First Impressions: Milwaukee 2025

1. One spritz of rain with just over 40 laps to go completely flipped IndyCar's penultimate race of the season from Milwaukee. Álex Palou had this race in the bag. It was set to be one of Palou's most dominant performances of the season, but a quick spritz turned the race upside down, and produced a first-time winner in Christian Rasmussen almost from out of nowhere. 

For some reason, the top three drivers, Palou along with Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden, did not come to the pit lane under that final caution despite all the teams having a set of tires remaining. Every other lead lap car stopped, and it set up a thrilling finish, the likes we haven't really seen since Iowa 2014. 

Palou and company would have some buffer of the lapped cars to those on fresher tires, but with just over 30 laps to go when the race restarted, they would eventually lose that protection and it would be down to whether or not time would be on their side. 

Patricio O'Ward was in fourth, the first car on new tires, but Alexander Rossi quickly dispatched O'Ward. However, as they battled with traffic, Christian Rasmussen clawed his way forward and passed both O'Ward and Rossi, and Rasmussen was soon the leader of those on new tires. 

Rasmussen got through Newgarden and he was up to second ahead of McLaughlin with 20 laps to go. It felt like time was on Rasmussen's side, but Palou tried his best to outrun the Dane. However, the tire advantage inevitably swung in Rasmussen's favor. Palou did all he could to hold off Rasmussen, but Rasmussen made his move and took the lead with 15 laps to go.

Palou fought back and kept it close, but the tires were gone. Paou was never going to have enough to counter the pass Rasmussen had completed. 

However, Rasmussen might have been his own worst enemy and greatest obstacle to victory, pushing the car to the limit as he has become known for doing. He kept making risky moves, including lapping Felix Rosenqvist to the outside on exit of turn two. The tires were in his favor, but this race was not settled strictly because it was unclear if Rasmussen, in an unknown position, would step over the edge and cost himself the greatest day of his career. 

Despite the twitches and the quick reactionary moves, Rasmussen held on and took a stunning victory to make him the 300th winner in IndyCar history. 

He drove really well in this race and was competitive. He was making passes, and he actually had to comeback from a pit lane speeding penalty early, but that occurred under caution and all he had to do was going to the rear of the field. This was going to be a top ten day for Rasmussen, but it would not have been a victory without a brief spritz of rain. 

It is ironic enough that Rasmussen wins this race two weeks after he was under a microscope for his driving at Portland. He has essentially completed two full seasons in IndyCar, and what has stood out the most about Rasmussen is his aggression. He will put a car on the limit and take a competitor with him. There is never say die attitude from Rasmussen, but at times it can come off as unwarranted and risky to others on the track. There are plenty who are not thrilled to see him on track because he can be a little reckless. 

Over his two years, Rasmussen has had good oval races, but he has mostly been mid-pack. That is kind of where Ed Carpenter Racing has been for an extended period of time. The form hasn't been the strongest on the road courses, but when it comes to ovals, Rasmussen has shined. This year alone he has been one of the best on ovals. Entering this race, three drivers had finished in the top ten of all four oval races, Patricio O'Ward, Palou and Rasmussen. Rasmussen had an aggressive drive lead to a podium at Gateway, but I don't think anyone saw a victory coming this season, not with the competition in this field. 

Rasmussen looked good, but when you consider what the first 200 laps of this race looked like, it required an act of God for Rasmussen to win this race. It appears the Almighty wiped the sweat from his brow on this sabbath, and those drops fell on the Milwaukee Mile, blessing Rasmussen to accomplish the unthinkable.

2.  Why didn't Álex Palou stop for tires? With 40 laps to go and under caution, it felt obvious to take tires. This final stint was going to be 54 laps, a little longer than most had drive all race. Taking tires under the caution would have meant at most 32 green flag laps would be run on this new set. 

All I can think is Palou's team didn't want to be caught as the only driver to come in and restart 15th after leading all race. However, if Palou was the only car on new tires with 30 laps to go, I think he would have had a great shot of driving back to first before the checkered flag.

There was nothing Palou could do when Rasmussen got around McLaughlin. Palou drove probably the hardest he has driven all season, and the fact he was still within two seconds of Rasmussen at the checkered flag is impressive, but this one got away because Chip Ganassi Racing did not bring in Álex Palou for a set of tires that just said their unused. 

If Palou stops, I still think a dozen other drivers stop and at worse Palou is restarting fourth or fifth. It is a shame that this one got away. Gone is a potential share of the record for most victories in a season, but that is a champagne problem for Palou and company. It has still been a great season, one of the best we have ever seen in IndyCar.

3. Scott McLaughlin still held on for third on his older tires.

This is one of those cases, and we see it once or twice a season on a road or street course, where the winner had the alternate strategy but then the next two or three drivers ran the typical strategy, and it seems like either was the right choice.

We had this last year with Scott Dixon at Long Beach. Dixon won stretching the fuel, but the next five drivers ran hard and finished ahead of the next driver who was stretching fuel, and that was Will Power in sixth. Did Scott Dixon run the right strategy or was Dixon the one guy to make it the alternate work while the other strategy appears to have been better considering the rest of the finishers behind the winner?

I think taking tires was the right choice. After all, there was over nine seconds between Palou in second and McLaughlin in third. McLaughlin wasn't close to victory, but he benefitted from some of the lapped cars and only Rasmussen made it through them in a quick fashion. By the time Alexander Rossi and Patricio O'Ward got through the traffic, their tires had lost their edge and McLaughlin could hold on for a podium and a good day.

4. Considering Alexander Rossi sprinted immediately to victory lane and met Rasmussen with his helmet still on, I doubt Rossi feels any regret that he didn't win this race and blew a chance to be the man driving into victory lane, though he was positioned to be that guy. Rossi was the top driver on the new tires until Rasmussen came blazing through. Rossi couldn't even pass McLaughlin. If he couldn't pass McLaughlin, Rossi wasn't going to win this race. 

What Rossi is most excited about is he spent the entire race in the top ten and pushing for a top five result. He stopped early on the first pit cycle and it took him from the bottom of the top ten into the top five. He had to fight a bit, but he drove a stellar race. 

Perhaps age played a role and a level of aggression you don't have after years of experience and knowing better allowed Rasmussen to take the risks required to win this race. Maybe Rossi knew better while Rasmussen had no clue and acted on instinct. 

5. Patricio O'Ward came out of the pit lane first under that final caution, and he was fourth at the restart, but O'Ward lost that advantage immediately, and once it was gone, he was settled for a fight just to finish in the top five and not go for the victory. 

O'Ward took a risk like the rest of them. The opportunity was there for fresh rubber and an extra pit stop would be the only way to win this race. If that caution doesn't come out and O'Ward finishes fifth, no one is looking at it as a disappointing result. We shouldn't either.

6. Christian Lundgaard had likely his best oval race. Lundgaard stopped early on the first pit cycle and jumped into the top ten, and he spent the rest of the race in a top ten spot. It was a good day. Sixth might have been a little better than expected. He needed a day like this though as he continues to develop on ovals.

7. Josef Newgarden slipped from third to seventh on his older tires. Newgarden made a nice save that cost him a few spots though. This one hurts because Newgarden should have been on the podium today. My question is if Team Penske had two of the top three, more specifically, if it had second and third, why didn't it split its strategies and have one car take tires while the other stayed out? 

I don't understand how Penske missed that. Newgarden has had a wretched season. Why not roll the dice and be on the offensive in the closing laps? With ten or 15 laps to go, I could understand not stopping, but there was going to be about 30 laps to go when the race restarted, and those tires the top three had on were asked to go a little longer than anyone dared earlier in the race. The safe strategy was stopping. 

This stinks because it was a missed opportunity, and one the likes of Tim Cindric would not have overlooked. 

8. David Malukas salvaged his day with an eighth-place finish. Malukas ran well and was in the top five. Then in the middle of the race, an air gun issue caused Malukas to lose a lap as the team could not get the right front tire secured in a quick fashion. He spent much of the second half of the race outside the top fifteen. However, IndyCar's overly forgiving wave around rules got Malukas back on the lead lap and he could benefit from taking tires on that final caution. He drove to finish eighth but this will feel like a missed opportunity.

Malukas led early from Palou, but Palou had the better car. Malukas wasn't beating Palou in a straight-up fight. Nobody was beating Palou straight-up today. Either way, Malukas likely believed he should have been competing for a podium spot and finishing ahead of at least one Team Penske driver. Instead, he finished ahead of none. It was a good recovery for something that was out of his control.

9. Scott Dixon didn't have the best day and he finished ninth. It felt like Dixon was between 12th and 14th this entire race. He never really went forward after starting 14th due to his grid penalty. He didn't make any big moves in this race. It never was quite his day. 

10. Marcus Armstrong pulled out a miraculous tenth-place finish because the team decided not to stop with just over 100 laps to go, the only car not to stop under that caution. Armstrong went from first to about ninth in a lap and he was down to 17th in about ten laps. It looked like the dumbest decision of the season, and he was going to finish a lap or two down in 18th after being just outside the top ten for most of the race.

However, that spritz blessed more than just Rasmussen. Armstrong was back on the lead lap, he could take that extra set of new tires, and he was able to drive to a top ten finish. The team "tried something different" by not stopping under that caution when staying out meant it was still a two-stop race from that point. It was a ballsy choice when it was clearly going to fail. The pit stand caught a break today. 

11. Colton Herta was 11th and Kyle Kirkwood was 12th. This was a better day than these results will show for each driver. Herta drove up to sixth from 24th on the grid, and he appeared to be a contender for a top five finish. Kirkwood spent most of the race in the top ten. However, both drivers lost spots in that final pit cycle and it appears both drivers were elbowed out of the top ten in the sprint to the finish. I am surprised it happened to Herta because he was moving forward the entire race.

It has been an odd end of the season for Andretti Global. Herta wasn't confident in his car after practice, was upset about his qualifying spin but brushed it off because he felt he wasn't going to be starting that well anyway, and then he was probably one of the best four or five drivers on track today, only to be freight-trained in the final sprint to the finish. 

Kirkwood drove well today but not great. He was going to finish eighth or ninth without that last caution. Not a great day, but a fine day, however Kirkwood has won three times this season and he hasn't been close to a victory since he won at Gateway.

We haven't even mentioned Marcus Ericsson was nowhere to be seen and finished 19th. I don't know what went wrong for Andretti Global in the second half of the season. On the surface, it doesn't appear they did anything drastic to cost the team its form.

12. Conor Daly probably should have finished in the top ten as well, but pit stops are Juncos Hollinger Raicng's kryptonite. Daly was in the top five in the early going, then he dropped to the lower part of the top ten after this first pit stop. He didn't have a good final stop when basically the entire field stopped. Daly drove well, but there is a limit of what he can get out of Juncos Hollinger Racing. 

I guess I should mentioned Sting Ray Robb was 23rd to cover JHR's entire day. It was a typical Sting Ray Robb performance. Slow. A lap down. At least he didn't get more attention than that.

13. Santino Ferrucci was 14th, and that was a generous result for Ferrucci, which is something we do not say often about him on ovals. Ferrucci wasn't good this weekend. He didn't have the speed, and David Malukas was quicker from the very start of practice. Ferrucci probably should have been 18th, 19th or 20th. He lost a lap. The only reason Ferrucci had a chance to finish this well was IndyCar's wave around rules. If drivers could not make a pit stop after taking the wave around, every oval race would have at least two or three drivers finishing about five to six spots worse than they actually end up.

14. Rinus VeeKay spent a fair amount of this race in the top ten, and VeeKay would have been better that 15th without that final caution. He lost all his ground in the final pit cycle. At the start of the season, I would have felt better about a 15th for VeeKay and Dale Coyne Racing, but they have been competitive across the board, and VeeKay started 11th today. These are a few too many points lost. It could have been worse, but it is ok to be upset that this should have been better.

15. Let's run through the field. Devlin DeFrancesco was 16th in a race where I honestly never noticed him, but that means he did nothing wrong. DeFrancesco was a spot ahead of his teammate Louis Foster, who was the first car to finish one lap down. Foster went the longest on the first pit cycle, but that trapped him a lap down for most of the race. He was actually a two laps down for a good portion. 

Graham Rahal had a half spin early in the race, it cost him ground, but he never recovered, finishing two laps down in 24th. I don't know what happened because Rahal qualified tenth. I understand that first stint being difficult because his tires were likely shot after that move. I don't know why Rahal didn't stop for tires after that. My guess is the team didn't want to get caught out if there was a late caution, but either way, Rahal fell like a rock and never looked quick after that incident. It was strange because he sounded hopeful after qualifying.

16. Robert Shwartzman was 18th, so he only lost one point in the rookie of the year battle to Louis Foster. At least we will have that to watch at Nashville. Shwartzman didn't do anything notable today. Good because it meant he didn't wreck. Bad because it meant he was slow. 

Callum Ilott lost an engine, which ended his top ten finish streak. That was always going to end today because neither Prema car was particularly quick. 

17. Kyffin Simpson was 20th. I don't know which Kyffin Simpson to believe. I think we can acknowledge Simpson got a few breaks to finish fifth in Detroit and third in Toronto, but there have been races where he has legitimately been about tenth, 11th or 12th. But then he has races like this where he wasn't any good. Ovals are definitely something he struggles with. 

18. Jacob Abel completed 248 laps and finished 21st. That is about as good as it can get for Abel at the moment. 

Felix Rosenqvist never looked quite right after his qualifying accident yesterday. That car was never right. It was slow. Rosenqvist had to suffer to finish 22nd. 

19. There were two notable accidents. Will Power got into the wall in turn two attempting to overtake the lapped car of Kyffin Simpson, and that damage led to Power spinning in turn four. Power was in a top five position at the time. 

I don't know if Power can do anything to save his job, but throwing away a top five run was likely not the best choice. However, it is another race where something went wrong for a Penske car. At least one of them has been snake-bitten in every race this season. 

Nolan Siegel spun exiting turn four on the opening lap and he will be scored with zero laps completed for this race. Siegel gets his fair amount of attention for everything he is not doing. He isn't any better than where he was a year ago when was wrapping up running the final ten races with Arrow McLaren. I am sure it can get better next year, but I would not be surprised if it doesn't in 2026. No glimmer of hope is breaking through.

When you consider how short of a leash some other drivers have gotten with McLaren, it would surprise no one if McLaren showed the Siegel family the door in the offseason and hired a third driver it thought could run with O'Ward and Lundgaard. At the moment, Siegel is not even close to those two. 

20. This was another great Milwaukee crowd. I acknowledge that due to the size of the grandstands, and grandstands that were covered with tarps, that was likely about 20,000 people, which is still good, but I think this event has a chance to grow even more. The people have bought in, but I believe IndyCar can get more out of this race. Road America gets more than double this on race day and that is an hour further north. 

IndyCar is heading in the right direction with Milwaukee, but the goal for 2026 is for all those covered grandstands in turn one to be open and filled with people.

21. I kind of wish Milwaukee was 50 laps longer and I kind of wish Milwaukee was the season finale. Nashville Superspeedway is 45 minutes outside of Nashville. Let's not act like IndyCar is giving up some grand location if it flipped Nashville to be the penultimate race. Both are drawing about the same size crowd, Milwaukee likely has more potential growth, and we have seen some pretty good racing over two years at Milwaukee. The fans love the fair vibe, and I think IndyCar can take that to the next level. It seems like a fun race just to be at, and if it was the finale, it could be the big party to end the season without having to do much more. All the infrastructure is already there because of the fairgrounds. That is a great foundation to start with and I think a great way for IndyCar to end the season would be with a 300-lap race at a historic venue. 

Embrace the history you have, IndyCar! Give this legendary venue its chance to shine. Hell, make the finale 400 laps and go wild! People would love it. 

22. I want to end circling back to Christian Rasmussen and his victory. 

This is the beauty of IndyCar. 

In any race, pretty much any team can pull out a strategy and drive to victory. 

Rasmussen wasn't the best driver today, but he was probably one of the five best. When the race was shaken up with an unexpected caution, Rasmussen could take on an alternate strategy and drive to the front and steal a victory. This wasn't all luck. The luck was the caution. Passing all those cars and beating Álex Palou required skill even with fresher tires.

It was Rasmussen today but it could have been Alexander Rossi. It could have been Felix Rosenqvist or Marcus Armstrong with Meyer Shank Racing. It could have been Conor Daly at Juncos Hollinger Racing. It could have been David Malukas or Santino Ferrucci with A.J. Foyt Racing. 

When you consider this season we saw Graham Rahal lead the most laps and likely have a great shout for victory at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and Felix Rosenqvist was chasing down Palou at Road America, we are looking at a season where the smallest of teams still have a shot when everything clicks on their best day. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has been struggling for years, but its best day isn't capped at potentially finishing eighth. It can be on the podium and fighting for a victory. Ed Carpenter Racing has been through its share of troubles, but it has found something where it can be a force on the ovals, and if it falls right it can drive to a win.

We are coming off one of the most dominant seasons we have ever seen for a driver in IndyCar, and yet we can still see a first-time winner for a mid-pack team and it isn't just because of a timely caution or a freak rainstorm. 

Yes, I realize both those things happened today, but Rasmussen didn't win because only because of those things. Rasmussen got a shot and could drive to the front. For all the amazing things he has done this season, in a single race he can use his talent to take a car to the front and beat the other 26 cars competing, and driving for Ed Carpenter Racing isn't keeping him from being the best. 

Many times this season we have gone into a race thinking we knew what was going to happen and Álex Palou ended up winning like we expected, but IndyCar is still capable of these days, and that is beautiful. 

23. Let's see if we can continue this high into the final week of the season. In less than seven days, the checkered flag will wave for the final time at Nashville Superspeedway, and the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season will be over.

Morning Warm-Up: Milwaukee 2025

Álex Palou won his sixth pole position of the season after Palou had a two-lap average of 162.971 mph (44.8422 seconds) around the Milwaukee Mile, and this is the 12th pole position of his career. He has won eight times from pole position in his IndyCar career. Palou enters this weekend with the championship already secured. This is the 45th time since 1946 that an IndyCar championship has been clinched with races in hand. In 13 of the first 44 occasions did the champion-elect win a race after clinching the title. Sébastien Bourdais was the most recent driver to do it. Bourdais won the 2007 Champ Car finale from Mexico City after he had locked up the title in the previous race. 

 

David Malukas was 0.1978 seconds off his first career pole position. Instead, Malukas will start second for the third time in his career. He started second at Detroit earlier this season and finished 14th, partially due to a penalty for contact that sent Palou into the turn one barrier. Malukas has two top five finishes this season, both on ovals. All five of his top five finishes in his career have come on ovals. He has never had more than two top five finishes in a season. This will be Malukas' 60th career start. Eighteen drivers scored their first career victory in their 60th start or later.

Patricio O’Ward will start third after he was 0.2472 seconds slower than Palou. This is the third consecutive race O'Ward is starting in the top five. O’Ward is coming off his worst result of the season, a 25th at Portland largely due to electrical issues. He has finished in the top five of all four oval races this season, including podium finishes in three of the events.

Scott McLaughlin is the best Team Penske starter in fourth. McLaughlin was 0.3363 seconds off pole position. McLaughlin won the second race of last year's doubleheader from second on the grid. Nineteen times has a driver won consecutive Milwaukee. The most recent driver to do it was Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2012 and 2013.

Will Power will start fifth, his sixth consecutive race starting in the top ten. Power enters as the most recent IndyCar winner. He led 78 laps on his way to winning at Portland. Prior to Portland, Power had only led four laps in the first 14 races. He has not won consecutive races since he swept the Indianapolis races in May 2018. He was second in the first race of last year’s Milwaukee doubleheader. 

Kyle Kirkwood has his best starting position on an oval in sixth. Kirkwood's previous best was tenth at Gateway. Though he won at Gateway, Kirkwood’s average finish of ovals this year is 19.25, largely due to his disqualification at the Indianapolis 500. This dropped him from sixth to 32nd. Based on where he finished on the road, Kirkwood’s average result is 12.75.

Josef Newgarden will start seventh. Newgarden has won from seventh starting spot six times with four of those coming on ovals. In Newgarden's seven oval starts since his most recent victory, his average finish is 16.428 with four finishes outside the top twenty. He finished 26th and 27th in last year's Milwaukee doubleheader. 

Conor Daly is starting to Newgarden's outside on row four. Prior to his accident last week at Portland, Daly had not retired from a race due to an accident since the second race of the 2021 Texas doubleheader when Daly was caught in an opening lap accident. It had been 61 consecutive starts without retiring due to an accident for Daly. 

Christian Rasmussen is starting a spot behind Daly in ninth, one race after the two infamously came together at Portland. This is only the second time Rasmussen has started inside the top ten this season. He started tenth at Detroit. Rasmussen has finished in the top ten of all four oval races this season. The only other drivers to do that are the top two in the championship, Álex Palou and Patricio O’Ward.

Graham Rahal rounds out the top ten. This is the fourth time in five races Rahal is starting in the top ten. Rahal is coming off his first top five finish in two years after he was fourth at Portland. He has not had consecutive top five finishes since he was fifth in both Belle Isle races in 2021. Rahal's best oval finish this season was 11th in the first Iowa race. His average oval result is 17.25.

Rinus VeeKay starts just outside the top ten in 11th, his best starting position on an oval this season. VeeKay started 18th or worse in the first four oval races. Last season, VeeKay had five top ten finishes in seven oval races. This year, he has only one top ten finish in the first four oval races. While VeeKay was second at Toronto three races ago, he has finished outside the top ten in four of the last five races.

Alexander Rossi starts next to VeeKay on row six. This is the fifth consecutive oval race Rossi is starting between 12th and 15th. He started 12th at Indianapolis 500 and 12th at Gateway. Gateway is only oval race where he finished better than his starting position, finishing 11th. Rossi has not finished in the top ten in his last five oval starts. His most recent top five finish on an oval was fifth in last year’s Indianapolis 500. 

Marcus Ericsson takes 13th on the grid. Ericsson has finished outside the top twenty in three of the last four races. Thanks to his post-race penalty at the Indianapolis 500, his best classification from an oval race this season was 13th at Gateway. Last year, Ericsson went from 16th to fifth in the second Milwaukee race.

A nine-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change knocks Scott Dixon from fifth to 14th on the grid. This is Dixon's third grid penalty of the season. The first was at Detroit. He went from 16th to 11th in that race. At Toronto, Dixon had to start 17th and he finished tenth. Dixon has finished on the podium in the 16th race of the season for four consecutive seasons. He hasn't won the 16th race of a season since 2015 when he won the Sonoma season finale. 

Devlin DeFrancesco starts in the top fifteen for the second consecutive race as the Canadian will start 15th at Milwaukee. This is his best start on an oval this season. His previous best was 16th at the Indianaplis 500.  DeFrancesco won one oval race during his Road to Indy career. It was at Gateway on August 29, 2020. 

Marcus Armstrong will be to DeFrancesco's outside on row eight. Armstrong has finished in the top ten of the last three oval races. Last year, he was 21st and 26th in the two Milwaukee races. He was three laps down in race one and only completed six laps in race two. Last week, Armstrong signed an extension to remain with Meyer Shank Racing for the 2026 season. 

Christian Lundgaard leads an all-Arrow McLaren row nine as Lundgaard has Nolan Siegel starting to his outside. While Rasmussen started eighth at the Indianapolis 500, his average starting spot on ovals this season is 16.4 With runner-up finishes in the last two races, Lundgaard could become the 14th driver in IndyCar history to have three consecutive runner-up finishes. The most recent driver to do it was Hélio Castroneves in 2008.

Nolan Siegel is 18th. This is the third consecutive race Siegel is starting outside the top fifteen and the eighth time in 16 races he is starting outside the top fifteen. Siegel competed in six oval races last season, and he had an average finish of 15.5. Through three oval starts this season, Siegel's average finish is 18.667.

Sting Ray Robb has his best starting position since Mid-Ohio in 19th. Robb has finished on the lead lap in the last two races, and he was 14th at Portland. It was his third time finishing in the top fifteen this season. Robb’s best oval finish this season was 20th at Gateway. Last year, he finished 23rd and 18th in the two Milwaukee races. Robb had an accident in the final minutes of final practice yesterday evening.

Robert Shwartzman rounds out the top twenty on the grid. This is his fourth consecutive race starting 20th or worse. Shwartzman has two top ten finishes in the last three oval races. He went from 24th to tenth at Gateway, and he was ninth in the second Iowa race after starting 11th. With two races remaining, Shwartzman is six points behind Louis Foster in the Rookie of the Year battle.

Santino Ferrucci starts 21st for the second consecutive race. At Portland, Ferrucci's race only lasted two laps after starting 21st. It is the 15th time this season Ferrucci has started outside the top ten. Only one driver finished in the top five of both Milwaukee races last year. That was Ferrucci, who finished fourth both days. He started 19th and 12th in those two races.

Jacob Abel takes 22nd on his grid, his best starting position on an oval this season. Abel will drive the #50 Miller Lite Honda this week, a slight number change from his #51 entry. This is to recognize the 50th anniversary of Miller Lite. Abel had Miller High Life as his sponsor when he failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. He has had an accident end three of his last five races.

Callum Ilott will start 23rd, one spot better than where Ilott has started in the last two races. Ilott enters Milwaukee with three consecutive top ten finishes. It is the longest top ten streak of his IndyCar career. Prior to this three-race stretch, Ilott had only five top ten finishes in his entire IndyCar career. His only top ten finish on an oval was ninth at Texas in April 2023.

Colton Herta spun on his first qualifying lap, but he was able to keep the car out of the barrier. However, Herta will start 24th due to the incident and after grid penalties are applied. This is his worst starting position since Herta started 27th at the Indianapolis 500 in May, which was the worst starting position of his IndyCar career. In his first six seasons, Herta has finished in the top five of the penultimate race four times with another finish of sixth. 

Félix Rosenqvist spun and hit the barrier in turn four on his first qualifying lap. Grid penalties for others will move Rosenqvist to 25th starting position. Prior to Milwaukee, Rosenqvist had not started worse than seventh on an oval. This is his first time starting outside the top twenty since he started 22nd at Road America last season. Rosenqvist has not had a top five finish in his last six starts after opening the season with four top five finishes in the first nine races.

Kyffin Simpson has a nine-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change, and this will move Simpson to 26th starting spot. After finishing in the top ten in three of four races, Simpson has finished outside the top ten in four of the last five races with three of those results being outside the top fifteen. No driver has won from worse than 25th in a Milwaukee race.

Louis Foster was unable to complete a lap at speed in the first practice session due to an engine issue. Foster only ran three instillation laps in the first practice session before qualifying. A subsequent engine change has resulted in a nine-spot grid penalty and Foster will start in last for the Milwaukee race. While he had an accident at Gateway, Foster has finished no worse than 14th in the other three oval races this season.

Fox’s coverage of the SnapOn 250 from the Milwaukee Mile will begin at 2:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 2:20 p.m. The race is scheduled for 250 laps. 

Track Walk: Milwaukee 2025

The 16th and penultimate round of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season has the 27-car grid moving into the Milwaukee Mile for what will be the 116th race at the historic circuit. Last year, Patricio O'Ward and Scott McLaughlin split the doubleheader weekend. This year, there will only be one race on Sunday. In the most recent race, Will Power won at Portland for his and Team Penske's first victory of the season, and the 45th victory of Power's career. Power became the fifth different winner this season. There have been three different winners across the first four oval races. The one repeat winner is our champion-elect Álex Palou.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday August 24 with green flag scheduled for 2:20 p.m. ET.
Channel: Fox
Announcers: Will Buxton, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee, Georgia Henneberry and Jack Harvey will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Saturday:

First Practice: 11:00 a.m. ET (60 minutes)

Qualifying: 2:00 p.m. ET 

High-Line Practice: 4:45 p.m. ET (30 minutes)

Final Practice: 5:30 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 2:20 p.m. ET (250 laps)

FS2 will cover all practice sessions. FS1 will cover qualifying with race coverage on Fox. 

Palou Chasing History

The championship is already secured for Álex Palou after he finished third at Portland with Patricio O'Ward suffering electrical issues within the first quarter of the race, leaving O'Ward ten laps down. With the result, Palou became the first driver to clinch the championship with multiple races remaining since Cristiano da Matta won the 2002 CART championship with three races to spare. It was the 45th time since 1946 that an IndyCar championship has been clinched early.

Though the title is clinched, Palou's fourth of his career and third consecutive, he still has a bit of history in his sights over the final two races. Entering with eight victories, Palou could tie the single season record for victories if he wins the final two events. Ten victories has not been seen in a single season since Al Unser did it in 1970. A.J. Foyt set the record when he won ten times in the 1964 season. 

Along with Foyt and Unser, the only other time a driver has won nine times in a season was Mario Andretti in 1969. A ninth victory for Palou would not only put him in that esteemed company but it would make him the first driver to win over half the races in a season since Sébastien Bourdais won eight of 14 races in the 2007 Champ Car season. 

One more victory would give Palou the 20th of his career, and he would become the 24th driver to reach that milestone. Palou is currently level on the all-time win list with Jimmy Murphy, Jimmy Bryan and Sam Hornish, Jr. 

Palou hasn't only been the best being first to the checkered flag, he has also been the best at being first on the grid. With five pole positions, Palou has already clinched the honors of most pole positions in the season. No other driver has more than two, but with one more pole position, Palou could become the first driver with six pole positions in a season since Will Power in 2017. Palou has already reached 11 career pole positions. One more would put him tied with Parnelii Jones for 30th all-time.

If you have won eight races, you have likely led a lot of laps, and Palou has led the most laps this season. He has led 568 laps through the first 15 races. It is actually easier to list the races Palou did not lead this season as he led a lap in 12 of them. The three he didn't lead were Long Beach, Detroit and Gateway. He enters this weekend having led a lap in seven consecutive races.

With 475 laps left to run this season, in theory Palou could end the season with as many as 1,043 laps led. Only three times has a driver led at least 1,000 laps in a single season. Al Unser has the record with 1,527 laps led in the 1970 season. Four years prior to that, Mario Andretti became the first driver with 1,000 laps led in a season. Andretti led 1,142 lap. The most recent season with someone leading a four-figure lap total was in 1992 when Michael Andretti led 1,136 laps. 

Palou has led 28.68% of the laps run this season. If he maintains that batting average through the checkered flag at Nashville, he would end with 704 laps led. No one has led at least 700 laps in a single season since Dario Franchitti led 884 laps in 2011.

In the career record book, Palou is four laps away from the 1,500 laps led milestone. He would become the 29th driver to reach that milestone. The next three drivers ahead of Palou in all-time laps led are Tony Stewart (1,515), Ryan Hunter-Reay (1,562) and Parnelli Jones (1,596).

Victories, pole positions, laps led, why not set a mark on the record book when it comes to podium finishes as well? Because Palou has already done that. His third-place result in Portland was 11th of the season. It is only the 20th time since 1946 that a driver has finished on the podium at least 11 times in a season. Only six times has a driver stood on the podium 12 times in a single season. The most recent was Scott Dixon in 2008.

Newgarden's Nightmare Continues

While there has been a lot to celebrate for Palou, Josef Newgarden has been floundering for the entire 2025 season, and the two-time champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner is on pace for his worst season since his rookie year in 2012. 

After he was spun in the chicane at Portland and lost two laps in an effort to restart his career, Newgarden has finished outside the top twenty in seven of 15 races this season. He has finished outside the top ten in the last three races. With an average finish of 16.2667, Newgarden is well on his way to his second-worst season on average finish. Only his rookie season was worst at 18.214. The good news is it cannot be his worst season. If Newgarden finishes 27th in the final two races, his average finish on the season will be 17.529. 

Average finish aside, Newgarden is still 18th in the championship, one point behind Kyffin Simpson and only 19 points ahead of Conor Daly. 

Newgarden has not finished outside the top fifteen in the championship since he was 23rd in his rookie season. He has not finished outside the top ten of the championship since he was 13th in 2014, which is also his last winless season, and Newgarden still has a zero in the victory column with two races remaining. Beyond victories, Newgarden is set to have his fewest podium finishes since 2018 and his fewest top five finishes since 2014. He has only five top ten finishes. The only time he had fewer than seven top ten finishes in a year was his rookie year when Newgarden had zero.

The last two races taking place on ovals favor Newgarden, but Milwaukee might be the more likely place for victory than the Nashville finale next week. Newgarden has led a lap in only five races this season. Three of those have been short ovals. He had led 25 laps at Gateway before being caught in the path of a spinning Louis Foster while in first place. He led the first 232 laps in the first Iowa race before Patricio O'Ward jumped ahead of Newgarden through the pit cycle. Newgarden led another 72 laps in the second Iowa race where poorly timed cautions shuffled Newgarden out of the battle for victory and down to tenth.

Though this has been an agonizing season for the American, Newgarden enters the final two race weekends with a chance of making a bit of history of his own. He has won an oval race in nine consecutive seasons. No driver in IndyCar history has ever won an oval race in ten consecutive seasons. Newgarden is tied with Bobby Unser and Johnny Rutherford for most consecutive seasons with an oval victory. Unser did it from 1968 to 1976. Rutherford did it from 1973 to 1981.

Newgarden also enters this weekend with 17 oval victories in his career, which is 13th all-time. One more will put him in a tie with Hélio Castroneves for 12th.

If there is any other bright side for Newgarden it is a fair number of championship positions are still within reach. He is only seven points behind Graham Rahal in 15th and 18 points behind Christian Rasmussen in 13th. With 108 points left on the table, the most points Newgarden can end the season on is 347. Last season, 347 points would have been good enough for 11th and it would have been good enough for 12th in 2023.

Newgarden's last eight victories have all come on ovals. He has won on five different ovals in his IndyCar career. If there is any reason for optimism, it is Newgarden should at least be starting from a good position. In the three oval races where he was allowed to fully participate in qualifying, Newgarden has started in the top five of all of them and he was on pole position for the first Iowa race. He started on pole position for the second Milwaukee race last season.

American Woes

It isn't has only been a rough stretch for Newgarden. The American drivers across the board have been struggling into the final stretch of the IndyCar season. 

While Kyle Kirkwood won three of the first eight races, Kirkwood has not had a top five finish in the last six races and he has finished outside the top fifteen in four of the last five races. At Iowa, he was 26th and 18th. Kirkwood has fallen from a potential championship challenger to Palou to fifth in points.With two races remaining, Kirkwood is still the only American race winner in 2025.

Colton Herta does enters Milwaukee with three consecutive top ten finishes, but Herta has not finished better than third this season. His average oval finish is 16th with his best result being 13th in the first Iowa race. He has only led 18 laps this season, 11 of which came at Detroit. 

David Malukas does make it three American drivers in the top ten of the championship, but Malukas has only four top ten finishes this season. He is only two points ahead of Scott McLaughlin in 11th. Malukas has finished outside the top ten in four of the last six races, however, during that stretch he did finish fourth the second Iowa race. 

There are three Americans clustered together in 14th, 15th and 16th in the championship. 

After finishing eighth in the first Iowa race, Santino Ferrucci was tenth in the championship and he had four top five finishes and five top ten finishes in a six-race stretch. Since then, Ferrucci has finished 15th, did not start at Toronto after an accident in the warm-up, 22nd and 27th. Ferrucci is on 253 points, seven points ahead of Graham Rahal and nine points ahead of Alexander Rossi.

Rahal and Rossi are probably the two Americans feeling the best after the last race at Portland. Each driver scored their first top five finish of this season in the Rose City. Rahal was fourth and Rossi was fifth. For Rahal, it was his first top five finish in 34 races. For Rossi, it ended the longest top five finish drought in his career at 22 races. 

Conor Daly's three top ten finishes this season have all come on ovals, and he is looking to leap up from 19th in the championship over the final two races. Daly's best three starting positions of the season have also come on ovals. He started in the top ten in both Iowa races. Outside of ovals, Daly's road/street course average finish will go down as 18.636 for the 2025 season. 

Nolan Siegel has fallen out of the top twenty in the championship as Siegel has not finished in the top ten in any of the last six races, and in one of those races he did not start. He missed the second Iowa race after an accident in the first race of that weekend. Siegel is 13 points behind Marcus Ericsson in 20th. 

Sting Ray Robb and Jacob Abel take two of the bottom three spots in the championship. Robb is on 160 points, 15 points ahead of Devlin DeFrancesco. Abel has scored 107 points from his 14 starts. Robb is coming off his second-best finish of the season as he was 14th in Portland. Abel has finished outside the top twenty in his last three starts, and in seven of the last eight races. However, the one race that breaks up that stretch was an 11th in the second Iowa race. 

There have been at least two American winners in the last 14 IndyCar seasons, and American drivers have combined to win at least four races in eight consecutive seasons. The last time fewer than three American drivers finished in the championship top ten was in 2014 when Ryan Hunter-Reay was sixth and Marco Andretti was ninth. 

Manufacturers' Battle

The drivers' championship was claimed at Portland, and the manufacturers' championship might be the next thing to be sealed with a race to spare. 

Honda has won 12 of 15 races this season, and with two races remaining, it has 1,389 points and a 212-point lead over Chevrolet. 

Chevrolet has found its way onto the board, and it has won three of the last five races. Though Honda has won three oval races this season, Chevrolet has won 20 of 31 oval races since the introduction of the aero kit in 2020. Prior to the start of this season, Chevrolet had won 13 of the last 15 oval races.

Last year at Milwaukee, Chevrolet not only swept the weekend, it thrashed Honda. In the first race of the weekend, Chevrolet took the top four positions. Over the two races, Chevrolet drivers combined to lead 427 of 500 laps. 

Dating back to IndyCar's previous stint at Milwaukee at the start of the DW12-era, Chevrolet has won six consecutive Milwaukee races and is unbeaten at the one-mile oval since 2012. Over those six races, Honda drivers have combined for only three podium finishes out of a possible 18, and six top five finishes out of a possible 30.

With only two races remaining, both manufacturers are running out of representatives that can score points to the manufacturers' championship. Any entry that has exceeded the four-engine limit for the season is ineligible to score points.

That is particularly noteworthy for Chevrolet. At Portland, Chevrolet saw three entries take on their fifth engine of the season. Those teams were the #2 Team Penske Chevrolet of Josef Newgarden, the #7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet of Christian Lundgaard and the #14 A.J. Foyt Racing entry of Santino Ferrucci. Prior to Portland, the only Chevrolet entry ineligible for manufacturer points was Christian Rasmussen in the #21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet.

For Honda, the only entry ineligible for manufacturer points at Portland was Chip Ganassi Racing's #9 Honda for Scott Dixon. Dixon took on his fifth engine at Detroit and then took on his sixth engine at Toronto. 

At Portland, every other Honda was on their fourth engine of the season, meaning it is likely we will see a few Honda entries take on their fifth engine at some point over the next two race weekend. 

For Chevrolet, there were actually two teams that were still on their third engine of the season entering Portland. Those were A.J. Foyt Racing's #4 Chevrolet for David Malukas and Juncos Hollinger Racing's #77 Chevrolet for Sting Ray Robb. The other eight Chevrolet teams were all on their fourth engine of the season in the most recent race. 

With the final two races being oval events, the grid penalty for taking on a fifth engine increases to nine spots compared to six spots on road and street courses. 

Ahead of the first Milwaukee race last season, six teams took a grid penalty for going beyond the four-engine limit. Four of those six penalties were to Chevrolet teams. There were no grid penalties ahead of the second Milwaukee race. There were five grid penalties taken at last year's Nashville finale, four of which were for Chevrolet teams.

Indy Lights

We are down to two races remaining in the 2025 Indy Lights season, and only two drivers are alive for the championship, but there is a good chance the title could be decided in Milwaukee. 

Dennis Hauger scored his sixth victory of the season at Portland with Caio Collet finishing second, and this has Hauger on 523 points, 54 points ahead of Collet. If Hauger leaves Milwaukee 54 points ahead of Collet, he will clinch the championship with a race to spare. Essentially, all Hauger needs to do at Milwaukee is finish ahead of Collet and the championship is his.

While Collet has won three times this season, Hauger clinched the tiebreaker with his sixth victory at Portland. Collet has finished in the top five in ten consecutive races. His only finish worse than fifth this season was 19th at Barber Motorsports Park when throttle issues forced the Brazilian to retire. Hauger has finished outside the top five twice this season. He was eighth in the first race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and early contact in the second Laguna Seca race left the Norwegian in 16th. 

This will only be the third oval race of the season. At Gateway, Hauger led early, but faded and Lochie Hughes took the victory ahead of Myles Rowe, Collet, Salvador de Alba and Hauger. At Iowa, Hauger again led early, but Rowe passed him and scored his first career Indy Lights victory. De Alba rounded out the podium while Collet was fourth.

Things are spread out beyond the top two in the championship. Lochie Hughes is third on 401 points, 22 points ahead of Rowe. Josh Pierson rounds out the top five on 337 points with de Alba 16 points behind Pierson. 

Callum Hedge has used three consecutive top ten finishes to lift him to seventh in the championship, and Hedge is only seven points behind de Alba. There is a 70-point gap between Hedge and Niels Koolen, who has finished in the top six in three of the last four races. 

Koolen will be fighting off Jack William Miller for eighth. Miller is only six points behind the Dutchman while Jordan Missig is another six points behind Miller in tenth. 

Indy Lights will race at 11:35 a.m. ET on Sunday August 24. The Indy Lights race is scheduled for 90 laps. 

Fast Facts

This will be the 13th IndyCar race to take place on August 24, and the first since Takuma Sato won at Gateway in 2019. 

Four previous Milwaukee races were held on August 24. In 1941, Rex Mays led all 100 laps from pole position, in what was the second IndyCar race held at the Milwaukee Mile. In 1947, Ted Horn won with 21 laps led as Emil Andres dropped to fifth despite leading 79 laps and leading with 11 laps to go. In 1952, Chuck Stevenson scored his first career victory from 11th on the grid, leading 95 of 200 laps. IndyCar's most recent visit to Milwaukee on August 24 was in 1958. Rodger Ward was victorious.

There have been five different winners in the last five Milwaukee races. 

Álex Palou won at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in June. The most recent driver to win at Road America and the Milwaukee Mile in the same season was Michael Andretti in 1996. Andretti also swept the Wisconsin races in 1991. Andretti is the only driver to win at both tracks in the same season.

This will be the ninth Milwaukee race scheduled for a 250-lap distance. 

Only once in the last six Milwaukee races did more than 12 cars finish on the lead lap.

The most lead lap finishers ever in a Milwaukee race was 15 in the 2015 race.

The average starting position for a Milwaukee winner is 4.513 with a median of third. 

Eleven of the last 14 Milwaukee races have been won from a top five starting position. Two of those Milwaukee races were won from 11th, and Patricio O'Ward won the first race of the doubleheader from sixth.

Thirteen of 115 Milwaukee races have been won from outside the top ten.

Seven of the top ten finishes in the second race of last year's Milwaukee doubleheader started outside the top ten with four of those drivers starting outside the top fifteen. 

The average number of lead changes in a Milwaukee race is 4.714 with a median of five.

The second race of last year's doubleheader had 13 lead changes, the most ever for a Milwaukee race. 

Five of the last six Milwaukee winners led the most laps.

Ryan Hunter-Reay led all 250 laps in the 2004 Milwaukee race.

The fewest laps led by a Milwaukee winner is nine. Joe Leonard led the final nine laps in the June 1970 race.

The average number of caution laps in a Milwaukee race since 1972 is 3.983 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 29.372 with a median of 28.

There have been two caution-free races at Milwaukee, in June 1976 and June 1982.

Predictions

This is the weekend where Josef Newgarden avoids all bolts of lightning, and he wins with over 175 laps led. Patricio O'Ward will finish ahead of Álex Palou. Will Power will have another top five, and Andretti Global has a top five finisher, but one Andretti Global driver will have a costly pit stop that loses them many positions. Marcus Armstrong will not hit anyone from behind, especially on a restart. Along with Newgarden, another driver outside the top ten in the championship will lead at least 40 laps. The first caution will not come before the first round of pit stops, and there will be no cautions in the middle of a pit cycle. At least one driver gets his first top ten finish on an oval. Sleeper: Alexander Rossi.

First Impressions: Milwaukee 2024 Race Two

1. It was somewhat of a make-up for yesterday, but after a variety of strategies and a late caution played out, Scott McLaughlin ended up the winner of the second race of the IndyCar doubleheader from Milwaukee. With his championship hopes slim, McLaughlin had to win today. That was the least he had to do to remain alive for the championship heading to Nashville.

Win and hope from some help. 

McLaughlin got both, but just not enough of the latter. He won but even with Álex Palou's battery issues that caused him to finish 29 laps down, Palou ended up 50 points ahead of McLaughlin when this race ended. Technically, McLaughlin could still win the championship, but that would require Palou not showing up to Nashville. That would also require McLaughlin winning the finale, not an easy feat in its own right, but Palou will take the green flag in two weeks and McLaughlin will at best finish a point shy of a championship. 

It is an accomplishment for McLaughlin to be this close. Remember, he was disqualified from the St. Petersburg season opener after finishing third due to Team Penske's push-to-pass system manipulation, losing 35 points. Give those 35 points back and McLaughlin is right there entering the finale in what would be almost a toss-up for the championship. 

McLaughlin has won three times this season including twice on ovals. Every year he has made great strides. There is plenty to be proud about after this season and this race.

2. Let's cover the championship picture because it will go to the finale. Álex Palou suffered a battery issue on the pace laps. He was unable to make the start of the race and ended up losing nearly 30 laps once his car was fixed. It played well for Will Power, who led early, but in the middle of the race when Power had been shuffled back in a pit cycle, Power spun coming to a restart. There was minimal front wing damage, but the pit stop for repairs still trapped him a lap down. 

Power was able to get back onto the lead lap after the final caution for Sting Ray Robb's accident in turn two, but Power didn't take any risks for another two or four or six points. Power took tenth and took ten points out of the deficit to Palou. It will be 33 points between Palou and Power entering the Nashville season finale.

All Palou will need is a ninth-place finish to clinch the championship. Power has been here before, but on the reverse side, in Palou's shoes, most of the time. This will be the eighth time Power will enter a season finale with a chance to win a championship. The first three times Power was the leader and lost the title. In two of those, it appeared unthinkable for Power to lose it and it went against him. 

Palou won the 2021 title with Patricio O'Ward as a challenger. Today's result wasn't because of anything Palou did wrong. Only three times this season has Palou finished outside the top ten. The advantage is in Palou's favor, but Power will be there and keep the Catalan driver honest. 

3. Back to the race results, Scott Dixon went off strategy mid-race and did not stop under one of the cautions while the leaders did and that is what put Power in the middle of the top ten. As good as fresh tires were today, track position still mattered. Alexander Rossi stayed out with Dixon and led, and those two held their ground despite having 20-plus lap older tires.

The key was having traffic in-between them and the likes of McLaughlin, Power and company. The tires mattered, but if you had buffers in-between, you could stay at the front, and it helped Rossi and Dixon. What cost them was they both got stuck in traffic when they came in for that eventual pit stop. When McLaughlin answered their pit stops with an immediate dive to the pit lane, McLaughlin made up the ground and the positions. 

Dixon looked set for a top five finish, but the Robb caution brought everyone to pit lane to put on what ever least used worn tires they had. Dixon made up a spot there and then took second on the restart from Rossi. Dixon pushed McLaughlin, but McLaughlin had done enough for victory. 

In his 401st start, Dixon still showed he has it. Any concerns about age and slowing after a spell of rough results before this race have been quelled for the moment. Dixon's qualifying form isn't there and we should maybe talk about that, but when it comes to the race, he still has what it takes. 

4. Colton Herta made a bold choice on strategy to run long on his penultimate stint and then stop first for his final stop and hopefully gap the leaders and have an advantage to defend in the closing laps. It worked at the start. Herta went long and did not lose significant ground. He was the first to stop in the final pit cycle and when the rest of the leaders stopped, Herta had over an eight-second lead.

The problem was McLaughlin chewed away at that gap in no time. There was only a ten-lap difference between the final stops with Herta coming earlier. It felt like if it had been a 20-lap difference, Herta would have been in trouble during the final laps. With a ten-lap difference, it felt like Herta held a little more of an advantage, but Herta could not make lap time while McLaughlin kept clicking off laps a half-second quicker. 

It wasn't close and when McLaughlin took the lead, it looked like it was game over. A caution made it interesting, but it was bound to be a walkaway. 

The Herta made the right choice to roll the dice. For whatever reason, the balance was not there after that stop to hold off McLaughlin longer. I don't know if there was a little more fuel saving going on because Herta did stop ten laps earlier, but that should not have been that much of a factor. McLaughlin had the better car though Herta had a good car today. The team is there on ovals, but it is just missing something.

5. Santino Ferrucci makes it a double fourth-place finish weekend as Ferrucci was fourth again. Every time you watch Ferrucci and his aggression, you think it will eventually bite him, and it doesn't. You are expecting that one oval race where he goes just over the edge and slaps the barrier or hits another car, and it hasn't happened yet. I have written this every year after Indianapolis, at some point you think he will go over and it will not be his day but he keeps making it through without any issues. If it hasn't happened yet, it is getting harder to believe it will happen. 

He definitely didn't make many friends this weekend with his moves low on corner entry and then sliding up through the middle of the corner. The problem for everyone else is they all back out and let Ferrucci be aggressive. None of them want contact to end their race so they back and live to fight another day, but Ferrucci gets the position. It is only going to stop when Ferrucci loses out. Until that happens, Ferrucci will keep driving forward and getting respectable oval results.

6. Marcus Ericsson somewhat stole a top five finish today. Ericsson spent a good amount of the race in the top ten, but a lap down. He got the wave around after the Robb accident, and because of the wave around rules, Ericsson was back on the lead lap and then got to make his final stop. This allowed him to make up three spots and get into the top five. 

I don't think Ericsson spent a lap in the top five until about three to go. It is a good result he needed, especially after yesterday and this trying season. 

7. Robbed of that top five finish was Alexander Rossi, who probably should have been on the podium, but Rossi fell like a rock on that final restart. He was second. My guess is the tires his crew put on were older than the rest of the field and Rossi could not do anything with them in the sprint to the finish. 

Rossi led a good portion of the race because he did not stop under one of the cautions and passed up on a short stint. I thought that was the right choice. Tires mattered but a 20-lap advantage wasn't that significant, especially if there was traffic put between you and the rest of the cars on the lead lap. It was a good day for Rossi, but there he is in sixth again. Not really all that close to a victory. 

8. Rinus VeeKay ran the same strategy as Herta and it got him seventh. VeeKay was good over this weekend. The result came today unlike yesterday. He was never pushing for a top five or looked like a threat, but he had enough for a top ten result. The problem with VeeKay's end to this season is he has five top ten finishes in the last seven races and he is stuck in a spot of succeeding with a team where he has never finished better than 12th in the championship.

VeeKay must want more, and though Ed Carpenter Racing is getting top ten finishes now, we have five seasons worth of data to point that these results are seldom. But VeeKay is in a spot where he could probably be convinced that next time will be different and stick around because things are going in the right direction now. He should be smart and recognize there is no belief it will remain the same or continue to improve into next season.

9. Kyle Kirkwood spent about 85% of this race as one of the first cars a lap down and by avoiding problems he ended up finishing eighth and on the lead lap. Kirkwood didn't have the pace of his teammates. It wasn't an impressive day by any sense, but Kirkwood got a good result and that is something we do not expect from him on ovals. He ran all 250 laps and that is an achievement. All three Andretti Global cars were in the top ten after none finished better than 12th yesterday. Progress!

10. One day, Romain Grosjean is mad at the world. The next day, he is finishing ninth. Grosjean was on the same strategy as Herta and it definitely netted him a few extra positions. When Grosjean is in the right mood and not driving like a fool, he can get Juncos Hollinger Racing into the top ten. But on the days where he only gets seven hours and 50 minutes of sleep and not eight hours of sleep, the world collapses in on itself and he cannot do better than 16th. That is what you get with Romain Grosjean. One out of every three results is something worth celebrating. 

11. Let's go back to Will Power for a second because he finished tenth, but for a good portion of this race Power was in position to take the championship lead or at least leave within ten points of Palou. 

I feared Power would get too conservative and it would cost him. I don't want to say that definitely happened, but he lost spots on the restart prior to his spin. He did not want to get caught in anything and he was put in a position where someone could ruin his day. Then he basically ruined his day all by himself. 

It can be hairy throttling up mid-corner and these cars are twitchy, but Power was the only one to spin in such a scenario all weekend. He kept it mostly out of the barrier other than grazing his front wing, but then the team botched the repairs. They changed tires, understandably so, but then sent him without changing the wing when it was cleared eschewed. It wasn't the worst misalignment ever, but it was likely going to be a detriment to the car. He ran another two laps under caution before coming in the lap before going green and that is how he lost his lap.

The team should have changed the wing the first time. Don't screw around in that situation and wonder if a slightly damaged wing would cost performance. Put on a properly aligned wing. Take the time on one stop to get the car together and then get back out there. It was confusing how a Team Penske crew seemed so uncertain in a spot where it was clear what should have been done. 

If Power does not spin or if Power does spin and the team makes all the repairs the first time and he remains on the lead lap, I don't think he wins the race, but I know he finishes better than tenth. I think he finishes in the top five, maybe on the podium but no worse than fifth. That is ten points sacrificed today. 

A 23-point gap would still require some work but it is a lot better than 33 points. 

12. This was an exhausting race in the first ten laps, and none of those were green. We're going to power through here.

13. Felix Rosenqvist was 11th. It is good but we must see more from Rosenqvist and MSR. This team wasn't close to finishing 11th last season. Now it is regularly there or at least in that neighborhood, but Rosenqvist and MSR are always qualifying in the top ten. This team should have more top ten finishes. David Malukas had an electrical issue on lap 63 effectively kill his race before it really got going. Malukas was able to completed 126 laps in a free test session and finish 22nd.

14. I don't know how Christian Lundgaard finished 12th. None of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars were good. Pietro Fittipaldi retired after 181 laps due to a mechanical issue. I think they just parked the car. Graham Rahal was run over by Christian Rasmussen on lap 125, but Rahal's day wasn't all that peachy before then. Lundgaard took a terrible car and finished ninth and 12th with it in consecutive days. If he can do that at RLLR, Lundgaard might just win a championship at McLaren.

15. Kyffin Simpson wasn't a nuisance today and he finished two laps down in 13th. Good for him.

16. It was a great day for Dale Coyne Racing because it was a double top fifteen day as Jack Harvey was 14th and Katherine Legge was 15th. No other team would celebrate this but Coyne should. Harvey ran long early and had a stint in top ten. They had to do something different. With the number of cars that had trouble, DCR was bound to get one car in the top fifteen. It isn't great but it could be much worse.

17. Christian Rasmussen has not made many friends this season. It feels like every four races someone is calling out his driving. Some of it is justified criticism. Today was one of those days. Rasmussen drilled Rahal into turn three. He is developing but there is a lot he should clean up if he gets a sophomore season. 

Let's cover Conor Daly here because Daly's third place finish in the first Milwaukee race appeared to have been wasted when Daly was parked on pit lane due to gearbox issues today. The car was repaired and somehow Daly only lost a point to Rasmussen and the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet. It felt like the pendulum was going to swing completely against the #78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet in the Leader Circle battle early in this race. That wasn't the case and it will be advantage Daly heading to Nashville.

18. Sting Ray Robb had two incidents today. Robb spun exiting turn two on lap 113. Then he slammed the turn two barrier on lap 228. It will be fascinating to see what David Malukas does in this car because Santino Ferrucci is on the verge of finishing in the top ten of the championship driving for A.J. Foyt Racing. I don't know if Foyt can have two cars in the top ten of the championship, but it appears it could have two competitive entries. 

19. Of all the times for Álex Palou to have a battery issue at the start of a race, it was the penultimate race of the season when he has a legitimate chance to clinch a second consecutive championship and third title in four years. 

Palou still holds serve entering Nashville, and after what happened today and knowing his track record, you must believe he will do all that is necessary to claim the title in two week's time. Palou did nothing wrong today! He didn't overdrive the car and hit the barrier. He didn't speed entering pit lane and then speed again serving that penalty. He didn't plow over two cars on a waved off start. The car failed underneath him before the race even got started. 

I know they say, "Hollywood couldn't even script this" but this felt like a script. The dominant driver has something go wrong before the race even started and all he could do was drive around and run as many laps as possible to make up ground. He eased the bleeding today when it appeared set to be much, much worse.

20. Let's cover Arrow McLaren because both Patricio O'Ward and Nolan Siegel had gearbox issues end their races after 87 laps and 24 laps respectively. We have seen this number of mechanical issues in a race in a long time, but it was a variety of issues. It was gearbox issues for Daly, O'Ward and Siegel. Palou had the battery issue and Malukas' issue also appeared to be mechanical. 

21. Do you want to talk about the first attempt at a green flag start? It was waved off and it felt like it was waved off at the last possible minute. Linus Lundqvist plowed into the back of Marcus Armstrong, who collided with the back of Josef Newgarden, and this ended Armstrong and Newgarden's races. Lundqvist got a penalty but a drive-through was not enough. 

First, the start should have never been waved off. Just let them go. It was said the cars at the back were not packed up. Who cares? Who cares if the three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars, which have all been slower than molasses all weekend, and Kyffin Simpson are strangling at the back. The decision to wave it off and wave it off that late caused the incident. 

Second, race control is too involved and the action at Gateway are on everyone's mind. There is too much thinking and not enough doing. They are over-scrutinizing starts, restarts, etc. We saw some of it at Iowa when guys were being penalized for not remaining single-file. There is almost too much interference. Set the rules and throw the green flag. If there is an infraction, penalize the cars, but don't dick around with what is a proper start or restart. Stop trying to orchestrate something beautiful because there hasn't been a beautiful start or restart in an IndyCar race in nearly 30 years.

Then in this race, you have Scott Dixon to the inside of a lapped car at a restart and it was never mentioned. It gets really involved and then there is a moment where it looks like a driver has committed an infraction and it is never discussed.

For too fucking long, IndyCar has let starts and restarts be a free-for-all on ovals. I don't like that every start and restart is just a 27 drivers clustered on top of one another. One way to avoid these incidents is to spread the grid out. It is absurd that everyone is just stacked together with no margin for error. And then everyone wonders why when one guy gets it wrong, six guys are suddenly in an incident. 

We have been talking about this issue for years. Like its scheduling, IndyCar has done nothing. I don't think it is going to change now because if hasn't changed already, why would this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? 

22. Lundqvist should have been parked. One way to decrease these kind of incidents on starts and restarts is to punish dopey driving. There is almost never an accident within the first two or three or five laps of a race that is understandable. Any driver that has an incident within the first five or ten laps should be parked. Make it that simple and then drivers will change their behavior.

Lundqvist should have been parked. He could have been back home in Indianapolis before the race even ended. He ended up retiring anyway after slapping the barrier exiting turn four. Coincidentally, Lundqvist's retirement is effectively what eliminated McLaughlin from that championship. Without that retirement, Palou finished 20th and McLaughlin has a chance at claiming the Astor Cup in Nashville.

It was a shame for Armstrong because each time he has started third this season he has been in an opening lap accident. I really wanted to see what he could do. 

As for Josef Newgarden, this has been the season from hell. Newgarden did nothing wrong. This is the fifth time he has finished worse than 20th in 2024, and it was the second consecutive race. It has been a strange year for Newgarden, but even when he does nothing wrong, he gets into trouble. The final race is in his backyard. Once we are through that race, I bet he will be glad for the offseason. 

23. Milwaukee performed well. The racing was great. The crowd was better than expected on both days. Next year there will be only one Milwaukee race so the crowd must look better in 2025. This is IndyCar at its best on a short oval. This is why it hurt so much to see Iowa massacred with a hack job re-pave, which will not be fixed for 2025. 

I watch this and think IndyCar should be on the phone with Loudon and Richmond. Both have open dates now that NASCAR only goes once a year. I think we would all appreciate spring trips to Virginia and New Hampshire or at least early summer races. There aren't that many flat ovals and short tracks out there anymore. Nobody is building racetracks let alone building ovals. There are so few options out there but IndyCar should maximize it potential and bring these races to the people. 

There are at least 45,000 people who will not have a spring Richmond NASCAR Cup race to attend next year. IndyCar should not hesitate to fill that void and attempt to attract those people. That is a strategy and IndyCar has nothing to lose attempting it. It likely will only gain stepping up while NASCAR steps away.

As much as we were all in a piss, poor mood when this weekend started, we should all be feeling a little better now, even if we are all far from dandy.

24. Two weeks until the season is over. Enjoy the final off-weekend.

Morning Warm-Up: Milwaukee 2024 Race Two

Josef Newgarden ran the fastest second lap of any qualifying run yesterday at the Milwaukee Mile, and it earned Newgarden pole position for Sunday's HyVee 250. The pole-winning time was 22.6980 seconds. it is the 18th pole position in the American's career and his second pole position of the season. This is the first time he has won multiple pole positions in a season since 2021. He has not won from pole position since Mid-Ohio in 2021. Newgarden has led at least 300 laps in nine consecutive seasons. He has only led 162 laps through the first 15 races this season with 456 laps left to run in the 2024 season. With his 26th-place result yesterday, Newgarden has four results outside the top twenty this season. His most finishes outside the top twenty in a season is five, which occurred in his first two IndyCar seasons. 

Scott McLaughlin took pole position for the first Milwaukee race, but he could only manage second for race two. McLaughlin was 0.01 seconds slower than Newgarden on his second qualifying lap. McLaughlin has started no worse than second in an oval race this season. He is coming off an eighth-place finish in the first Milwaukee race, his worst oval result in his last nine oval races. McLaughlin is 92 points behind championship lead Álex Palou and he must outscore Palou by 43 points to remain championship eligible at the Nashville season finale. This will require McLaughlin winning the race and Palou finishing at least 19th or worse. 

Marcus Armstrong matched the best starting position of his IndyCar career with a third-place qualifying effort. Armstrong was 0.1105 seconds off Newgarden's time. This is Armstrong's best starting position on an oval. His top ten finish streak was snapped yesterday when he finished 21st in the first Milwaukee race. It was his fifth finish outside the top twenty the season.

Will Power made it three Team Penske cars in the top four positions as the Australian was 0.1482 seconds off the top. Power is 43 points behind Álex Palou in the championship with two races remaining. There are 108 points left on the table over the final two races. Power must end this race within 49 points of Palou to remaining mathematically eligible for the championship in Nashville. Power currently holds the tiebreaker with three victories to Palou's two. Power also has more runner-up finishes with four to Palou's three.

Linus Lundqvist makes it two consecutive races starting in the top five. After starting fourth in the first Milwaukee race, Lundqvist will start fifth for the second Milwaukee race. The Swede led 19 laps last night before finishing sixth, his third top ten finish of the season. Entering last night, he had only led eight laps in his career and his most laps led in a race was four.

Alexander Rossi rolls off from sixth on the grid. Rossi has started in the top ten in five of six oval races this season. His seventh-place finish last night snapped a three-race top ten drought. Last year at Portland was the second time Rossi did not finish in the top ten of the penultimate race in a season in his IndyCar career. His average finish in the penultimate race of the season is 9.375 with a victory and three podium finishes.

Yesterday's winner Patricio O'Ward is a position behind his Arrow McLaren teammate in seventh. Eighteen times has a driver won consecutive Milwaukee races. The most recent was Ryan Hunter-Reay, who won in 2012 and 2013. O'Ward joined Michel Jourdain, Jr. as the only Mexican drivers to win at Milwaukee. The only other track where multiple Mexican drivers have won at is Mid-Ohio, and that became the first track with multiple Mexican winners earlier this year when O'Ward won. Adrián Fernández was the other Mid-Ohio winner.

Felix Rosenqvist takes eighth on the grid for the second consecutive day. Rosenqvist ended up finishing 13th after starting eighth in the first Milwaukee race. It was the eighth time he has finished worse than his starting position this season, and in the first nine races where Rosenqvist has started in the top ten, he has finished better than his starting position only once. He went from fifth to fourth at Barber Motorsports Park in April

David Malukas has both Meyer Shank Racing drivers starting in the top ten, and Malukas will roll off from ninth starting position. This is the sixth time in nine races Malukas has started in the top ten this season. In his first five times starting in the top ten, Malukas has never finished better than his starting position. He started and finished sixth at Toronto. 

Álex Palou rounds out the top ten in the grid after being 0.4184 seconds off pole position. With a 43-point lead over Will Power, Palou must gain at least seven points on Power to clinch the championship just by starting the Nashville race in two weeks. Palou has finished ahead of Power in eight of the first 15 races. Prior to yesterday's race, Palou had finished better than Power in three consecutive races.

Nolan Siegel matches the best starting position in his career in 11th. Siegel started 11th in the second Iowa race and wound up finishing 14th. He was 17th in yesterday's Milwaukee race, finishing one lap down. Siegel has not finished on the lead lap in four consecutive starts.

Santino Ferrucci starts on the outside of row six. Ferrucci went from 19th to fourth in the first Milwaukee race. It was his first top five finish of the season and his ninth top ten result this season. It was the fourth time this season Ferrucci has finished inside the top ten after starting outside the top fifteen. 

Jack Harvey has his best starting position of the season in 13th. Prior to this weekend, Harvey had not started better than 17th this season. He started 14th for the first race this weekend, and he finished 16th. It was Harvey's best result since he finished 17th at Detroit in June.

Romain Grosjean will take 14th starting position. Grosjean is the top driver in the championship without a lap led this season. He has only led four laps in his career on an oval, two in the 2022 Gateway race and two in the 2023 Texas race.

Rinus VeeKay finds himself starting 15th. Despite finishing a lap down in 14th last night, VeeKay has completed the most laps this season. He has completed 2,067 out of a possible 2,095 laps. Prior to last night's result, the Dutchman had finished in the top ten of every oval race this season

Marcus Ericsson will be the best Andretti Global start, but it will be from 16th on the grid. Along with his seventh-place starting position yesterday, the two Milwaukee races are the first two times Ericsson has been the best Andretti starter this season. He has finished outside the top twenty in three consecutive oval races and in four of five oval races this season.

Scott Dixon starts 17th for the second consecutive Milwaukee race. Dixon has started outside the top ten in six of 14 Milwaukee appearances. This is the eighth time this season he has started outside the top ten, and he has started outside the top ten for four of six oval races. Dixon will be mathematically eliminated from the championship once Álex Palou starts today's race.

Colton Herta is starting 18th. This is the third time in six oval races Herta has started outside the top ten. Herta enters today's race 88 points behind Álex Palou in the championship. Herta must outscore Palou by 39 points today to remain championship eligible at the Nashville season finale. If Herta wins the race, it would require Palou finishing at least 18th or worse.

Kyle Kirkwood is a position behind his Andretti teammate in 19th spot. This matches Kirkwood's worst starting position of the season. He went from 19th to seventh in the first Iowa race. After finishing 12th yesterday, he has finished outside the top ten in three consecutive oval races. This will be the 50th start of Kirkwood's career. 

Conor Daly rounds out the top twenty. This will be Daly's second Milwaukee start. His father Derek made three Milwaukee starts and Derek's only podium finish in IndyCar competition came at Milwaukee, a third in 1987. Daly is coming off finishing third in yesterday's Milwaukee race. It was his second career podium finish after he was second in the first race of the 2016 Belle Isle doubleheader. Daly went 3,010 days between podium finishes.

Sting Ray Robb qualified 21st for race two. It is the 31st time in 33 starts Robb has started outside the top twenty in his IndyCar career. He started 20th history, matching his career best start. Robb ended up finishing 23rd, his worst finish on an oval this season.

Katherine Legge occupies the 22nd grid position. Legge overcame a spin to finish 19th, albeit two laps down in race one. She has only three top fifteen finishes in her last 17 starts. All three of those results came in 2012. Along with a ninth at Fontana, she was 15th at Texas and 15th at Iowa.

Christian Rasmussen started 23rd in race one and Rasmussen will start 23rd in race two. The Dane made up 12 spots yesterday to finish 11th, his second-best finish this season. This matches the most spots Rasmussen has made up in a race. He improved 12 spots in the Indianapolis 500 going from 24th to 12th.

Kyffin Simpson will have the 24th starting position. This is the 13th time this season Simpson has started outside the top twenty this season. He has finished outside the top twenty in eight races this season, including three of the last four events.  

Christian Lundgaard is 25th, but he will lead a trio of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers rounding out the grid. All three RLLR cars qualified over a second slower than Newgarden's pole position time. No other team qualified over a second behind the top spot. Lundgaard went from 26th to ninth in race one, his best finish ever on an oval in his IndyCar career.

Graham Rahal is in the middle of the RLLR sandwich at the back of the grid in 26th. This is the sixth time this season Rahal has started outside the top twenty. Only once has Rahal started outside the top twenty this season and finished in the top ten. He went from 24th to tenth at Road America.

Pietro Fittipaldi rounds out the grid in 27th, as Fittipaldi will have started last for both Milwaukee races this season. His worst starting position this season was 30th at the Indianapolis 500.  Fittipaldi could become the second Brazilian to win at Milwaukee. Tony Kanaan won twice at the circuit in 2006 and 2007.

USA's coverage of the second HyVee 250 begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:00 p.m. The race is scheduled for 250 laps.

First Impressions: Milwaukee 2024 Race One

1. Oh justice! Sweet, sweet, sweet karmic justice. We will cover a lot of the comments from this weekend on Monday, but a day after being disrespected by the second-most influential front office member of IndyCar, Patricio O'Ward had a statement victory in Milwaukee! One that from the noise coming from the crowd suggests it was a rather popular victory. 

O'Ward looked like a man to beat all race, and to be fair, it felt like six or seven guys could have won this race, but O'Ward found something in clean air and when he got out front, he was gone. In Milwaukee form, the race sprung back-and-forth like a rubber band. When in clean air, the leader could be on his own. Once some traffic came into play, it brought everyone together. 

This was the case in the closing laps as O'Ward had a motivated Will Power on his rear wing. O'Ward did not flinch, showing his composure, and closing out this victory for his third on the season. 

This man has won over the fan base because of his ability but his charisma is taking him further than anyone else in the IndyCar Series. Why he isn't the face of the series and a spokesperson that is out and about at every market is beyond me. He does more than every other driver on the grid, including the past champions and silver spoon Penske drivers, for the series. This might not be his year for the championship, but he is more than capable of winning the next two races and closing out the season with a bang.

2. Forty-three points. That is all Will Power could shrink the deficit between him and Álex Palou in this race. It went in the right direction and Power is now within the margin necessary to keep the championship fight alive into the Nashville season finale. Power will need one more good day tomorrow at Milwaukee to secure the title fight going to the final day of the season. 

For the first 100 laps, it looked like Power was going to take a significant chunk out of Palou's lead. It even looked like Colton Herta and Scott McLaughlin could come into play and stay alive for the title into Nashville. Instead, it looks like it will be at most a two-man battle if it even gets there. 

Power caught a break as he had yet to stop before the final caution for Colton Herta's unsecured left front tire after Herta's final pit stop. If that cycle plays out, there is a good chance Power finishes behind Palou tonight and we are singing a different tune.

There were ten more points in front of Power tonight. It would have been a big difference going to bed tonight down 33 points with a victory versus 43 in second. There is no margin for error tomorrow. Power cannot lose anything. He will start fourth while Palou will start tenth. At the drop of the green flag, Power will have taken out 12 more points. They will go a long way if that holds through the 250 laps, but Power will need more than that.

3. The final caution for Colton Herta's unsecured left front tire after his final pit stop shook up this race and it put Conor Daly, who had a good race but was stuck around 14th and 15th, into a position for a podium result, and Daly stole it! 

Daly was making big moves all race. His car was hooked up on the outside and he made up 12 spots in a blink at the start from 25th on the grid. However, he stalled out on the verge of the top ten. Take 12 cars out of the way and Daly was stiffing a podium. He benefited when Santino Ferrucci was balked in some traffic and Daly never looked back. It is Juncos Hollinger Racing's first podium finish in IndyCar.

Taking a note from soccer and relegation battles, the Leader Circle battle has become the equivalent to relegation. Teams need to finish in the top 22 for the funding, and teams will make decisions to ensure it has the best driver capable of getting them over that line. Daly was called in late and this is what he can do that Agustín Canapino could not. It is effectively a "new manager bounce" except it is with a driver. New driver is tossed in the car and gets better results than seen previously. 

There are still two races to go and it is still tight, but this was a big evening for the #78 crew.

4. Santino Ferrucci was racy again and he can make a car work on the outside like few else can in IndyCar. Every stint he went forward. Every restart he could make up five or six positions at a time. He will be starting better tomorrow, but he went from 19th to fourth, and nearly had a podium. A.J. Foyt Racing has experienced a rejuvenated season, and with two more races it can only get better for this organization.

5. Álex Palou doesn't do anything wrong. It wasn't his best day and Palou still finished fifth. He didn't really push for more than that. Pit cycles were in his favor as Palou stopped early and gained spots. It took him into contention for the top five, but it also put him ahead of championship rivals. After the first stint, Palou was ahead of Power because Palou stopped earlier. That swung the race in a sense. Palou stayed in contention and his team didn't make any mistakes. 

Power will have the advantage on the grid tomorrow but he must know Palou will make up at least four stops. That is eight points Power is going to lose because Palou will drive forward. The pressure is on and if Palou keeps his nose clean, he will at least be significantly in control of the championship, if not have done just enough to clinch his this title.

6. Somehow Linus Lundqvist overcame two slow pit stops because of right rear tire troubles to finish sixth. Lundqvist was competitive and was hanging with pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin through the opening stint. The slow tire change on the right rear cost Lundqvist on the first stop, but he remained in the top ten and had a strong day at a time when he is auditioning for a seat in 2025. It hasn't been a great year, but a day like this one can turn some heads.

7. Alexander Rossi did nothing and finished seventh. That is harsh but we are over two years removed form his most recent victory. Rossi has led 32 laps since the start of 2023, 102 laps since the start of 2022 and 104 laps since the start of 2021. It has been years since we have gone into a race weekend and seen Rossi be the man to beat. We know he is capable of it, but he hasn't been able to extract anything more out of that car at Arrow McLaren. He should have been able to do it at least once over the last two seasons. That is what makes seventh such a disappointment because it doesn't appear he can do much better than that. 

8. It was a weird race for Scott McLaughlin because he led the opening stint, lost the lead to Lundqvist for a moment, cycled down a few spots during the first pit cycle and then he was back in the lead because McLaughlin did not stop under the caution for Katherine Legge's spin. McLaughlin held off drivers on fresher tires, but then McLaughlin went too long and ended up getting cycled back anyway and this is ultimately what cost him the victory and more because he wound up eighth. 

It feels like McLaughlin had the best car tonight but it didn't quite pan out and that was more down to strategy than the car. There was hesitation to stop early, and that is understandable on an oval, but it cost the front-runners dearly, and McLaughlin lost out more than most.

9. Christian Lundgaard probably cannot fathom how he finished ninth tonight. The answer is Colton Herta not getting his left front tire secured on his final pit stop and running long on the penultimate stint hoping a caution would come. Lundgaard got it. None of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars were good tonight. They aren't going to be good tomorrow. I would love to see where Lundgaard was running and his average running position through the first 180 laps compared to the final 70 laps. 

Due to the Herta caution, Lundgaard was one of four cars that had yet to stop and O'Ward and Ferrucci had made their final stops and remained on the lead lap through the pit cycle. This meant Lundgaard would restart no worse than sixth. He lost a number of spots because the car was not good, but it was good enough to get a top ten finish. 

10. Scott Dixon's balance was off in qualifying and he didn't look all that good during the race, but he snuck out a top ten finish in tenth, a small victory in his 400th start. It was odd to see Dixon be second in practice and then fail to crack the top ten in qualifying for either race. I really thought we would see Dixon qualify in the top five and be a threat in this race. That didn't quite happen.

The Ganassi cars looked good. Lundqvist held his own. It will be interesting to see how Dixon and company responds tomorrow.

11. With Conor Daly finishing third, Ed Carpenter Racing needed something good out of Christian Rasmussen, and it got 11th, which eases the bleeding a bit. This could have been catastrophic for Ed Carpenter Racing. It still isn't good in terms of the Leader Circle, but the gap is not insurmountable with two races remaining. Elsewhere, Rinus VeeKay looked poised for a top ten finish and then the final caution bit him the hard and he could only finish 14th. 

12. Let's blow through the field because I have a preview to write for tomorrow's race still and it is already late. Andretti Global had a rough day. Kyle Kirkwood clipped his crew members on a pit stop and could never really overcome that penalty. Twelfth was as good as it was going to get. 

This was a big blow for Colton Herta because he had a good shot at remaining alive for the championship today. For a moment, it looked like Herta was going to be the guy to beat. This team makes too many mistakes, driver and crew combined. Strategy was a weak point as well. 

I don't understand how Herta is not brought into pit lane when he has lost ten second to O'Ward after being on his gearbox until getting stuck in traffic. I don't get it. Herta should have came into pit lane about eight laps earlier than he did for his second pit stop. It was clear stopping early was the way to go and they were in the window for two more stops from there. Put pressure on O'Ward and everyone else. 

They needed to do something big to stay in the championship hunt. They have nothing to lose rolling the dice. It could be the case the ghost of Iowa haunts the #26 team after being on pit lane as Palou spun, costing them a shot at victory, but they entered today below the cutline to remain championship eligible into the season finale. This is the time to gamble, and it likely would have paid out today.

We will cover Marcus Ericsson and Josef Newgarden here because they got together in turns one and two battling for second after the both of them were aggressive on strategy, stopped early for their third pit stops and both went from outside the top ten and up to second and third. That is how powerful stopping early was in this race. They were both still over nine seconds behind O'Ward after the stop but they both made up over ten spots in one pit cycle.

This was a racing incident. Two cars, side-by-side through the long, low-banked corners in Milwaukee. Neither gave an inch, both ended up out. Ericsson didn't do anything wrong. Newgarden didn't do anything wrong. It was an unfortunate result for both because it seems both drivers have been magnets to bad days this season. It is uncommon to see these two have as many run-ins as they have.

13. Meyer Shank Racing didn't have a good day despite having good pace. Felix Rosenqvist ended up losing spots late and fell out of a possible top ten finish to 13th. David Malukas was running in the top ten before the first pit stop and once he was cycled out he never got back into contention. Malukas ended up 15th. This has been a much better season for MSR, but they must work on closing races.

14. Jack Harvey was 16th, which isn't great but as good as it gets for Dale Coyne Racing, and I feel like I have written that after about 11 races this season. Katherine Legge didn't hit anything when she spun and rallied to finish 19th. That is a good bounce back for Legge.

15. I don't think Nolan Siegel has experienced tire degradation like this before in his life and he was 17th. Siegel is still 19 years old. It is ok for him to have some learning experiences. This was one of them. 

16. Don't let Christian Lundgaard's result fool you. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing was bad and Pietro Fittipaldi in 18th and Graham Rahal in 20th are a true indication of this team's oval pace. I don't get how it hasn't gotten any better over the last three seasons. It was bad in 2022. It was a nightmare in 2023. It isn't better in 2024. I don't get it and I do not understand how any free agent would choose to go to RLLR in 2025. Is Alexander Rossi really going to lower himself to struggling to make the Indianapolis 500? It might be a great spot for a young kid with nothing to lose (Jüri Vips), but veterans don't need that headache.

17. Marcus Armstrong was hosed when his team decide to try and make this race a two-stop race when nearly everyone else was convinced it was going to be a four-stop race. Armstrong did over 80 laps or nearly 80 laps on his first stint after hoping to make it 85 laps. This caught him two laps down when Legge spun and Armstrong could never get out of that hole. At least Chip Ganassi Racing can say it had all the strategies covered, but no one should have ever considered attempting a two-stop race tonight.

Kyffin Simpson had electrical issues, lost many laps and then always appeared to be directly in front of the leader, especially when another Ganassi car was in the top five. Not Simpson's greatest night. 

18. Sting Ray Robb had some issue and ended up finishing six laps down. That about wraps up his night.

19. Add this as Exhibit #254 as to why I think Romain Grosjean will not be back in IndyCar next year. Grosjean and the team were on two entirely different pages in terms of fuel mapping and whether or not they were saving fuel for a three-stop race or running a four-stop race. Then Grosjean had some suspension damage after he, Kirkwood and Rasmussen bumped together while running three-wide in turn four, and Grosjean was on the radio screaming for a caution while he and everyone else was still running. 

Grosjean ran well most of this race. He was running in front of Daly on the cusp of the top ten as well. This man spent a decade in Formula One! I guess about half of IndyCar is good enough to spend a decade in Formula One as well. 

20. To close because we get to do this all over tomorrow, this was a fun race and a great reminder of how fun Milwaukee can be. Tire wear dictated this race and it threw everyone for a loop. Everyone had to adjust on the fly. Some did better than others and it showed. It sucks that we didn't have this race for nine years, and it was a good crowd even if the standard should be higher. Night one of this revival was sufficient. It should set up well for day two.