“Pato O’Ward finds a new way to lead two races at once.”
Hi everyone, my name is Dre Harrison, and right now, my head is on Mars. I’m writing this first paragraph at 10:10pm on Sunday night, 50 minutes before the start of Race 1 of the Milwaukee Mile double header for IndyCar. I’m trying to get a headstart on this unenviable task of trying to sum up this weekend, because somehow Alex Palou winning his fifth Astor Cup in six years isn’t anywhere near the main story. Not even Pato O’Ward winning Race 2. It’s the heading at the top of this page. Yes, I’m not making it up.
Because Seriously, how the fuck did we get here?
Race 1
We already had a major story going into Saturday’s opening race after a huge smash between Christian Rasmussen and Kyle Kirkwood. Rasmussen refused to back off during a race run as they both headed into Turn 3, and Rasmussen turned in low with Kirkwood side-by-side, and they both ended up in the wall. Both drivers needed their backup tubs for qualifying.
And in the sixth different qualifying format of 2026 (I’m not joking), we had two laps runs where the first lap ordered the grid for Race 1, and the second lap for Race 2. This was also an eyebrow raising session because a lot of the heavy hitters were hurt with engine penalties – David Malukas, Scott McLaughlin and Alex Palou. (And Sting Ray Robb, but only FP1Will cares about that.)
Unbelievably, for Race 1, the order ends up with McLaughlin, Palou, Malukas in the Top 3. Meaning fourth placed Pato O’Ward starts from pole in Race 1, while McLaughlin still gets the point and sticker for qualifying fastest. As for Race 2, Alex Palou beat Pato O’Ward for pole by three TEN THOUSANDTHS of a second. Yes, 10,000ths. We don’t see it often as it’s a tiebreaker column, but IndyCar does go to four decimal places. What’s crazier was Mick Schumacher in fourth beating Will Power by ONE ten thousandth of a second. At that speed (163mph), that might be an inch. Two, tops.
Early on in Race 1, it was another classic Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden showdown for the lead, with Pato winning the early exchange. The biggest mover early on? Rinus Veekay for Juncos, who gained 10 spots early on as he moved through the field, as Felix Rosenqvist went to the front at the end of the first stint, pushing out a seven second as he handled traffic better.
But as it often does in Milwaukee, lapped traffic plays a huge role in running order, and with Nolan Siegel being used as an accidental blocker, Pato got right back in front of Felix until… caution. Rain.
See, Milwaukee has been under storm warnings for a few days going into the weekend, and there was always a good chance that rain would disrupt the weekend. And on Lap 90, after a bunch of caution running, they lost the track and had to park the field under a red flag.
Now, here’s your problem. Milwaukee doesn’t have permanent lighting so they can’t race at night. So there was a hard cut off of 7:30pm local time for Sunset. The rain stopped with 90 minutes of sunlight to go, but they couldn’t dry the track enough to get some running going, the obvious thinking from the series being, if we can open up a window of maybe 15-25 minutes, get to Lap 126 (The 50% minimum threshold to call a result), they can get it done and not have Sunday’s running disrupted.
That… didn’t happen. IndyCar just ran out of time. So we were now put in a really weird situation where they were now going to try and run Race 1 on Sunday morning at 8am Local Time, knowing full well the weather radar said: “45% chance of rain”, aiming for a small window to get the race in. If they couldn’t do it then, they would move the race to 5pm Local Time AFTER Race 2 was completed at 1am. Still with me in the room here? If not, go get a nap and check back in the next paragraph.
Would you look at that, still raining? Yep, IndyCar didn’t even think of waiting around on this one, moving the race to 5pm Local. So now we had the awkward situation of cars being drained of their fuel tanks and tyres stashed while they prep cars for Race 2. In some cases like Scott McLaughlin and Nolan Siegel, their cars had to be wrapped for the second race because they had different sponsors from Race 1. Ha.
Is This Race 2 then?
And if nothing else, this may have been Pedro Acosta’s greatest MotoGP race yet. Yes, he didn’t win, but to match Marquez’s pace in the middle portion of this race on a KTM is astonishing. Now I am taking into account that KTM has typically gone well at Aragon in the past, but compared to his teammates, Acosta destroyed everyone else in orange. The next nearest KTM? Enea Bastianini, 25 seconds behind him. Astonishing riding and it’s going to be fascinating to see what he can do in red next year.
Acosta hassled Marquez for a good few laps to ramp up the pressure, but Marquez counter-attacked in astonishing fashion. Just when Pedro was within a bike length, Marquez ran off four 1:46 laps in a row. 46.9, 46.7, 46.9, 46.8. The gap was two tenths of a second at Lap 12 By Lap 16, it was a second and a half. Classic Marquez, finding that extra gear and extra pace when it mattered most, and slamming the door shut. Game over.
With it, Marc took his eighth win at Aragon, meaning he now has two entries in the Top 5 (alongside the Sachsenring), for most wins at a single track. And with Martin down in fifth, Marquez is back up to second in the standings and 19 points from the title.
*record scratching sound*
Wait, shit, this wasn’t Race 1, this was MotoGP’s Aragon race, shit, my bad. Erm, check out the link to that review down at the bottom of this page, let me put the correct record back in…
Okay, this is definitely Race 2. I think?
Oh yeah, Palou’s on pole, so it must be Race 2. Right, cool. Palou did what he does best, take a big early on until again, he caught up in traffic via a handful of obviously slower cars – Caio Collet, Graham Rahal and Nolan Siegel being the biggest offenders. Palou’s early lead quickly vanished as Newgarden took the lead, right before an early caution for Romain Grosjean getting into a half spin, which forced an early round of pit stops. Given the rain, Milwaukee was now so green as a track, it turned what people thought could be a 3-stopper, into a 5-stopper because the tyre wear was so much worse than expected, and fresh rubber was worth over 1.5 seconds a lap on a 23-second track.
The big loser in that round of stops, Pato O’Ward, whose slow left rear chance dropped him back to 15th. We got going again, and as usual, Palou pushes out a multiple-second lead until he hit the back of the queue. Only this time, it was Rinus Veekay who pushed through the Penske’s and got to the front of the field. Palou took the lead back just before the second round of stops, and pushed out the lead via an excellent stop from the #10 crew.
Will Power was now up to 3rd in that sequence, with David Malukas finding some pace to get up to second, until Newgarden spun on his own at the Turn 4 transition and tapped the inside pitwall. Day done and the second caution. The field came in for a round of stops (Coming in around 150 meant a stretch to get it done for most on just one more stop), and Power took the net lead behind McLaughlin on used rubber who stayed out. This was only helped for the stoppers when Grosjean immediately spun on the restart again and went into the wall.
82 laps to the flag and on the restart, the McLaren’s went ballistic, with Pato O’Ward jumping all the way up to second, and in surprising news to some, Christian Lundgaard went with him. This included an incredible sequence where they had to use Siegel as a “Zonta” to let his teammates move around both sides of him to get back up the queue. Wild.
The final round of stops came under green, with Will Power, now leading the race getting dinged for speeding on pit lane. No other way to say it, he threw away a victory. Pato O’Ward was now in front with Scott McLaughlin second and Lundgaard back down to third after another slow, 11-second McLaren stop.
That was pretty much the order as they got to the line, with O’Ward taking his second win of the season ahead of Scotty Mac’s best result since opening night in St Pete, and Lundgaard in third for his best ever oval result and first podium in the format. With Alex Palou 5th and Kyle Kirkwood 6th, it meant the Championship got kicked back to Race…1?
Space Time Rewind
Right, here we go again. Race 1 restarted on Lap 101 (On brand), with some genuine intrigue. Right before the red flag yesterday, Malukas, Palou and everyone below took a top up on fuel so in theory, they could have ran longer in exchange for losing track position. Palou took the chance to dive in early to get back on the leader’s strategy, while Malukas ran longer to turn it into a 2-stop restart. Malukas went on a passing spree getting back up the field until a caution just 8 laps later after Dennis Hauger clipped Mick Schumacher on Turn 4 exit and caused a spin out.
Malukas was way out in front as the final set of green flag stops went down with 55 to go, until another caution came out as he got caught in the marbles on the entry of four after Christian Lundgaard sent it on him. Power goes from a Race 2 winning car to finishing outside of a pair of results that read 25th and 14th.
Just three laps after the restart, Caio Collet crashed into the outside wall for another caution after being stuck in the middle of a three wide and turning into Newgarden. Malukas has O’Ward directly behind him on the restart… and Malukas gets a plenum fire, misses a gear and Pato passes him easily for the lead with 24 to go. Welp.
That’s how it would stay at the front with Pato O’Ward doubling up to become the first IndyCar driver to win twice in a day since Rick Mears in 1981. Malukas having to settle for second for the sixth time in his short career, and Rinus Veekay getting on the podium in third with an excellent late pass on Scott McLaughlin. Another brilliant performance from one of the drivers of the 2026 season.
Booker T
And with a quiet 10th place on the day, Alex Palou would become a five-time IndyCar Series Champion. The accolades and achievements are just scary the more you run them down. He’s only the third member of the Five-Time Champions club. He’s only the second man ever to win four in a row, a la Sebastien Bourdais in the Champ Car era. He’s won the Championship early for the third time in four years. If matching Scott Dixon’s career was a Speedrun attempt, he’d have a gold split right now with a (-10) next to the checkpoint because you sometimes forget he doesn’t turn 30 until April. Last time we had someone this dominant was Dario Franchitti and he was nearly a decade older and in his prime when he won a hat-trick of 500’s and four Astor Cups in a six-year spell. And he was 38 when that run was over.
I’ll be the first to say it here, it hasn’t been his best season; laughable as it is to say. There’s been errors from himself and his crew, but he has consistently put himself in winning positions week after week. And as someone who made his early career in the bookies can attest – If you get enough spins of the roulette wheel, you’re bound to win eventually. His ceiling is a near guaranteed win, and his floor is good enough to trounce most drivers’ best days. He’s the sport’s best qualifier, his black tyre skills are legendary, and Barry Wanser and the #10 crew are amongst the best in the series. They are relentless and obsessed with winning and it all leads to Palou now being THE IndyCar driver of the 2020’s and one of the greatest to ever do it.
A special, special talent. Congrats Alex. And in the words of the famous internet meme: “Palou’s 29, this fuckery can’t go on much longer.” Right?
The Clean-Up Effort Disguised As A Lightning Round
Man, IndyCar just about got away with this one. Props to them for messy race management but for eventually getting both races in full despite the acts of God. Also great to see fans allowed to stick around for Sunday after the rain ended Saturday night unfinished, and for giving Milwaukee a new five-year deal. It’s a great venue with great fans and it deserves to be a staple part of the calendar.
Pato O’Ward won his 12th IndyCar race before he won his 11th. And on Bruce McLaren’s birthday no less. I’m in two-minds about it. He was brilliant over the weekend, as you’d expect as the best oval driver in the series. But it has a whiff of “garbage time” about it. What I mean by that is, he has a knack of winning races that don’t feel like they matter as much because the Championship’s already over. He won in Toronto last year to cut the gap to Palou to a mere… 99 points.
He did it again when he won in Milwaukee in 2024 when Colton Herta and Scott McLaughlin were far closer to Palou. It’s giving big “Chris Paul hits a huge three to cut the gap to 37!” kind of energy. 8 of Pato’s 12 wins have come down the stretch in the back of the season. Pato needs to be doing his business earlier in the calendar to put more pressure on the big hitters, rather than inject himself into the battle for second. PS: McLaren’s pit crew… woeful.
Speaking of McLaren, their media approach is getting weirder. We got a largely sympathetic Buxton talk to Lundgaard about his oval form, before the man himself has his best weekend on ovals as a driver and now there’s a real chance McLaren are about to cut the Championship runner-up, and neither Zak Brown or Tony Kanaan can give a straight answer as to why. Brown says they want a roster that can win every week – They have the best oval driver in IndyCar and the second best on road and street courses. And to make it worse, you’ve handed him on a silver platter to the best team in the series right now.
Tony says they want the Triple Crown across the brand, so a focus on the 500. There’s still rumors swirling that Pato and Christian can’t stand each other. And the replacements are Felix Rosenqvist, who you fired two years ago for not being quick enough, and Scott Dixon, who is now starting to feel like he actually is 47, with one Top 10 finish in his last eleven starts. IndyCar needs a great McLaren team and I fear they’re blowing one up instead of what they think is building one. What a time for Chip to poach Lundgaard and kill his “Dixon’s becoming an anchor” problem in one swing.
Mick Schumacher has ended up the best oval driver of the RLL drivers, and the best of the rookies. Not sure if that’s him actually being good at them, or the really poor competition around him. Remember when Caio Collet was getting rumours of getting an MSR seat?!
Christian Rasmussen has saved the #21 car from falling out of the Leader’s Circle with his 5th and 8th across the weekend. He needed some good results after that Friday crash and a very disappointing year across the board.
I’m not saying IndyCar needs F1’s blue flag rule, but man it was rough seeing Graham Rahal trying to chop block people while three laps down. Embarrassing, like his performance this weekend.
The Verdict: 6/10 (Decent) – I like Milwaukee, but the racing here was kind of predictable. The leader runs away on clean air, gets to the back of the queue, can’t pass traffic on used rubber due to the dirty air, and the pack closes the gap again. Rinse and repeat. It’s not the sort of oval racing I want to see. I get that navigating traffic is part of the game, but not to this level of extreme. We’ve had better ovals this year for me. See you for the season finale at Laguna Seca.
