Dre’s Race Review: IndyCar’s 2026 Music City Grand Prix

“Scott Borchetta, still hosting a Grand Prix after music’s biggest generational fumble.”

Welcome back to Dre’s Race Review and we go again with Round 12 of the 2026 IndyCar Series, and this time the series headed to Nashville for the Music City Grand Prix from Lebanon, Tennessee and rain. Lots of rain. So much so I’m writing this after the rarely seen Monday IndyCar race. But when we did get going eventually, Alex Palou hijacked the race with a miracle caution and some defensive resistance to stop the hometown hero. Let’s talk about it.

Washout

The weekend started with early drama – David Malukas had a huge practice crash that actually led to him being sent to hospital to be checked out for knee bruising. Thankfully it was just a bruise and he was back in the car for night practice. In shocking news, Conor Daly was at the track with his helmet just incase and was set to qualify the #12 in David’s place… but it was too badly damaged to make the grid. Daly’s chance to tick off one of the two remaining boxes on his bingo card remains a pipe dream for now. I suspect next week Kyffin Simpson’s being stuffed in a locker.

For qualifying, it was Kyle Kirkwood who took pole position with an excellent late run to beat Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Alex Palou.

Fast forward to Sunday and FOX had a genuinely excellent master plan here. Kickback the green flag in Nashville until immediately after the World Cup final, which ran late due to the extra time finish (Suck it, Argentina). With it, the IndyCar race gets a massive lead-in from said final and hope they stick around for a cool oval race that if you squint a bit, looks a bit like the Indy 500. 

Just one problem with that… the weather. For those not in the US, if lightning strikes within eight miles of a large gathering, they have to evacuate for shelter and delay said event for 30 minutes. IndyCar got a lightning hold just as they were set to air. Then it rained enough for them to lose the track. As they were getting out there with the track dryers (Normally an hour long process or so), to get going again… it rains again. Hard. Storm level downpour. IndyCar has no choice but to postpone the race to 3pm Eastern Time on Monday. 

To make matters worse, the plan to extend the race to 300 laps (400 miles), was cut back to the original 225 laps due to a 33 degree heatwave. Shit’s not going to plan here. Still, the sun’s out, and Monday tickets were only 10 bucks, what’s the worst that could happen?

Smash And Grab

When the race got underway, it unleashed a pattern of behaviour. Some early side-by-side aggression, in this instance it was Kirkwood and Newgarden going at it for the net lead early on, with Kirkwood eventually winning out that fight, but as the tyre wear increased, the dirty air would compromise handling more and we got a lot more single-file racing. A four-stop race was expected, but three-stops could be doable if cautions fell at the right time. The first of which, landed on Lap 19 when AJ Foyt’s Caio Collet had a tank slapper and hit the outside wall. It marks the third time in his four oval starts that Collet’s DNF’d. Welp.

With it, most of the field came in for new tyres (And meeting the requirements as this was the rare two-compound oval race), while David Malukas starting from the back, stayed out. And it worked a treat as he was gapping the field in the second phase of the race, ripping out a lead peaking at four seconds before the dirty air of Graham Rahal kicked in. I forgot to mention in my Friday section that Rahal was absolutely livid with the team, having let him enter the track with a broken rear upright, with him actually hitting the wall during final practice. Malpractice from the RLL team, who really ought to know better. Rahal was a rolling roadblock for the race, ending up 16 laps down.

The race’s key flashpoint was on Lap 122. Further back, Alex Rossi is too late to attempt a pit entry and the confusion leads to Scott Dixon driving into the back of his ECR. Rossi’s day is done, Dixon has to head to pitroad and slides his way in to fix his front wing and suspension. Somehow, he’s able to continue, but seven laps down effectively ends his day. Somewhere Emma Davies-Dixon just stabbed a voodoo doll like it’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

During that caution deployment, Alex Palou dives for pit road and makes the commitment line before the caution drops, meaning it was a legal pitstop and he shuffled to the front of the field after everyone had to come in after the pits reopened. The caution also boned Malukas, who was in contention for the lead and dropped him back to 11th place and back on sequence again. But this green flag period with Palou in the lead only lasted 45 laps before the race’s final caution, which was Dennis Hauger crashing into the wall. Malukas was the big winner here, moving back into fourth place after the final round of stops. The big loser? Kyle Kirkwood, who Andretti boxed with the lap before on an undercut attempt, got hosed, and dropped to 10th. McLaughlin had to move to the back of the queue too after briefly being a lap down and getting the wave around. 

Final restart time, and we got 32 laps to the flag, but Alex Palou held his nerve under extreme pressure from Newgarden, who could never quite get close enough to get alongside and ready for a passing attempt. McLaughlin had a restart of the Gods, moving up five places, and eventually climbing top fourth before his soft tyres expired, and despite everyone in the chase being on soft tyres, Palou’s hard tyre was good enough for the reigning Champion to hold off Newgarden and Malukas for the win, the latter of which had to be put on an IV in the aftermath of the race because he was getting light-headed, a likely sign of heatstroke.

Palou now matches Bobby Rahal with 24 IndyCar series wins, his 50th podium finish in the series, his third win on an oval, and Chip Ganassi’s 150th as a team. With Malukas third, and Kirkwood 10th, Palou now has an 83-point lead with six races to go, and he still has Portland and Laguna Seca still on the books. But as I’ve mentioned before, Palou is now a Top 5 oval racer in the series, we just look at him that way like we do the usual big oval hitters of Newgarden, McLaughlin, Malukas, and Pato O’Ward. Palou can now beat these guys when the scenario presents itself, and you can tell its frustrating people. Newgarden was evidently pissed after the race, being mildly miffed at Louis Foster’s block on him late on, and the lack of green flag running (Which feels harsh – We had a 93 lap green stretch in the middle of the race, and on a green track, I’m surprised there wasn’t more yellow.)

Palou doesn’t have a weakness in his game anymore. He was never the fastest car this weekend, and yet he still found a way to win when he needed a big dub. And now, he has two races in hand with six to play. The Spaniard has one hand on his fifth Astor Cup.

The Lightning Round

Huge, HUGE result for Mick Schumacher in P8, he badly needed something to kickstart his badly busted season. If nothing else, he’s seemingly taken to ovals a lot quicker than he has road and street tracks, normally it’s the other way around.

Pato O’Ward shithoused a P7 after showing absolutely zero race pace for most of the day, and with Lundgaard now -104 points back after a P16 finish, the Dane’s entering “must-win territory” for Portland and Markham to have any chance of the title.

Dear Billy Buxton. Nashville was a difficult scenario. A lot of fans can’t make a Monday afternoon race due to work commitments, it happens in racing. But taking to Twitter to tell a fan: “That reminds me, I must claim a refund on my TV when its price inevitably gets reduced on Black Friday.”, when retailers actually do this, and it’s more than valid to enquire about refunds for a postponed race, is pretty tasteless. I know you’re on the payroll, but not everything needs to be a petty defence. 

Christian Rasmussen crashed into the outside wall, breaking his toe link and ending his day. He sits 22nd in points. He has only two races this season where he’s been 13th or better. He’s only 14 points above the Leader’s Circle cutoff. The fact he’s gotten a multi-year extension at ECR is very telling about the priorities of the series right now. Got ovals?

The Verdict: 7/10 (Good) – This was a tamer oval race for IndyCar standards, but still pretty good. As mentioned, once the tyre wear kicked in, the dirty air of following another car spread everyone out which took some of the fun out of it, but it did a good job of building some tension at the end and seeing if the traffic would mess with Palou enough to open the door for Newgarden. Wasn’t to be, but still a fun race. See you in Portland.