“Extra Parched.”
Welcome back to the 17th and final Race Review of IndyCar 2026. Yes, seventeen, that wasn’t a mistake. In this final round of 2026, we got some loose ends to tie up, so let’s go to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the season finale. And with it, a very thirsty Kiwi ended a two-year long winless streak, we find out who takes second in the Driver’s Championship and who gets the Leader’s Circle payout for the Top 22. But first…
All To Play For Here!
The two main battles left up for grabs was the battle for second place in the Astor Cup. Four men came in with an eligible chance:
Christian Lundgaard – 507, Kyle Kirkwood – 505, Pato O’Ward – 503, David Malukas – 484
More or less a straight shootout at the business end of the points between the front three, with Malukas needing a lot of help to make up 19-23 points on all three of his rivals, with a wrist injury that still isn’t 100%.
At the other end of the table, there was a fight on for not only the Rookie of the Year crown, but also the Leader’s Circle payouts that cut off after 22nd in points. Here was that table going into the finale:
22nd – Dennis Hauger ® – 223
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23rd – Mick Schumacher ® – 205
24th – Caio Collet ® – 193
25th – Sting Ray Robb – 175
For those new here, the Top 22 in points get a Leader’s Circle payout at the end of the season, around $2m right now, a pretty significant figure in an important time for the series. With a new car essentially a year away and expected costs to increase, getting around 20% of your car’s budget back would really come in handy.
To set this up, qualifying had a minor surprise – Alex Palou wasn’t on pole. With his ace in the hole race (Yes, his 1.6 average finish only came up on commentary half a dozen times), Palou had to settle for second despite hitting a 1:09.1 in all three rounds. It was his final corner, the Rainey curve in qualifying format, that lost him a tenth by being too narrow to the apex, and it opened the door for Scott McLaughlin to take his second sticker of the year ahead of Palou, and Felix Rosenqvist.
The Final Fumble
The race itself started in classic Laguna Seca fashion… a crash on the opening lap. In what will likely be his final IndyCar race, Sting Ray Robb gave us one more highlight for FP1Will, and ploughed straight into the back of Dennis Hauger, driving him into the outside wall of Turn 6. Day done, and a 10-second stop and hold for avoidable contact.
It was once we got going again that I noticed something strange on my Firestone tyre dashboard. Of everyone in the field, Palou in second was the only one to start the race on a used set of alternate red tyres. And he wasn’t making it work, as by the end of his first stint on Lap 18, he was four seconds behind McLaughlin and then switched… to another pair of used reds.
And that stint really didn’t work. He only managed 13 laps on those because he was getting passed hand over fist at the back of the stint, and it forced him into a four-stop race because he had to go with a used set of black tyres. He only went 13 laps on that set too, and bailed because he was stuck in a huge traffic jam of cars in a dirty air deadlock.
Now, this is a tangent so bare with me here, but this has been another dodgy call by Barry Wanser, Palou’s chief strategist. Now I’m going to try and be gentle in my criticism because that man’s been fighting cancer and I can’t begin to imagine how difficult a job being a race strategist is while juggling that horrible disease… but this is the third time I can recall this season that he’s gotten it wrong.
At the Indy 500, he thought the race wasn’t going to get the 200 laps in, so came in early. It didn’t work and it dropped Palou to seventh. In Gateway, he was ever so marginally wrong on his fuel numbers and Palou ran dry on the way to the box, costing him two laps and a reasonable chance of a Top 5 finish.
If I had to put my outside strat cap on here, I suspect Wanser planned for a chaotic race. Laguna Seca has had a knack over the years for producing a lot of cautions due to it being a narrow track, limited passing opportunities and a janky restart zone where cars often let tip before the final corner, often leading to stack-ups. That just didn’t happen here. It was a one-caution race that ran green the rest of the way.
Now I’d rather normally be caught dead than listen to Alex Rossi on his Podcast, but I do know he’s mentioned before that the modern IndyCar isn’t conducive towards racing because the extra weight amplifies the dirty air effect, makes tyre wear worse, and make it even harder to follow. So as a result you get a lot of stalemate trains and a lack of movement across the field. You gotta prepare for the race you have, not what you think is going to happen. This was a classic, Alex Palou front-runner’s black tyre race and they got it completely wrong, and he ended up eighth instead of second at worst. His Monterrey average finish, NOOOOO…
Right, I would get us back on topic, but really, not much else happened in this one. McLaughlin led 87 out of 95 laps here to win. Kyle Kirkwood hovered between 1-4 seconds back, trying a 25-lap final stint on the reds to try and beat him on grip delta, but it was never enough as McLaughlin never really looked like losing from the front. He snaps a 35-race winless streak, going all the way back to 2024. A streak so long, his daughter hadn’t even seen him win yet. It salvages a pretty underwhelming season into something reasonable, but was he here for 6th on the year? Doubt it.
A pleasant surprise though was Alex Rossi bringing him his first podium finish for ECR in third. The hometown Californian was outstanding all weekend, making the Fast 6, putting a clean move on David Malukas and was actually closing in on the Top 2 late on. I’m going to move onto my next paragraph before I go into another tangent about where his 2019 form has gone and I get physically dragged off the keyboard.
If you can tell I’m padding this out a bit… Yeah, I am. Not much happened here, at all. It’s why I’ve seen some people talk about whether Monterrey should still be the season finale given it was swapped with Nashville. I said it back then and I’ll say it again here – Why? Laguna is going to be hot as balls whether you run it in July or September. It’s a track where these cars struggle to pass. IndyCar’s best weapon for entertaining races is their oval races. We only get five, maybe six of them a year. The 500’s your banker, having a March oval race in Phoenix is smart, swap Nashville and Monterrey back and I think this solves your problem. Ovals are generally more entertaining, more unpredictable, and I think you get a better chance of a wild season finale.
Anyway…
The Evaluation Test
This warranted its own section because it raised an eyebrow and a half. IndyCar announced in the build-up to the final race that they were going to re-evaluate talent being eligible to race in the series for those coming from IndyNXT. Going forward immediately, this is now the new criteria:
| Indy NXT Championship Top 3 NXT Championship Finish Two NXT Wins In The Last Two Years | Automatically Eligible |
| One NXT Win In the Last Two Years | Evaluation Eligible |
| Any Other NXT Results | Resume Review Required |
The top box is exactly what it says on the tin, finish in the Top 3 in the standings, or win two races in the last two years, come on down. Being “evaluation eligible” means you may have to take some kind of evaluation test before you get a license to compete. And the series says even if you complete a test, it doesn’t guarantee you a licence. Hmm. Anything else, and you’re going to need the series to look at your racing resume of recent times to determine whether you get an evaluation test or not. This is also the system for anyone who has failed to reach 12 Indy NXT starts and may be coming from other series.
Now when I first saw this I was like… “Ah. I see what you’ve done here.”
Now for those who haven’t been paying attention to Indy NXT this year (Congrats to Nikita Johnson on the title by the way), this relates to Josh Pierson. I noticed his name crop up in silly season articles by Marshall Pruett of Racer.com and the prevailing talk was that he had $25m of potential funding for two years in an IndyCar team. Then the talk was Caio Collet was being let go from Foyt for Pierson, using his funding to keep Santino Ferrucci on the team, given he lost a sponsor this year too.
Now Pierson’s NXT record was… sub-standard of someone trying to make the series in my opinion. Year 4 of his NXT career, winless in his first 50 starts in the series, a peak Championship finish of sixth last year. Then all of a sudden at Milwaukee, he was leading and dominating the race there, until he spun out and crashed. But he took Race 1 at Laguna Seca during the finale and now he’s earned an Evaluation Test.
Now I promise there’s no tinfoil hat on my head as I type this, but Pierson taking a big leap forward right as the series tries to slam the door in his face (I’ve literally called this the Josh Pierson amendment to others), is a little “sus” in terms of timing. It could be a coincidence, but if there’s one thing I know about junior motorsport, it’s that not all opportunities are created equal. Let’s see if he passes the “test”, because if he doesn’t, it seems Foyt might be in trouble…
The Final Lightning Round
So those finishing tables?
2nd – Kyle Kirkwood (545)
3rd – Christian Lundgaard (535)
4th – Pato O’Ward (522)
5th – David Malukas (514)
Kirkwood’s 10th Top 5 finish of 2026 nabbed the silver medal at the death. Christian Lundgaard had to settle for third, but he did claim one other cool accolade – Becoming just the sixth man in IndyCar history to complete every single lap of the season. Everyone else in that club (Power – 2022, Dixon – 2022/2020, Newgarden – 2020, Pagenaud – 2017 and Kanaan – 2004), has won at least one of the big two. No-one scored more points than Pato O’Ward did in the final five races after his explosive Milwaukee double win, and Malukas did well to cross 500 points given his wrist injury creeping back at Mid-Ohio. As for the bottom:
22nd – Dennis Hauger ® – 228
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23rd – Mick Schumacher ® – 213
24th – Caio Collet ® – 203
25th – Sting Ray Robb – 182
Hauger, despite being launched into a wall on the opening lap, did enough to hold onto the Rookie of the Year spot after Mick Schumacher had a late gravel run and dropped to 22nd on the day. Caio Collet was only 20th, and Sting Ray Robb is still finishing up as I type this.
Not going to go too in-depth here, as the Season Review is right around the corner and I want to save some energy for that, but glad to see Scott Dixon try to go off-sequence one last time for CGR in his 414th and final start for the team.
Two silly season moves got confirmed too – Mick Schumacher is indeed heading to Meyer Shank for 2027. Again, season review, more soon. But I have to say, this is a big gamble for MSR, almost exclusively banking on the surname value of Mick here. Because on any level, he’s not been good in the series this year and under any other circumstances, they wouldn’t be hiring the man 23rd in points to fill in a seat that should be reserved for a Top 10 driver. Dear Rinus Veekay, why didn’t you wait before signing that deal with Juncos?!
Also, Conor Daly is back in the series in a multi-year deal with Dreyer and Reinbold as they return to the grid with one of RLL’s charters. Look, this is the next evolution of D+R doing what they do every year, and that’s to try to win 500, and Daly is the best specialist in the field that isn’t a full-timer. If nothing else I respect the determination of this mothertrucker for still pouring every last drop of effort into trying to race in the series. He’s 34, had 131 starts since his debut in 2013, and he’s driven for NINE different teams since.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but…dear FOX, keep the International break chat. It’s mostly harmless fun that builds up a relationship between the commentary booth and the audience. It’s a little cringey at times sure, but Motorsport is supposed to be fun and this is a series where personalities matter more than ever. And this is coming from me, a guy who isn’t the biggest fan of two thirds of the box.
And finally… we don’t deserve Alex Palou.
The Verdict: 4/10 (Poor) – Not the one chief. For the reasons mentioned above, Laguna Seca didn’t hit this time around. I just wanted to use this box to say thank you for everyone who’s been reading these as ever, and as mentioned, the 2026 Season Review will be starting with Part 1, later on this week. Till then, cheers gang. Love, Dre x
