Sting Ray Robb was 23rd and Nolan Siegel was 24th. Neither result is surprising. Both futures are questionable.
16. Dennis Hauger will claim rookie of the year, but no rookie ended on a lower note than Hauger. This season was a big disappointment. Andretti Global supported Hauger's entry at Coyne, and the results were not up to standard. None of the rookies did well this year. None of the rookies have been competitive for the last four seasons. We haven't had a rookie crack the top fifteen in the championship since 2022.
I am not sure what it is about this current environment that makes it so difficult for rookies to find competitive speeds in IndyCar. I think all three rookies should get another season, almost every rookie should get more than one season, but they all need to be better should they get a second opportunity.
17. We had a typical Laguna Seca race to end the season. Start at the front, stay at the front. There were some battles, but it settled pretty quickly. It almost feels like the teams have so much information that there are no surprises or teams getting it that wrong on strategy. I don't know how you fix it. Laguna Seca is a different race. Kirkwood did close in and keep McLaughlin honest, but Kirkwood never quite got there for a challenge. Maybe Kirkwood never really had what it took to get the better of McLaughlin.
18. And now the season is over. We have six months and a day until the next race, about eight seats to fill and half the schedule to find out. There is almost too much time to review, but we will start tomorrow.
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Showing posts with label Laguna Seca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laguna Seca. Show all posts
Sunday, September 6, 2026
Morning Warm-Up: Laguna Seca 2026
Scott McLaughlin picked up the final pole position of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season with a lap at 69.1363 seconds around Laguna Seca during the final round of Saturday qualifying. It is McLaughlin's third pole position of the season, and he bookends the season with pole positions as he qualified first for the St. Petersburg season opener. He is the first driver to bookend the season with pole positions since Will Power did it in 2015. McLaughlin enters this weekend with a 35-race winless streak, the longest of his IndyCar career. It has been nearly 26 years since Team Penske's most recent Laguna Seca victory. Hélio Castroneves won on September 10, 2000. Castroneves led 81 of 83 laps that day from pole position and led a Team Penske 1-2 with Gil de Ferran finishing second.
Álex Palou fell 0.0177 seconds short of another pole position, and the 2026 champion-elect will start on the outside of row one, the third consecutive year Palou starts in the front row at Laguna Seca. It will be the 11th time this season Palou is starting on the front row. Palou has not finished on the podium in the last four races. He has not gone five consecutive races without a podium finish since the final 11 races of his rookie season with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020.
Felix Rosenqvist was 0.0568 seconds off McLaughlin's pole-winning time, and Rosenqvist takes third on the grid. Rosenqvist enters this weekend level with his worst top fifteen finish slump in his IndyCar career. He has not finished better than 17th in the last four races, matching his previous longest streak without a top fifteen result, a five-start streak in 2021. At Laguna Seca, Rosenqvist has two top five finishes and four results outside the top ten, three of which have been finishes of 19th or worse.
Alexander Rossi ends the season with his best starting position of the season on a road or street course in fourth. Rossi was 0.1884 seconds from pole position. His only other top five starting position this season was second for the Indianapolis 500. In four of six Laguna Seca starts, Rossi has finished in the top ten. His best finish at the circuit was third in 2024. That 2024 Laguna Seca race is the last time Rossi started in the top five on a road or street course.
David Malukas starts fifth for the final race of the season. This is the 13th time Malukas has started in the top ten this season, and this is his tenth time starting in the top five. He entered this season having started in the top five in 13 races previously in his career. Malukas has finished outside the top ten in three of four season finales in his IndyCar career. This will be Malukas' 79th career start. Only two drivers had their first career victory come at Laguna Seca, Gil de Ferran in 1995 and Bryan Herta in 1998.
Kyle Kirkwood missed out on the Fast Six by a little over a tenth of a second, but a grid penalty slides Kirkwood up to sixth. Kirkwood enters the finale needing to finish second in the championship to reach the 40 points threshold to qualify for a FIA Super License. With championship finishes of seventh and fourth the last two seasons Kirkwood has 14 points. Second in the championship pays 30 Super License points while third pays 25 Super License points. He could earn one Super License point for completing at least 100 km during a Formula One free practice session. The 40 points must be accumulated over a three-year period.
Marcus Ericsson takes seventh on the grid. It is Ericsson's tenth time starting in the top ten this season. Last year, he had seven starts in the top ten. Ericsson enters this weekend with six consecutive top ten finishes. The Swede has not had seven consecutive top ten results since a nine-race span that began at the 2022 season finale and ran through the first eight races of 2023. In five of his first seven season finales, Ericsson has failed to finish in the top ten. His best finale result was seventh at St. Petersburg in 2020.
(Update 11:55 a.m. ET - Marcus Ericsson will take a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change).
Kyffin Simpson will start eighth. It is only the fifth time Simpson has started in the top ten this season. He started outside the top fifteen in ten races this season, including the last three races. Simpson has had an accident in each of his two Laguna Seca starts. In 2024, Simpson was collected when Graham Rahal spun in front of him. Last year, Simpson ran into the back of Felix Rosenqvist at the start and did not complete a lap.
Marcus Armstrong starts ninth for the second consecutive race, and he finished ninth the most recent time IndyCar took the checkered flag in the completion of the first Milwaukee race last Sunday evening. In two of Armstrong's first three Laguna Seca starts, he finished eighth. Those were in 2023 and 2025. In 2024, he started 11th but was pushed off course racing Christian Lundgaard and spun. This left Armstrong two laps down in 22nd.
Louis Foster rounds out the top ten on the grid, the third consecutive race Foster has started in the top ten and the fourth time in five races. In the first 13 races, he had two top ten starts. In Milwaukee, Foster was 11th and tenth. He could have three consecutive top fifteen finishes for only the second time in his career. Last year, he had four consecutive top fifteen results, an 11th at Road America before three consecutive 14th-place finishes.
Christian Lundgaard made the Fast Six, but a six-spot grid penalty due to an engine change drops the Dane from fifth to 11th starting position. This is the 11th time Lundgaard has started outside the top ten this season. In 34 starts with Arrow McLaren, Lundgaard has been the top McLaren finisher 13 times while Patricio O'Ward has been the best McLaren driver 19 times and Nolan Siegel was twice the best McLaren finisher in that span. Lundgaard could become the seventh driver to complete every lap in a season.
Kyffin Simpson will start eighth. It is only the fifth time Simpson has started in the top ten this season. He started outside the top fifteen in ten races this season, including the last three races. Simpson has had an accident in each of his two Laguna Seca starts. In 2024, Simpson was collected when Graham Rahal spun in front of him. Last year, Simpson ran into the back of Felix Rosenqvist at the start and did not complete a lap.
Marcus Armstrong starts ninth for the second consecutive race, and he finished ninth the most recent time IndyCar took the checkered flag in the completion of the first Milwaukee race last Sunday evening. In two of Armstrong's first three Laguna Seca starts, he finished eighth. Those were in 2023 and 2025. In 2024, he started 11th but was pushed off course racing Christian Lundgaard and spun. This left Armstrong two laps down in 22nd.
Louis Foster rounds out the top ten on the grid, the third consecutive race Foster has started in the top ten and the fourth time in five races. In the first 13 races, he had two top ten starts. In Milwaukee, Foster was 11th and tenth. He could have three consecutive top fifteen finishes for only the second time in his career. Last year, he had four consecutive top fifteen results, an 11th at Road America before three consecutive 14th-place finishes.
Christian Lundgaard made the Fast Six, but a six-spot grid penalty due to an engine change drops the Dane from fifth to 11th starting position. This is the 11th time Lundgaard has started outside the top ten this season. In 34 starts with Arrow McLaren, Lundgaard has been the top McLaren finisher 13 times while Patricio O'Ward has been the best McLaren driver 19 times and Nolan Siegel was twice the best McLaren finisher in that span. Lundgaard could become the seventh driver to complete every lap in a season.
Patricio O'Ward did not make it out of the first round of qualifying, but a grid penalty allows O'Ward to start 12th next to his Arrow McLaren teammate Lundgaard. O'Ward was 0.0090 seconds from advancing to round two. O'Ward is attempting to become the first driver to end a season with three consecutive victories since Jimmy Bryan did it in 1955. It would be the 59th time in IndyCar history a driver has won at least three consecutive races.
Will Power missed advancing from group two by 0.0575 seconds, and Power occupies 13th on the grid, the same grid spot he occupied for the season opener at St. Petersburg. In six Laguna Seca starts, Power has two podium finishes, three top five finishes and five top ten finishes. Power has finished outside the top twenty in the last two season finales. He has six consecutive top ten finishes in season finales held in California.
Mick Schumacher starts to Power's outside on row seven, the fourth time in the last five races Schumacher starts in the top fifteen. He had two starts in the top fifteen through the first 13 races. In the last three races, Schumacher has had three consecutive top fifteen finishes. In the first 14 races of the season, he had only one top fifteen result. Schumacher enters the finale 13 points behind Dennis Hauger for rookie of the year. When they take the green flag, Schumacher will make up ten points to the Norwegian based on grid position alone.
Nolan Siegel was only 0.0579 seconds from making the second round of qualifying, and the California-native starts 15th. This will be Siegel's 46th career start. It has been a career-year for Siegel as he has three top ten finishes, a personal best, and he enters the weekend 18th in the championship, four positions better than where he finished last year. Mathematically, Siegel could finish as high as 14th in the championship.
Scott Dixon's final start with Chip Ganassi Racing is from 16th position. Dixon hopes to avoid his first winless season since 2005. During that 2005 season, Dixon had two top five finishes and ten top ten finishes in 15 starts, including four consecutive top ten results to close out the season. He has three season finale victories in his career. He could join Johnnie Parsons, A.J. Foyt and Tom Sneva as the only drivers with four finale victories since 1946.
Christian Rasmussen will start on row nine for the third consecutive race, as the Dane claims 17th. It is the 11th time Rasmussen has started outside the top fifteen, and ten of those have been starting between 16th and 19th. At Milwaukee, Rasmussen finished fifth and eighth. It is the second time in his IndyCar career he has consecutive top ten finishes. The other was the 2025 Iowa doubleheader when he was sixth and eighth in the two Iowa races.
Caio Collet made the second round, but a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change relegates Collet from 12th starting position to 18th. This was the sixth time the Brazilian has made it out of the first round of qualifying this season. It is the second time he has taken a grid penalty after advancing to round two. His qualifying time was disallowed at the Indianapolis 500 as his car failed inspection. Last year, he swept the Indy Lights doubleheader at Laguna Seca.
Rinus VeeKay closes the season with four consecutive starts outside the top ten, as VeeKay rolls off from 19th. He had started in the top ten in the four races prior to this slump. In five Laguna Seca starts, VeeKay's best finish is 14th with an average finish of 19.8. The Dutchman has failed to crack the top twenty in the last two Monterey visits.
Josef Newgarden rounds out the top twenty, the fifth time Newgarden has started 20th or worse this season. This start marks the 250th of Josef Newgarden's career, the 19th driver to reach the milestone in IndyCar history. Only once has a driver won in their 250th start. That would be A.J. Foyt, whose 250th start was the 1977 season opener from Ontario Motor Speedway. Foyt won ahead of Al Unser. It was Foyt's 57th career victory.
Santino Ferrucci ends the season with four consecutive starts outside the top twenty with Ferrucci starting 21st in the finale. It is the ninth time he has started outside the top twenty in 2026, and the eight of those starts were from row 11. Ferrucci has not cracked the top ten in the last three races. His best Laguna Seca finish was ninth in 2024, but he has finished 17th or worse in his other three starts at the circuit.
Graham Rahal makes it an all-American row 11, and this is his worst starting position on a road or street course since he was 24th at Arlington in March. For the second time this season, Rahal has finished outside the top twenty in consecutive races. He is looking to avoid three consecutive finishes outside the top twenty for the first time since Edmonton, Mid-Ohio and Loudon in 2011.
Romain Grosjean leads an all-Dale Coyne Racing row 12. Laguna Seca is one of four circuits where Grosjean has multiple top five finishes. He was third at Laguna Seca in 2021 and fourth in 2024. He has two top five finishes on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Long Beach and Road America. Dale Coyne Racing has failed to produce a top twenty finisher in the last two Laguna Seca races and it has not had a top ten finisher in the last four Laguna Seca races.
Dennis Hauger will be to Grosjean's outside in 24th starting position. This is the fourth time both Coyne drivers start outside the top twenty this season, but the first three were on ovals. Hauger could become the second consecutive Indy Lights champion to win IndyCar Rookie of the Year in the following year. There has never been an instance where reigning Indy Lights champions have won IndyCar Rookie of the Year in consecutive seasons.
Sting Ray Robb starts last for the fourth time this season. It is the fourth consecutive race Robb has started outside the top twenty, his 13th time this season he has started outside the top twenty and the 56th time in his career starting 21st or worse. This will be Robb's 69th career start. He has made the fourth-most starts in IndyCar history without a top five five. Only Hiro Matsushita (117), Randy Lewis (81) and Jerry Karl (73) have made more.
Fox's coverage of the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 95 laps.
Will Power missed advancing from group two by 0.0575 seconds, and Power occupies 13th on the grid, the same grid spot he occupied for the season opener at St. Petersburg. In six Laguna Seca starts, Power has two podium finishes, three top five finishes and five top ten finishes. Power has finished outside the top twenty in the last two season finales. He has six consecutive top ten finishes in season finales held in California.
Mick Schumacher starts to Power's outside on row seven, the fourth time in the last five races Schumacher starts in the top fifteen. He had two starts in the top fifteen through the first 13 races. In the last three races, Schumacher has had three consecutive top fifteen finishes. In the first 14 races of the season, he had only one top fifteen result. Schumacher enters the finale 13 points behind Dennis Hauger for rookie of the year. When they take the green flag, Schumacher will make up ten points to the Norwegian based on grid position alone.
Nolan Siegel was only 0.0579 seconds from making the second round of qualifying, and the California-native starts 15th. This will be Siegel's 46th career start. It has been a career-year for Siegel as he has three top ten finishes, a personal best, and he enters the weekend 18th in the championship, four positions better than where he finished last year. Mathematically, Siegel could finish as high as 14th in the championship.
Scott Dixon's final start with Chip Ganassi Racing is from 16th position. Dixon hopes to avoid his first winless season since 2005. During that 2005 season, Dixon had two top five finishes and ten top ten finishes in 15 starts, including four consecutive top ten results to close out the season. He has three season finale victories in his career. He could join Johnnie Parsons, A.J. Foyt and Tom Sneva as the only drivers with four finale victories since 1946.
Christian Rasmussen will start on row nine for the third consecutive race, as the Dane claims 17th. It is the 11th time Rasmussen has started outside the top fifteen, and ten of those have been starting between 16th and 19th. At Milwaukee, Rasmussen finished fifth and eighth. It is the second time in his IndyCar career he has consecutive top ten finishes. The other was the 2025 Iowa doubleheader when he was sixth and eighth in the two Iowa races.
Caio Collet made the second round, but a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change relegates Collet from 12th starting position to 18th. This was the sixth time the Brazilian has made it out of the first round of qualifying this season. It is the second time he has taken a grid penalty after advancing to round two. His qualifying time was disallowed at the Indianapolis 500 as his car failed inspection. Last year, he swept the Indy Lights doubleheader at Laguna Seca.
Rinus VeeKay closes the season with four consecutive starts outside the top ten, as VeeKay rolls off from 19th. He had started in the top ten in the four races prior to this slump. In five Laguna Seca starts, VeeKay's best finish is 14th with an average finish of 19.8. The Dutchman has failed to crack the top twenty in the last two Monterey visits.
Josef Newgarden rounds out the top twenty, the fifth time Newgarden has started 20th or worse this season. This start marks the 250th of Josef Newgarden's career, the 19th driver to reach the milestone in IndyCar history. Only once has a driver won in their 250th start. That would be A.J. Foyt, whose 250th start was the 1977 season opener from Ontario Motor Speedway. Foyt won ahead of Al Unser. It was Foyt's 57th career victory.
Santino Ferrucci ends the season with four consecutive starts outside the top twenty with Ferrucci starting 21st in the finale. It is the ninth time he has started outside the top twenty in 2026, and the eight of those starts were from row 11. Ferrucci has not cracked the top ten in the last three races. His best Laguna Seca finish was ninth in 2024, but he has finished 17th or worse in his other three starts at the circuit.
Graham Rahal makes it an all-American row 11, and this is his worst starting position on a road or street course since he was 24th at Arlington in March. For the second time this season, Rahal has finished outside the top twenty in consecutive races. He is looking to avoid three consecutive finishes outside the top twenty for the first time since Edmonton, Mid-Ohio and Loudon in 2011.
Romain Grosjean leads an all-Dale Coyne Racing row 12. Laguna Seca is one of four circuits where Grosjean has multiple top five finishes. He was third at Laguna Seca in 2021 and fourth in 2024. He has two top five finishes on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Long Beach and Road America. Dale Coyne Racing has failed to produce a top twenty finisher in the last two Laguna Seca races and it has not had a top ten finisher in the last four Laguna Seca races.
Dennis Hauger will be to Grosjean's outside in 24th starting position. This is the fourth time both Coyne drivers start outside the top twenty this season, but the first three were on ovals. Hauger could become the second consecutive Indy Lights champion to win IndyCar Rookie of the Year in the following year. There has never been an instance where reigning Indy Lights champions have won IndyCar Rookie of the Year in consecutive seasons.
Sting Ray Robb starts last for the fourth time this season. It is the fourth consecutive race Robb has started outside the top twenty, his 13th time this season he has started outside the top twenty and the 56th time in his career starting 21st or worse. This will be Robb's 69th career start. He has made the fourth-most starts in IndyCar history without a top five five. Only Hiro Matsushita (117), Randy Lewis (81) and Jerry Karl (73) have made more.
Fox's coverage of the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 95 laps.
Thursday, September 3, 2026
Track Walk: Laguna Seca 2026
The 18th and final race of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season will be a 95-lap affair around Laguna Seca. After a two-year spell in Nashville, IndyCar returns to Monterey, California for the season finale. This will be the 12th time Laguna Seca has hosted a season finale, and it is the sixth time the championship has been clinched prior to Laguna Seca hosting the finale. Plenty of positions are still undecided in the championship, and there are a few close battles that will have our attention. This is also the final weekend for a drivers with certain teams, crew members as well. Some are moving on and know where there future will lead them. Others are not sure what exists beyond this weekend, make it a little more poignant.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday September 6 with green flag scheduled for 3:05 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.
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: 5:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 1:05 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Qualifying: 4:35 p.m. ET
Qualifying: 4:35 p.m. ET
Final Practice: 8:10 p.m. ET (30 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 3:05 p.m. ET (95 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 3:05 p.m. ET (95 laps)
Palou's Encore
Álex Palou is already champion. Palou locked up the title in Milwaukee with a rather pedestrian weekend, but it was enough for the Catalan driver to take his fifth career title and his fourth consecutive. Palou joined Sébastien Bourdais as the only drivers to win four consecutive championships. With five championships, Palou sits third all-time behind only A.J. Foyt's seven championships and Scott Dixon's six championships.
When the checkered flag waves, Palou will have led the IndyCar championship after 69 of his 116 career starts. That is 59.482% of his career. Only A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti have led the championship after more races, 81 and 71 respectively. When it comes to percentages, Palou is essentially alone at the top. Among drivers who started at least 30 races, the next closest is Nigel Mansell, who led the championship for 45.161% of his 34-race IndyCar career. If you increase the minimum starts to 50, Juan Pablo Montoya is second to Palou, having led the championship for 30.927% of his 97-race career.
This historic season extends beyond the championship lead. Palou has six victories and, with his victoy at Portland, he became the third driver in IndyCar history to win at least six races in consecutive seasons, joining Mario Andretti and Sébastien Bourdais. This season Palou became the 18th driver to reach 25 career victories. He is on 51 podium finishes, the 22nd driver to reach the half-century mark. With 673 laps led this season, Palou has led 2,402 laps in his career, and he surpassed Juan Pablo Montoya for 24th all-time in laps led in the Sunday afternoon race from Milwaukee.
Palou's pole position for the Sunday afternoon race from Milwaukee was his eighth of the season. It is the most pole positions for a driver since Will Power had eight pole positions in 2011. One more pole position would make Palou only the fourth driver to win at least nine pole positions in a season. A.J. Foyt had ten pole positions in 1965. Mario Andretti and Danny Sullivan won nine pole positions in 1966 and 1988 respectively. His pole position from Milwaukee was also the 20th of his IndyCar career, the 16th driver to reach said milestone.
Where will Palou cap off his fifth championship season? His best track.
Nobody has come close to Palou's record at Laguna Seca. In five starts, Palou has finished second, first, third, first and first. He has led 250 laps out of a possible 475 laps. The last two years has seen Palou win from pole position, though he was shuffled out of the lead for a fair portion of the 2024 race due to pit strategy. He still went on to lead over half the race.
Another victory would be Palou's third consecutive and fourth overall at Laguna Seca. He would join Bobby Rahal as the only drivers to win at least three consecutive Laguna Seca races, and Palou would match Rahal's record of four Laguna Seca victories. Rahal won four consecutive years from 1984 to 1987, all on the original perimeter Laguna Seca track configuration. Of the 16 tracks on the schedule, Palou is at least tied for the most victories at four circuits (Barber Motorsports Park, Detroit, Road America and Portland).
Coincidentally, the only time Palou has won the season finale in his career was 2022 at Laguna Seca, the last time Palou has not ended as champion. He has finished in the top five in four of the last five season finales. In 2024, Palou was 11th at Nashville.
A Battle For Second
The title has been decided but the good news is the battle for second is incredible tight with 23 points covering four drivers entering the final race, and four points cover second, third and fourth in the championship.
Christian Lundgaard enters the finale in second. Off the back of five consecutive top ten finishes and eight top ten finishes in the last nine races, Lundgaard has taken second on 507 points, 100 points behind Palou. Lundgaard had the best oval weekend of his career, and it could not have come at a better time. Lundgaard was third in the Sunday afternoon race, his first career top five finish on an oval let alone his first podium finish. In the conclusion of the race that started Saturday, Lundgaard took sixth place. It is the first time Lundgaard has had consecutive top ten finishes in oval races.
Lundgaard snagged second from Kyle Kirkwood, but the Dane is only two points clear of the American. Kirkwood's Sunday afternoon race was encouraging with a sixth-place finish from 24th on the grid. In the resumption of the Saturday race, Kirkwood did not have the same speed and he ended up 15th. In the last six races, Kirkwood only has two top five finishes while also having two results outside the top ten. No matter what happens at Laguna Seca, Kirkwood will end the season not having consecutive top five finishes since he opened the year with five consecutive top five results.
A doubleheader sweep in Milwaukee has put Patricio O'Ward in play for second in the championship. After Road America, O'Ward was fifth in the championship, 57 points off of second, 117 points off of Palou in the championship lead. Entering the Laguna Seca finale, O'Ward is a spot better in the championship, but he is only four points out of second. He has won three of the last six races, and three victories matches his most in a season.
Twenty-three points behind Lundgaard is David Malukas, who had a pair of top five finishes in Milwaukee buck a rough run of form. Malukas had three consecutive results outside the top ten prior to the Milwaukee weekend. Not only has Malukas remained in play for second, but last weekend clinched Malukas a top five championship finish, and it clinched him top Team Penske driver for the 2026 season. Scott McLaughlin is a spot behind Malukas, but McLaughlin is 56 points back with only 54 points on the table. Josef Newgarden is eighth, a further 20 points behind Malukas.
Among these four drivers at Laguna Seca, O'Ward has the best record. Five starts, five top ten finishes, five times starting in the top ten, and he has an average finish of 6.8. Lundgaard has finished in the top six three times in four starts, including finishing second last year to Palou. Kirkwood and Malukas have struggled at Laguna Seca. Malukas has never finished better than 13th in four starts at the circuit. While Kirkwood was fifth in 2024, he has finished 16th or worse in his other three starts.
Battles Elsewhere
Second isn't the only place where drivers are fighting for championship positions.
Malukas has locked up the top Penske driver, but the other two Penske drivers would like to finish sixth. McLaughlin is 20 points ahead of Newgarden. McLaughlin went fourth and second in Milwaukee, the first time McLaughlin has had consecutive top five finishes since a three-race running spanning the end of last season and the start of this season. He was third in the final two races last year and then opened 2026 in second at St. Petersburg.
Newgarden has not had a top five finish since he was second at Nashville, a five-race drought without a top five finish. His only top five finish on a road or street course was fourth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. He hasn't had a podium finish on a road or street course since he was third in the 2025 St. Petersburg season opener.
Marcus Ericsson has thrown his hat into the ring for a sixth place championship finish. With six consecutive top ten finishes, Ericsson is only 21 points behind McLaughlin for sixth and a point behind Newgarden. With 11 top ten finishes, it is Ericsson's most since he had 14 in 2023. One more top five finish would be his fifth of the season, matching Ericsson's most in a season. He had five top five results in 2022.
McLaughlin is on track for a four-spot improvement in the championship from last season. It will be his fifth consecutive season finishing in the championship top ten. Newgarden missed out on the championship top ten last season. This will be his 11th time finishing in the championship top ten. Ericsson has finished 15th and 20th the last two seasons. The best Ericsson has finished in the championship is sixth, where he finished in three consecutive seasons from 2021 to 2023.
Rinus VeeKay is sitting in tenth, and the Dutchman is on the verge of his career-best championship finish and Juncos Hollinger Racing's first championship top ten finish. VeeKay is on 364 points, 13 points ahead of Will Power, and only 13 points behind Felix Rosenqvist for ninth. VeeKay has four top ten finishes in the last five races. Power had three consecutive third-place finishes before suffering two finishes outside the top ten at Milwaukee.
Rosenqvist has a 28-point cushion to being outside the championship top ten, but the Swede has not finished better than 20th in the last four races. Season finales are not Rosenqvist's strong suit either. In seven season finales, he has only two top five finishes and an average finish of 13.285 with three results of 18th or worse. Rosenqvist is hoping to hold on for this second consecutive finish in the championship top ten.
VeeKay's previous best championship finish was 12th in 2021 and 2022. He cannot finish worse than 11th. Power has finished in the championship top ten in 16 consecutive seasons. Andretti Global has not had three cars finish in the championship top ten since 2020.
Dixon's Ganassi Goodbye
We arrive to Laguna Seca on the verge of Scott Dixon's final start with Chip Ganassi Racing. A 25-year member of the organization, Dixon agreed to join Arrow McLaren for the 2027 season in July.
Dixon signed with Chip Ganassi Racing on May 29, 2002 after PacWest Racing, the home for his first 23 starts, closed due to financial difficulties. His first Ganassi race was June 2, 2002 at Milwaukee driving the #44 Target Lola-Toyota. He qualified fourth and finished sixth. Four drivers entered this weekend were not born when Dixon made his first Ganassi start (Dennis Hauger, Louis Foster, Kyffin Simpson and Nolan Siegel).
It took Dixon 17 starts to score his first victory for the team, but it came in Dixon's Indy Racing League debut as Ganassi fully committed to the IRL ahead of the 2003 season. At the end of that season, Dixon had his first championship.
Five more championships followed, as did 57 more race victories. His six titles and 59 victories are both second all-time behind only A.J. Foyt. Dixon's 434 starts is the all-time record. Laguna Seca will be Dixon's 412th start at Ganassi. He hasn't missed a race in over 22 years, a record streak of 371 consecutive starts. Dixon has led the second-most laps in IndyCar history (6,991), he has most podium finishes (146), and he is the only driver to surpass the 200 top five finish milestone, sitting on 218 entering this weekend.
This exit is not coming at a high point. It is actually a historic low for Dixon.
There is a great chance Dixon will finish outside the championship top ten. He had finished in the top six of the championship for 20 consecutive seasons prior to 2026. For Dixon to crack the championship top ten, he must win the race with Rinus VeeKay finishing last with no bonus points and Will Power finish 12th or worse with no bonus points. If Dixon takes a maximum points victory, it opens up some wiggle room. It would allow VeeKay to finish no better than 22nd and Power could finish as well as tenth.
Dixon has yet to win a race this season, and his streak of 21 consecutive seasons with a race victory is on the verge of ending. Dixon's lone podium finish was third at Long Beach. In 2002, 2004 and 2005, Dixon had only one podium finish, but Dixon has finished at least first or second in every season he has been in IndyCar.
After the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Dixon ranked sixth in the championship, tied with Patricio O'Ward on 148 points, 89 points off the championship lead, but Dixon held the tiebreaker thanks to that third in Long Beach. His average finish in the first six races was ninth. In the last 11 races, Dixon has one top ten finish, seventh at Washington, D.C., and his average finish is 15.363.
Since IndyCar returned to Laguna Seca in 2019, Dixon has the third-best average finish at 6.667 behind only Álex Palou (1.667) and Romain Grosjean (6.25). Dixon was the winner of the 2023 Laguna Seca race. He won from 11th and led the final 20 laps. In the last four Laguna Seca races, Dixon has started no better than tenth.
The $1.7 Million Dollar Rookie Battle
The 2026 season has ended up with a rather unexpected rookie of the year fight, and it is more valuable than anyone likely expected. Any of the three rookies that started this season could finish as the top rookie. Whichever one does end up on top will likely clinch his team a Leader Circle spot for the 2027 season, a $1.7 million share of the championship prize money that goes to the top 22 teams in the championship. For the other two, no additional funding will be rewarded.
Dennis Hauger has been the top rookie since the very start of the season. Hauger opened 2026 qualifying third at St. Petersburg, and on debut he finished tenth. No one else has been the top rookie in the championship since. However, Hauger's results never quite matched his start of the season. While he had two top ten finishes, including an eighth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and four top fifteen finishes in the first six races, Hauger has not finished in the top ten since. He has only four finishes in the top fifteen in the last 11 races.
This has dropped Hauger to 22nd in the championship, the final driver in a Leader Circle spot with one race remaining.
Eighteen points behind Hauger is Mick Schumacher, who started the season suffering a wrist injury in an opening lap accident at St. Petersburg. Schumacher has carried that injury throughout he season, and his form was atrocious through the first four-plus months. In the first 11 races, his best finish was 16th. He had an average finish of 20.181. In the last six races, Schumacher has an average finish of 14.1667 with four finishes in the top fifteen, including his first career top ten finish, an eighth at Nashville.
Caio Collet had been the driver on the cusp of a Leader Circle spot for most of the last two months. While Collet scored his first career top ten finish with a ninth place finish at Washington, D.C., he has finished 19th or worse in five of the last six races. The Brazilian has dropped to 24th in the championship, and he is 30 points outside the Leader Circle entering the final race.
Hauger has a healthy margin. While clinching the final Leader Circle spot regardless of what the other two competitors does would require the Norwegian to score at least 37 points, third place with at least two bonus points, that would mean Schumacher would have won the race with the maximum 54 points. Schumacher has stated in the top ten only once on a road or street circuit. That was tenth at Markham.
Head-to-head this season, Hauger has finished ahead of Schumacher nine times, but Schumacher has gotten the better of Hauger in the last three races. The most spots Schumacher has finished ahead of Hauger was nine at Gateway and nine at Milwaukee. Five of the eight races Schumacher has bested Hauger were ovals. The other three were by three spots at Road America, by one spot at Mid-Ohio and by four spots at Washington, D.C.
Collet must finish third to have any shot at the Leader Circle spot. He did start eighth at Road America, his best starting position of the season.
Last season, Hauger's Dale Coyne Racing entry and Schumacher's Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry were two of the three cars to finish outside the Leader Circle spots. Collet's A.J. Foyt Racing entry was 11th in the entrants' championship last year. The #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing entry missed out on the Leader Circle last year, and it will miss out this year as well.
Hauger could become the third Dale Coyne Racing driver to win rookie of the year. Alex Lloyd did it in 2010 and Ed Jones did it in 2017. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing could claim its second consecutive rookie of the year and its third in five seasons with Schumacher. A.J. Foyt Racing has never produced a rookie of the year.
Indy Lights
We have reached the final round for the Indy Lights season, and all that remains is a doubleheader at Laguna Seca. With 108 remaining on the table, it is technically a six-driver battle for the championship in the final weekend, but it will likely be one of three drivers.
Only 29 points cover Nikita Johnson, Enzo Fittipaldi and Tymek Kucharczyk with two races remaining.
Johnson re-took the championship lead with a fifth-place finish at Milwaukee while Fittipaldi finished seventh. This put Johnson on top with 505 points, three more than Fittipaldi. Kucharczyk dropped to 12th in the final results and he is 29 points behind with two races to run.
Johnson has not won a race since the third race of the season at Barber Motorsports Park. However, he hasn't finished worse than eighth this season. While Johnson has seven podium finishes, four of those came within the first five races. Fittipaldi leads the series with four victories, including sweeping the Mid-Ohio doubleheader. However, Fittipaldi has also finished outside the top ten in four races this season. Kucharczyk opened the season with seven consecutive top five results and 12 consecutive top ten finishes. In the last three races, the Polish driver has finished 18th, fourth and 12th.
Max Taylor is still alive at 77 points back. Taylor has three consecutive top five finishes, but his only victory remains at Arlington. Alessandro de Tullio is riding eight pole positions into the season finale, but de Tullio is 99 points behind Johnson. De Tullio has two victories but he has also been outside the top ten in four races. Lochie Hughes is 103 points behind Johnson and he will be eliminated the moment Johnson or Fittipaldi takes the green flag for the first race this weekend. Hughes won the first Road America race this season.
Myles Rowe is seventh in the championship on 353 points, two ahead of Jack Beeton. Juan Manuel Correa is ninth on 339 points after finishing runner-up at Milwaukee. Milwaukee winner Max Garcia rounds out the championship top the on 337 points, 20 points clear of two-time winner this season Matteo Nannini.
Johnson could become the first Indy Lights champion for Cape Motorsports in its fifth season of competition. Cape's previous best championship finish was fifth with Salvador de Alba in 2024. Fittipaldi or Kucharczyk could become the third champion for HMD Motorsports. Linus Lundqvist and Christian Rasmussen won the title for HMD in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
The penultimate race of the Indy Lights season will be at 6:38 p.m. ET on Saturday September 5, and it is scheduled for 35 laps or 55 minutes. The final Indy Lights race will be at 12:38 p.m. ET on Sunday September 6, and it is scheduled for 30 laps or 50 minutes.
Fast Facts
This will be the 17th IndyCar race to take place on September 6, but the first since Dario Franchitti won at Vancouver in 1998.
That was Franchitti's second career victory and it came three weeks after Franchitti scored his first career victory at Road America.
Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden are the only active drivers with multiple season finale victories. Dixon won the finales in 2010, 2015 and 2023. Newgarden won the 2020 finale and last year's finale.
Simon Pagenaud is the most recent champion to cap off his season with a victory in the final race. Pagenaud did that in 2016 at Sonoma. Pagenaud is also the most recent driver to win consecutive season finales. He won the final race of 2017 as well, which was also held at Sonoma.
Álex Palou's only victory in 2022 came in the final race from Laguna Seca. This is the most recent time a driver had their first victory of the season come in the finale.
Since 1946, 13 times has the season finale produced a first-time winner. The most recent was Ed Carpenter at Kentucky in 2011.
Bobby Rahal has the most victories in IndyCar history to have never won a season finale. Rahal won 24 races in his career. Emerson Fittipaldi won 22 times, but Fittipaldi never won a season finale either. Patricio O'Ward has the third-most victories all-time without a season finale victory with 12.
The average starting position for a Laguna Seca winner is 3.035 with a median of first.
Eighteen of 28 Laguna Seca races have been won from pole position.
Twenty-four of 28 Laguna Seca races have been won from a top three starting position.
The average number of lead changes in a Laguna Seca race is 3.428 with a median of three.
Four of the six Laguna Seca races since 2019 have had at least six lead changes. Prior to this stretch, only three of the first 22 Laguna Seca races had at least six lead changes.
Last year's race had two lead changes. Álex Palou led the first 25 laps, Nolan Siegel led the next 11 laps, and Palou re-took the lead and led the final 59 laps.
The average number of cautions in a Laguna Seca race is 2.178 with a median of 1.5. The average number of caution laps is 8.535 with a median of eight.
The last three Laguna Seca races have had at least five caution periods. Prior to 2023, only once in the first 25 races at the track had more than four cautions. That was the 2001 race, which had eight cautions.
The 2023 Laguna Seca race had a record-tying eight cautions and a record-breaking 35 caution laps.
There have been six caution-free races at Laguna Seca, most recently in 1997.
This season, there has been an average of 12.4705 lead changes per race with a median of eight.
This season, there has been an average of three cautions per race with a median of three. The average number of caution laps this season has been 22.294 with a median of 23.
This season, the average starting position for a race winner is 3.705 with a median of third.
Predictions
Álex Palou, and it will be Álex Palou with the Alex Zanardi tribute livery. It could be Álex Palou with 95 laps led from pole position and let's throw the fastest lap in there to boot. Scott Dixon ends his Chip Ganassi Racing tenure with a top ten finish. Josef Newgarden will start outside the top ten and finish at least six spots better than where he started. Will Power will take tenth in the championship. Marcus Ericsson keeps his top ten finish streak going into 2027. Dennis Hauger wins rookie of the year and he will gain a spot in the championship. There will be fewer than three cautions. Sleeper: Romain Grosjean.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
First Impressions: Laguna Seca 2025
1. Yep. Álex Palou won again, and anyone who suggested his championship grip was slipping after Patricio O'Ward won last week at Toronto while Palou finished 12th is a fool.
Come on, folks!
Really?
Really?
One race and you thought O'Ward was starting to claw back power? O'Ward entered this weekend needing to outscore Palou by 24.75 points per race over the final four races. That is an extraordinary task. That is also assuming Palou wouldn't finish ahead of O'Ward in any of the final four races. Palou did finish ahead of O'Ward today, and it was another victory, and after losing 30 points last week, Palou gained 22 points back this afternoon. O'Ward went from needing to score 24.75 points over four races to overtake Palou to needing to outscore the Catalan driver by 40.333 points in each of the next three races.
It's over. In two weeks, we will have a coronation ceremony. Palou's magic number is 42 points. He just needs to score 42 points combined over the next three races and the championship is his regardless of what O'Ward does.
Even when there was a shakeup due to the cautions today, and a few drivers who stopped early to get off the primary tire were at the front of field, Palou had this race under control. He ran the fastest lap of the race. It was 0.6166 seconds faster than the next best fastest lap! Only eight drivers had their fastest lap within a second of Palou's.
It is staggering what it takes to beat Palou. He has found a comfortable level on all the circuits that no one can match. He doesn't have a bad track. He isn't struggling with track surfaces and tire compounds. The man has damn near perfected every element of the IndyCar series. The rest of the competition is in big trouble. We have already known that.
2. Christian Lundgaard had a damn good day. Running two new sets of alternate tires in the middle of the race launched him into a podium position, and Lundgaard took more with a bold move up the inside of Colton Herta into the final corner. Lundgaard has gone through a bit of a rough patch since the middle of May after having three consecutive podium finishes early in the season. We haven't seen this Lundgaard in a while. It has been a fantastic year for him even with the dip over June and most of July. This could be the start to a strong finish.
3. Colton Herta rounded out the podium on a day where he was good, but he wasn't close to Palou. This was a race for second. Herta had a good start to get up to second place, but he was stuck the moment he got mixed into traffic when the first pit cycle had a caution. He was behind those on the alternate strategy. Herta had the car to make up ground, but Palou cut his way to the front quicker. Once Herta was clear, Palou was out of sight. Third is a good day, but boy does it feel deflating when the competition was never within touching distance.
4. Patricio O'Ward salvaged this day with a fourth-place finish. O'Ward did not have a good start to the race, and running on two sets of used alternate tires before putting on the primary tire didn't help matters, but halfway through it looked like this was going to be a bad day. It turned into a top five finish. With how far O'Ward is behind Palou, anything less than gaining points cannot be considered a good day. It is hard to find moral victories in this one.
5. Starting 19th meant Scott Dixon had to roll the dice. Starting on the primary tire was step one. Step two was stopping on lap 12. The way the cautions fell allowed Dixon to leap to the front of the field, and he ran at a good pace to keep himself up there, especially after he had to run a 27-lap stint, then a 28-lap stint and then another 28-lap stint to make it to the finish. It is the typical Scott Dixon day. He finds a way forward.
6. Callum Ilott probably had the second-best race of all the drivers in the field, as Ilott ran the same strategy as Dixon and finished sixth from 24th on the grid. It is more impressive because we have seen Ilott's shortcomings this season, especially with Prema. It hurt him a little bit in this one as before his final pit stop, Ilott was ahead of O'Ward. After pit stops, Ilott was miles behind because of a slow stop. It was lost spots but this was still a sixth-place day and Ilott hung in the top ten running competitively. The team has work to do, but it has been much more competitive in the second half of the season.
7. Will Power was seventh and never much of a factor. Power started fifth and he lost a few spots, mostly due to strategy. Dixon and Ilott were ahead of him and that was because of another strategy. Either way, Power did nothing notable. He did nothing wrong, which is notable for Team Penske this season. That is progress.
8. It was another quiet top ten finish for Marcus Armstrong. Armstrong had a good car, he didn't make a mistake and it ended in an eighth-place finish. For a driver that moved from Chip Ganassi Racing to Meyer Shank Racing, he hasn't taken a step back. Armstrong has actually made a step forward. It is hard to imagine MSR moving away from Armstrong as the team is having its best season in IndyCar in large part because of his results.
9. Christian Rasmussen had a good day to finish ninth, and for a period it looked like it was going to be better than ninth. Rasmussen's third stint was on the primary tire and that did not do him wonders. All of his success has been on ovals this season. He needed a good day on a road course, and he got it. Rasmussen showed good pace in the entire race.
10. Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top ten, and he took tenth late from his teammate Josef Newgarden, who finished 11th. This is a bit of a disappointing result for Newgarden because he started fourth, but he got shuffled back on each stint. He didn't have a new set of tires until the final stint, and even then he lost ground. McLaughlin had better tires at the end, and got the position.
Tenth was the best McLaughlin was going to be today. We never saw him look flashy. This was a better day for Team Penske, but it still wasn't a good day. None of them were close to being a contender today, and two of them started in the top five.
11. Graham Rahal ended up 12th, which is a bit of a bummer considering he started eighth, but for a portion of this race it appeared Rahal was in for a bad day. I thought he was going to struggle to finish in the top twenty. His race turned around during the mid-way point and he ended up finishing 12th. Not great, but could be worse.
12. Let's get through the field. David Malukas was 13th. He did not look good on the primary tire at the start. He made an extra pit stop mid-race. That didn't help him. It is hard to imagine Team Penske is this interested in Malukas when it feels too regular to see him start in the top ten and end up outside the top ten for most of the race. Malukas started sixth today, and at no point was he moving forward.
Conor Daly went off on the opening lap after running into Robert Shwartzman. Daly rebounded to finish 14th. Daly ran himself and Shwartzman off the road. They were lucky that wasn't a bigger accident. It is a good drive for Daly, but he set himself up to be fighting from behind when he was already in a poor starting position.
Alexander Rossi ended up making an extra pit stop, which sucked because he stopped on lap 27 under the caution for the Rinus VeeKay and Kyle Kirkwood accident after he made his first stop on lap 20. On lap 20, Rossi removed the primary tire. He was good, but stopping at lap 27 didn't put him in a better spot to making it to the finish on fuel. It is curious why he had to make that stop. Rossi could have had a top ten finish today if the team didn't get off-strategy that much.
13. So we get to Kyle Kirkwood, who plain got it wrong and ran into Rinus VeeKay. This led to a penalty for Kirkwood. It has been a rough summer for Kirkwood. He hasn't had a top five finish since he won at Gateway, which came after he won Detroit the race before that. It didn't help that the team got everything wrong in qualifying and set Kirkwood to only have one flying lap. Kirkwood bobbled on the final corner of that lap and it kept him from advancing from the first round of qualifying. It hasn't been a disastrous period, but it didn't look like it would be this rough a month ago.
14. Louis Foster ended up 17th. Foster's qualifying form is fabulous. The team's race form must improve. The driver isn't the sole reason why this team cannot take top ten starts and turn them into top ten finishes. You would think after all these top ten starting positions, Foster will eventually have a day where everything goes right and he just finishes ninth. He doesn't make a mistake. The team executes the most basic strategy flawlessly, and Foster spends the entire race in ninth and best to feel good when it is over. It is frustrating because Foster has been pretty encouraging every weekend in qualifying. We just haven't seen a race to cap off the weekend.
15. Nolan Siegel was the only other driver to lead today as he led 11 laps because he stopped on lap 12 under the Jacob Abel caution. The problem is Siegel didn't take his primary tire until lap 38, and it was a 12-lap stint. It was a bad strategy. It knocked Siegel down to 18th.
16. If you have a clue how Sting Ray Robb and Devlin DeFrancesco finished 19th and 20th respectively, you are the only ones.
Robert Shwartzman ended up a lap down in 21st. Other than going off course and being a back-marker in front of Palou late, I don't know if Shwartzman did much.
Santino Ferrucci spun off course and was beached at the top of the corkscrew. Ferrucci was probably going to finish around 15th today. He didn't have a great race. He was hardly noticed until his spin.
17. Race control held the whistle twice in this races, and both were problematic.
First, Kirkwood got into VeeKay and VeeKay was stopped off course. IndyCar held the caution for nearly two laps until we were through the pit cycle on lap 26.
Second, Marcus Ericsson spun going uphill to the corkscrew. Ericsson remained stationary for what felt like nearly a lap as cars were approaching at full speed, and the uphill section is blind.
We have seen IndyCar wait to throw the caution during a pit cycle. The VeeKay incident was probably one of the longest periods they have held out for in a long time. The Ericsson one was unacceptable. IndyCar will wait if a car spins but doesn't hit anything because drivers can restart the cars with the hybrid system. They don't want to bring out the caution for a single-car incident. In this case, it took Ericsson a while and it didn't help that Ericsson could not find an opening to safely spin around and continue.
There is an easy solution: Virtual Safety Car.
Ericsson's incident didn't need a full course caution and the pace car returning to the circuit, but it required the field slowing down so he could spin around without worrying about being t-boned by a car going 165 mph.
It is embarrassing IndyCar has not adopted some sort of VSC system in 2025. It has been around for a decade in Formula One. For the Ericsson incident, all IndyCar needs is the cars not driving at full speed for 20-30 seconds. I understand not wanting to have a full course caution, but IndyCar should have something to slow the race without it fully resetting and bunching the field. There is a solution, and it is frustrating that for a decade now IndyCar has not even attempted to adopt it.
As for the VeeKay incident, I get not wanting a caution to completely mix up the race and the top five drivers dropping to 16th because they waited to make their pit stop. A VSC would allow pit stops to occur without having cars fly pass VeeKay's stranded race car at full speed. If you do have VSC, it can still mix up the running order because you will have drivers who catch it and do not lose as much time on an out lap. We have seen plenty of VSC periods shoot drivers up four or five spots. It isn't necessarily the driver who was in 16th jumping up to first because no one else has made a pit stop yet, but it can be a six or seven-spot jump.
It is 2025. The Virtual Safety Car conversation better be happening after this weekend. There are no more excuses.
18. Let's round out the rest of the field, and it can be done in two incidents.
At the start, Kyffin Simpson plowed into the back of Felix Rosenqvist. Simpson's race was over after six corners. Rosenqvist continued, but he lost a lap and had no chance to contend in this race. It is a shame because Rosenqvist should have been in the Fast Six if it wasn't for causing a local yellow when he had a qualifying lap that was already safe to making the last round. Rosenqvist was poised to be going forward in this race, and that opportunity never arose.
Jacob Abel ran off in the hairpin and Abel's race was over after ten laps. I don't know if it is the car. Rinus VeeKay has been making Dale Coyne Racing look good, but this is the same team that couldn't get a car to finish better than 13th last year. There are still deficiencies with this team, but Abel's struggles suggest it is more than the car.
19. It was a good race, and this feels like it was the best Laguna Seca crowd since it returned to the schedule in 2019. It wasn't spectacular, but it was better. I think Laguna Seca should move to March if IndyCar needs to fill the gap early in the season. Prior to this weekend, the crowds at Laguna Seca have been so dismal that I don't think it mattered if the race was held in September, June, July or March, it would be what it was. If you aren't packing the place in June, then why not run it in March? The date wasn't making a difference.
I still feel Laguna Seca should move to March because it looks like IndyCar's early season gap will be a problem in 2026, and IndyCar doesn't need to race four consecutive weekends in July with it culminating in a trip to California. I know the issues with Laguna Seca in March. It is the rainy season, 90% of the parking is dirt, it will be muddy and a mess and a negative experience for most in attendance.
I say it is worth it. I am sure we can figure out a way to park as many people as possible on paved surfaces. There is a chance the weather isn't terrible and it isn't a mud bowl and 2,000 people aren't requiring a tow truck to get home. You weigh the risks. For IndyCar, it loses too much at the start of the season because mostly absent over the first two months to think a month of consecutive races makes up for it. It doesn't.
IndyCar needs to be present early in the season, and run races on a regular basis. It cannot take three weeks off or four weeks off between the first two races. That is fucking stupid. Fill the gap with Laguna Seca. Spread the summer races out so teams aren't working four consecutive weekends and going all across North America. Let's not act like IndyCar making this adjustments will hurt the series. The adjustments to the current schedule are how we got to our current situation.
20. There was not a single person between Laguna Seca management and IndyCar who remembered the marine layer in Monterey doesn't burn off until about 10:00 a.m. each morning? I have only been to Laguna Seca once in my life, and it is probably the thing that stuck out the most. Twice in three days on-track activity was held because the medical helicopter could not get clearance. That was avoidable.
We should note that part of this schedule is down to television, and it isn't about a practice being held at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. It is a practice being held at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. Eastern time dictates the schedule. IndyCar could have waited, but it wouldn't get the broadcast window it desired. The series wanted the FS1 window. It got it, but no practice took place. How beneficial was that schedule after all? The same thing occurred with the second Indy Lights race, which was postponed from Sunday morning to 6:30 p.m. ET.
This is a learning situation that shouldn't be a learning situation because there are enough adults making these decisions that should know better.
21. We get a week off, and then we are onto Portland for what will be Álex Palou's crowning weekend.
Morning Warm-Up: Laguna Seca 2025
Álex Palou won his fifth pole position of the season with a lap of 68.3413 seconds around Laguna Seca in the final round of qualifying ahead of today's Grand Prix of Monterey. It is the 11th pole position of Palou's career. He has won from pole position seven times, including last year at Laguna Seca. He has never finished worse than fourth when starting one pole position. Palou could become the seventh driver to win consecutive Laguna Seca races. Each of the previous six consecutive winners did it for different teams, and none of those teams were Chip Ganassi Racing. A victory would be Palou's third at Laguna Seca. Only one driver has won more than twice at Laguna Seca. That is Bobby Rahal, who won four consecutive times at the track.
Patricio O'Ward was 0.2867 seconds slower than Palou in the final round of qualifying, but O'Ward makes its a clean sweep of the front row for the top two drivers in the championship. This is the first time O'Ward has started second in a race since Mid-Ohio last year, a race where Palou started on pole position. Palou led 53 laps that day, but O'Ward took the lead through the final pit cycle and led the final 24 laps on his way to victory. With his victory at Toronto last week, O'Ward has four top five finishes for the first time in his IndyCar career.
Colton Herta will start third after falling 0.5411 seconds off Palou's best lap in the final round of qualifying. This is Herta's seventh time starting on one of the first two rows this season. His best finish in 2025 was third at Detroit, and he has finished fourth on three other occasions. Herta has finished on the podium in three of five Laguna Seca starts. In the other two, he finished outside the top ten. Herta has never finished better than or equal to his starting position when starting third in a race.
Josef Newgarden qualified fourth, Newgarden's best starting position on a road or street course since he started third at Detroit in June 2024. This is his third time starting in the top five in the last four races. The other two races were at Iowa. After finishing in the top ten in his first three Laguna Seca starts, Newgarden has finished 21st and 19th in his last two trips to Monterey. His only top five finish on a road or street course this season was third at St. Petersburg.
Will Power is a spot behind his Team Penske teammate in fifth. Power opened the season with four top five finishes and five top ten finishes in the first seven races. In the last six races, he was third in one race, but he has finished outside the top ten in the other five, and Power's average finish during that span is 17.5. The Australian has four top ten finishes in five Laguna Seca starts. That includes two podium finishes and three top five results
David Malukas will start sixth. This is the seventh time in the last nine races Malukas has qualified in the top ten. With finishes of fourth and ninth in the last two races, Malukas is aiming for his first three-race top ten finish streak of his career. His best Laguna Seca finish was 13th in 2022. Malukas has finished on the lead lap in 12 of 13 races this season. His lone retirement was due to a mechanical failure in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Christian Lundgaard has car #7 starting seventh after falling 0.0202 seconds short of making the final round of qualifying. Lundgaard had started 19th or worse in the last three races. Lundgaard had finished in the top ten in his first two Laguna Seca starts before he finished 15th last year. The Dane's average finish over the first seven races this season was 6.714. His average finish over the last six races is 13.5.
Graham Rahal starts eighth, Rahal's third consecutive race starting inside the top ten. It is the first time Rahal has started in the top ten for three consecutive races since a five-race streak starting in the 2019 season finale and stretching through the first four races of 2020. In five Laguna Seca starts, Rahal has an average finish of 17th, and he has finished 18th or worse in the last three visits. In the last two years, Rahal has been caught in an opening lap accident.
Louis Foster is a spot behind his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammate in ninth. Foster is one of five drivers entered in this race with Indy Lights victories at Laguna Seca. Three drivers have won at Laguna Seca in Indy Lights and IndyCar. They would be Bryan Herta, Cristiano da Matta and Scott Dixon. Jimmy Vasser and Patrick Carpentier are the only driver to win in Atlantics and IndyCar at Laguna Seca.
Marcus Armstrong rounds out the top ten, his best starting position in three trips to Laguna Seca. Last week, Armstrong was 14th at Toronto after starting third. That is his best finish from a top five starting position. In his previous three starts inside the top five, he failed to finish better than 24th. Though he has started in the top ten in seven races this season, only four of those races ended in top ten finishes. Armstrong had finished on the lead lap in seven consecutive races, the longest streak of his IndyCar career.
Christian Rasmussen will start 11th, his second-best starting position of the season and only the second time he has started inside the top fifteen in 2025. The Dane started tenth at Detroit. This is only the sixth time Rasmussen has started inside the top fifteen in his IndyCar career. While Rasmussen has finished in the top ten in his last four oval starts, he has failed to finish in the top ten in 14 consecutive road/street course races.
Felix Rosenqvist caused a local yellow late in the second round, and it cost Rosenqvist his fastest qualifying lap, which was second fastest in the round. Instead, Rosenqvist was relegated to 12th on the starting grid. In five Laguna Seca races, Rosenqvist has two top five finishes, two finishes of 19th, and an 11th. In 2019, he started 14th and finished fifth after causing a local yellow prevented Rosenqvist from advancing from the first round of qualifying.
Scott McLaughlin was 0.1101 seconds from making it out of the first qualifying group, and McLaughlin will start 13th at Laguna Seca. This is his fifth consecutive race starting outside the top ten. McLaughlin has finished outside the top twenty in three of the last four races. Laguna Seca is the 14th race of the season. He has finished in the top ten of the 14th race of the season in the last four season.
Kyffin Simpson fell 0.0405 seconds shy of advancing from the second qualifying group, placing the Caymanian in 14th starting spot. Simpson is coming off his first career podium finish as he was third in Toronto. It was Simpson's 30th career start. Prior to Simpson, the last driver to have a first career podium finish in the 30th start of a career was Josef Newgarden.
Marcus Ericsson is starting 15th. Ericsson had started 18th in his last two visits to Laguna Seca. The Swede scored his first top five finish in 13 races after he was fifth in Toronto last week. Ericsson has not had consecutive top five finishes since 2022 when he was fourth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and then won the Indianapolis 500. His best finish at Laguna Seca is sixth.
Nolan Siegel will be on the outside of row eight as Siegel was 0.0784 seconds slower than the time needed to make it out of the second qualifying group. He had qualified in the top fifteen in the five races prior to this weekend. Siegel made his Arrow McLaren debut last year at Laguna Seca. He went from 23rd to 12th in that race.
Rinus VeeKay will be 17th on the grid. VeeKay was second last week at Toronto, Dale Coyne Racing's best finish since the 2022 Gateway race. The last time Dale Coyne Racing has had consecutive podium finishes was the first two races in 2017 with Sébastien Bourdais winning at St. Petersburg and finishing second at Long Beach.
A bobble in the final corner of Kyle Kirkwood's final qualifying lap cost Kirkwood over two-tenths of a second, and instead of advancing to the second round, Kirkwood will start 18th as he was 0.1124 seconds off advancing. After three consecutive top five finishes in the month of June, Kirkwood does not have a top five finish in month of July. Last season, Kirkwood finished in the top five in all three June races, and he had only two top five finishes in the nine following races.
Scott Dixon has his worst starting position at Laguna Seca with Dixon taking 19th spot. This is the third time in four Laguna Seca races he is starting outside the top ten. He won from 11th in 2023. This is the ninth time in 14 races this season Dixon is starting outside the top ten. Prior to last year's opening lap accident at Portland, Dixon had finished on the podium in the 14th race of the season in six consecutive seasons.
Santino Ferrucci is starting 20th, the 13th time in 14 races he has qualified outside the top ten. Ferrucci's ninth-place finish last year at Laguna Seca was A.J. Foyt Racing's best result at the circuit since it returned to the calendar in 2019. The team's best finish at the track is eighth, which came in 1992 with Mike Groff. Ferrucci started 17th in last year's race. Seven of his last eight top ten finishes have come from starting spots outside the top ten.
Jacob Abel has his second-best starting position of the season in 21st. Abel's best qualifying effort was 20th at Detroit last month. The only other time he has started better than 25th was at Thermal Club where he rolled off from the 23rd position. Abel's best finish on a permanent road course this season was 22nd at Mid-Ohio earlier this month.
Alexander Rossi has his worst starting position at Laguna Seca as the Californian will start 22nd, the ninth consecutive time Rossi is starting outside the top ten this season. Rossi has finished outside the top fifteen in the last three races. This is the first time Rossi has finished outside the top fifteen in three consecutive races in his career.
Conor Daly finds himself in 23rd grid position. This is Daly's second worst starting position of the season. He started 25th at Detroit last month. This is the seventh time he has started outside the top twenty this season, but it is the first time he has started outside the top twenty in consecutive races in 2025. In three Laguna Seca starts, Daly has an average finish of 20.667 with his best result being 16th.
Callum Ilott is to Daly's outside on row 12. Ilott scored his first top ten finish of the season last week with an eighth in Toronto. Only once has Ilott had consecutive top ten finishes. That was in the first two races of the 2023 season at St. Petersburg and Texas. Ilott was fifth in his last Laguna Seca appearance two years ago.
Robert Shwartzman had started in the top twenty in the last three races, but that streak ends with Shwartzman qualifying 25th for this race. Shwartzman is looking for his first top fifteen finish on a road or street circuit. His best starting spot on a road course was 17th at Road America. Shwartzman has finished better than his starting spot in six of nine road/street course races this season.
Sting Ray Robb is starting 26th. This is the fourth consecutive race Robb is starting outside the top twenty, and his ninth time starting outside the top twenty this season. Robb has finished in the top twenty in both his Laguna Seca starts. He was 12th in 2023 before finishing 20th last year. His only victory in Indy Lights came at Laguna Seca in 2022.
Devlin DeFrancesco had a spin in qualifying and the Canadian will take 27th on the grid, matching his worst starting position of the season. DeFrancesco started 27th at Barber Motorsports Park in April. DeFrancesco had finishes of 15th and 22nd in his first two Laguna Seca starts. He has retired from the last two races.
Fox's coverage of the JavaHouse Grand Prix of Monterey will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:22 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 95 laps.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Track Walk: Laguna Seca 2025
The 14th round of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season will be run at Laguna Seca as IndyCar wil be spending a few weekends on the west coast this summer. Though Chevrolet scored its second victory of the season in the most recent round at Toronto, it is likely not thrilled heading to Monterey. Honda is five-for-five at the circuit since it returned to the schedule in 2019. During that time, Chevrolet drivers have combined to led 71 of 470 laps. The most laps a Chevrolet driver has led in a single Laguna Seca race is 17. Chip Ganassi Racing has won the last three Laguna Seca races. Only one team has won four consecutive Laguna Seca races. That was Truesports when Bobby Rahal won four consecutive years from 1984 through 1987.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday July 27 with green flag scheduled for 3:22 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.
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: 5:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 11:30 a.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:30 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-up: 12:02 p.m. ET (25 minutes)
Race: 3:22 p.m. ET (90 laps)
Qualifying: 2:30 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-up: 12:02 p.m. ET (25 minutes)
Race: 3:22 p.m. ET (90 laps)
FS2 will have coverage of Friday practice session while FS1 will have coverage of Saturday's sessions. FS2 will show the Sunday morning warm-up. Fox will have race coverage.
Championship Picture
We haven't considered the championship picture much in IndyCar because it has been pretty clear since the middle of May. This is Álex Palou's championship. Everyone else is competing for second.
With four races remaining in the 2025 season, it is only right to lay out the picture even if the result seems inevitable.
IndyCar will enter Laguna Seca with four drivers mathematically alive for the title. Behind Palou, who has scored 536 points, an average of 41.2307 points per start, is Patricio O'Ward on 437 points. O'Ward trimmed the deficit to 99 points after his victory in Toronto while Palou finished 12th, only the second time Palou has not finished inside the top ten this season.
Kyle Kirkwood sits on 363 points while Scott Dixon is point behind Kirkwood on 362 points, deficits of 173 points and 174 points respectively to the championship leader.
The top four in the championship are the only four race winners this season. We are at least guaranteed the champion will have a race victory this season.
In the case of Palou, it is looking at a magic number, and that number is currently 117. That is the number of points Palou must score over the final four races to clinch the championship.
If O'Ward were to sweep the final four events and score the maximum of 54 points in each race, O'Ward would end on 653 points. Despite what would be a tremendous end to the season, such a streak would leave O'Ward with only six victories, and Palou's seven victories means the Catalan driver has the tiebreaker locked up.
The good news for Palou is 117 points is not entirely difficult for him to achieve over the final month-plus of the season. That is an average of 29.25 points per race. That is just worse than a fifth-place finish in each of the final four events. In the previous four races alone Palou scored 150 points, and that is including his 12th-place finish in Toronto.
There is no combination of four races this season in which Palou has not scored at least 117 points. His worst four-race stretch is the Indianapolis 500, Detroit where he was 25th after being knocked into the barrier from contact with David Malukas, Gateway where he was eighth, and Road America. In those four races, Palou still scored 138 points thanks to victories in the bookend races.
Palou could be second to O'Ward in each of the final four races with no bonus points to help in the effort, and Palou would still claim the championship by 43 points with the title still sealed before we get to the Nashville finale.
As for Kirkwood and Dixon, their championship hopes are on their last legs limbing into Laguna Seca. Both drivers will need to outscore Palou in Northern California to remain alive onto Portland. Any driver 162 points or greater behind Palou after this weekend will be mathematically eliminated from the championship.
Laguna Seca is likely the last track everyone wanted to see on the schedule. In four starts, Palou has won twice, and he has finished second and third in the other two races. His average points scored in a Laguna Seca race is 46.25.
The Unsung Drivers of the Season
While Palou has been getting all the attention at the top, and O'Ward, Kirkwood and Dixon have all had respectable seasons in their own ways, there are a few drivers who have not been getting the love and attention they deserve. Two drivers are hard to ignore after Toronto.
In Canada, Rinus VeeKay pulled off a second-place finish after running a 44-lap second stint of the race. The Dutchman led 16 laps before O'Ward leaped ahead of him in the final pit cycle. Though a position short of victory, Toronto was VeeKay's first podum finish in 59 starts. It was Dale Coyne Racing's first podium finish in 31 races, but it was Coyne's first street course podium finish since Sébastien Bourdais won the 2018 season opener at St. Petersburg.
This season has been more than one result for VeeKay and Coyne. Toronto was VeeKay's seventh top ten finish of the season. Last year, Dale Coyne Racing's best finish was 13th. VeeKay had seven top ten finishes all of last season, and this year has matched his most in a single season. Through 13 races, he has more top ten finishes than all three Penske drivers, Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson. VeeKay's average finish of 12.923 ranks 11th in IndyCar and is also better than all three Penske drivers.
All these results have VeeKay 11th in the championship on 252 points, seven points outside the championship top ten. VeeKay has never finished better than 12th in the championship in five seasons, and Dale Coyne Racing hasn't had a driver finish in the championship top ten since Bourdais in 2018.
VeeKay wasn't the only surprise on the podium in Toronto. Kyffin Simpson was third, his first career podium finish in his 30th career start. It was also Simpson's second top five finish of the season as he was fifth at Detroit last month. In four street races in 2025, Simpson had an average finish of ninth, but he was in the top ten in three of the four races with 18th at St. Petersburg skewing the average. If you go based on median position, Simpson's was 7.5. On average finish, Simpson was tied for the sixth-best on street courses this season. Last year, he ranked 22nd out of drivers who started at least three street races.
Ranked 14th in the championship on 226 points, Simpson has already surpassed his 2024 points total by 44 points with four races remaining in the season. He actually beat his 2024 points total of 182 when he finished 13th at Iowa the week before Toronto.
Meyer Shank Racing is having a banner season across the board. Both its drivers are ranked in the championship top ten entering the final four races. Felix Rosenqvist is in sixth with Marcus Armstrong in seventh. Both MSR drivers are ahead of all three Team Penske drivers and they are ahead of 2/3rds of the Andretti Global organization as well.
Rosenqvist has four top five results and eight top ten finishes. Prior to finishing 14th at Toronto, Armstrong entered on a string of six consecutive top ten results, which included a third at Toronto. This season, Armstrong has eight top ten finishes, one fewer than he had all of last season with Chip Ganassi Racing.
The results aren't only coming in the race for MSR. Rosenqvist has the second-best average starting position this season at 8.923, behind only Palou's 3.538. Armstrong is sixth at 10.615.
The Rookies
We are nearly through the rookie season for a trio of drivers in 2025, and let's just say it has been a learning experience for all three.
No rookie ranks in the top twenty of the championship, and we are on the verge of a historic first. There has not been a season where the rookie of the year did not finish in the top twenty of the championship since the 1986 CART season.
In that 1986 season, Chip Robinson was the top rookie in 26th, but Robinson competed in only two races and he scored six points for his seventh-place finish in the season finale in Miami. Only five rookies made a start that season, and none of them started more than nine races. Dominic Dobson made the most starts and he was 30th in the championship on three points, the same points total as rookie Mike Nish, who was tenth at Portland, but Nish made only two other starts that season. The other rookies in that 1986 season were Rick Miaskiewicz, who made five starts, and Rocky Moran, who started eight races.
In 2025, the top two rookies are tied on points with four races remaining.
Robert Shwartzman and Louis Foster have each scored 159 points through the first 13 races. The tiebreaker goes to Shwartzman though. The Prema driver has two top ten finishes this season. He was ninth in the second Iowa race and tenth at Gateway. Foster is still looking for that first carer top ten finish, and he has finished 11th in two races while he was the top finishing rookie in the Indianapolis 500 in 12th. Shwartzman, however, took Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors after winning pole position though he ended up 26th in the results after an accident on pit lane.
Foster has finished in the top fifteen in more races this season with seven such results. Shwartzman's only top fifteen results are his two top ten finishes. He best finish on a road or street course this season is 16th. Foster's 11th-place finishes were in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and at Mid-Ohio, where Foster started on pole position.
Foster will have a slight advantage over the final four races. He has raced at all these circuits in Indy Lights, and not only has he raced at them, he has won at them. His first career Indy Lights victory came at Portland in 2023. Foster swept a doubleheader at Laguna Seca last year before capping off his season with victories at Milwaukee and Nashville. He was second at the Portland race last year for good measure.
Jacob Abel is bringing up the rear in the three-horse rookie race. Abel is 27th in the championship on 95 points. Though his best finish was 11th in the second Iowa race, Abel has finished outside the top twenty in ten of 12 starts this year, and he did fail to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.
Shwartzman and Foster have each been the best finishing rookie in six races this season while Abel's 11th at Iowa was his only time as the best rookie through 13 races.
All three will have some work to do if they look to avoid making history for the first time in 39 years. Shwartzman and Foster are currently 36 points outside the top twenty. Marcus Ericsson and Graham Rahal are tied for 19th in the championship on 195 points. Ericsson holds the tiebreaker with his best finish being fifth to Rahal's best finish being sixth.
The End of the Marathon
July has been a busy month for IndyCar. The series did not take a weekend off and Laguna Seca concludes a four-week, five-race marathon that began in Ohio, went west to Iowa for a doubleheader, crossed the border into Toronto, and will now make a 2,734-mile trek to Laguna Seca. All five races all have occurred in a 22-day period.
When this stretch began, IndyCar had only seen two race winners in the 2025 season. During this marathon, the number of race winners has doubled. Honda started this run unbeaten. It has since lost twice. Álex Palou had only one career victory on an oval. Palou now has two. Scott Dixon had won a race in 20 consecutive seasons. Dixon has now won in 21 consecutive seasons.
The marathon did not slow Palou. He has finished in the top five three times. Only Patricio O'Ward has finished in the top five of all four races. Dixon joins Palou and O'Ward as the only drivers with multiple podium finishes over this period.
Other than Palou, everyone in the top six of the championship has a different position. O'Ward and Kyle Kirkwood have flipped with O'Ward now in second while Kirkwood is third. It has gone from Kirkwood up 18 points on O'Ward to O'Ward leading Kirkwood by 74 points. Kirkwood has not finished in the top five in the month of July. Dixon has moved from fifth to fourth while Christian Lundgaard is up to fifth from sixth. Felix Rosenqvist has dropped two spots in the championship to sixth.
Marcus Armstrong's strong July has shot him up to seventh in the championship from 11th to seventh. Colton Herta has gained two spots to move up to eighth. Along with Palou, O'Ward and Dixon, Herta is the only driver with multiple top five finishes in July. Meanwhile, Will Power has fallen two spots to ninth while David Malukas is up two spots to tenth. Rinus VeeKay is up three positions to 11th while Santino Ferrucci is down three positions to 12th. Missing the Toronto race after his accident in the morning warm-up session cost Ferrucci two positions alone in the championship. He was tenth when he entered Canada.
Scott McLaughlin and Alexander Rossi will be looking forward for this stretch to end. McLaughlin was eighth in the championship at the start of July. He has now dropped to 13th in the championship as his average finish this month is 19.75. Though he was fourth in the first Iowa race, McLaughlin has finished 23th or worse in the other three races.
Rossi was 13th in the championship heading to Mid-Ohio. Heading to Laguna Seca, he is down to 18th in the championship as his average finish in July is 20.5 with his best result being 15th.
It has been a rough year in general for Josef Newgarden, but he has actually made some gains in July. He was 17th in the championship but he is now 16th thanks to a pair of top ten finishes in Iowa.
After Laguna Seca, there will only be 35 days remaining in the 2025 IndyCar season.
Indy Lights
There are actually more races remaining in the Indy Lights season than the IndyCar season. That is partially down to a doubleheader for the junior series held this weekend at Laguna Seca.
Dennis Hauger extended his championship by a good margin after Hauger was runner-up at Iowa while his nearest championship rival Lochie Hughes was 16th after a spin in the race. Hauger has 414 points, a 76-point advantage over his Andretti Global teammate Hughes.
Caio Collet is 18 points behind Hughes after the Brazilian was fourth in Iowa, Collet's seventh consecutive top five finish this season. Collet has finished in the top five of all but one race this year, and that was 19th at Barber Motorsports Park.
Myles Rowe won at Iowa, his first career victory in the series, and he now has 287 points in fourth. Through nine races, Rowe has seven top five finishes and eight top ten results. Last year, Rowe opened the season with five consecutive top ten finishes, but he ended with only two in the final nine races and he finished outside the top fifteen in five of the final nine races.
Salvador de Alba was third at Iowa, and de Alba is fifth in the championship on 258 points, 15 points clear of Josh Pierson. Callum Hedge extended his streak of sixth-place finishes to three consecutive races after Iowa. This has Hedge seventh in the championship on 217 points.
There is a 41-point gulf from Hedge to Jordan Missig in eighth. Missig has finished in the top ten in the last two races after having not finished in the top ten since the St. Petersburg season opener. Niels Koolen's fifth-place finish at Iowa lifted him to ninth in the championship, tied with Jack William Miller on 169 points. Miller's best finish this season is seventh.
With 270 points left on the table, Bryce Aron and James Roe are still mathematically alive for the championship with 160 points and 148 points respectively. Ricardo Escotto sits exactly 270 points behind Hauger in the championship, and Escotto could match Hauger on five victories, however, Hauger would own the tiebreaker as Hauger has a pair of runner-up finishes while Escotto's best result from the first nine races is ninth.
The first Indy Lights race will be 4:36 p.m. ET on Saturday July 26 with the second race Sunday July 27 at 1:06 p.m. ET. Both races are scheduled for 35 laps or 55 minutes.
Fast Facts
This will be the seventh IndyCar race to take place on July 27 and the first since 2003 when CART and the Indy Racing League each held an event. Paul Tracy won at Vancouver and Alex Barron won at Michigan.
On that day in 2003, Louis Foster was born.
Foster could become the 11th driver to win on his birthday in IndyCar history.
The ten birthday winners are Dario Resta (August 19, 1916), Joe Boyer (May 30, 1924), Lou Moore (September 12, 1931), Tony Bettenhausen (September 12, 1953), Al Unser (May 29, 1971), Nigel Mansell (August 8, 1993), Sam Hornish, Jr. (July 2, 2006), Scott Dixon (July 22, 2007), and Dan Wheldon (June 22, 2008).
At 22 years old, Foster would become the youngest birthday winner in IndyCar history.
The youngest age for a birthday winner is 27, and it has happened three times. Moore, Hornish, Jr. and Dixon all won on their 27th birthdays.
Foster would become the first driver in IndyCar history to have a first career victory occur on his birthday.
Scott Dixon was the fifth-place finisher in that 2003 IRL race from Michigan. It was Dixon's 49th career start and he had four career victories.
The average starting position for a Laguna Seca winner is 3.111 with a median of first.
Seventeen of 27 Laguna Seca races have been won from pole position.
The Laguna Seca pole-sitter has never gone three consecutive races without a victory. Prior to Álex Palou's victory from pole position last year, the previous two Laguna Seca races were won from 11th.
Twenty-three of 27 Laguna Seca races have been won from a top three starting position.
The average number of lead changes in a Laguna Seca race is 3.4814 with a median of three.
Four of the five Laguna Seca races since 2019 have had at least six lead changes. Prior to this stretch, only three of the first 22 Laguna Seca races had at least six lead changes.
The average number of cautions in a Laguna Seca race is 2.074 with a median of one. The average number of caution laps is 8.3703 with a median of eight.
The last two Laguna Seca races have had at least five caution periods. Prior to 2023, only once in the first 25 races at the track had more than four cautions. That was the 2001 race, which had eight cautions.
The 2023 Laguna Seca race had a record-tying eight cautions and a record-breaking 35 caution laps.
There have been six caution-free races at Laguna Seca, most recently in 1997.
Predictions
We are riding the Álex Palou bandwagon into Laguna Seca, and Honda will have a glorious day with Colton Herta and Felix Rosenqvist finishing on the podium. All three Team Penske cars will finish in the top ten, but none will finish in the top five. Louis Foster will get his first career top ten finish on his birthday, and Foster will leave Laguna Seca as the top rookie in the championship. There will be no withdrawals on Sunday morning. There will be fewer than three cautions. Someone will start outside the top twenty and finish inside the top ten. Sleeper: Callum Ilott.
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