Dre’s Race Review: IndyCar’s 2025 Bonmarito 500

“More shortcuts than Mario Kart World.”

Hey folks, welcome to the second part of my Dre’s Race Review double review, and this time, we’re heading to Gateway Motorsports Park and the elephant in the room as Le Mans’ roster was weakened by IndyCar’s insistence on racing this week rather than last.

And look, I’m calling a rare case of International Privilege here – Because this was a Twilight race for the series, it meant starting at 1:30am UK time on Monday morning. Coming off the back of watching 17 hours of Le Mans and an F1 weekend in Canada, this was way too much for my British arse. So I’ll do what many Motorsport writers do when they need a quick hit online, write a list!

So, with Gateway freshly watched via the power of the Internet, here’s 10 things we learnt from IndyCar’s return to St Louis. 

The Exit List

1 – The Kyle Kirkwood Breakthrough is Here: While I’m currently punching myself in the nuts over picking McLaughlin to do the 2025 double, I did asterisk myself by saying, I think 2025 would be the year Kyle Kirkwood would step-up into an elite driver in the series. Well, at this point, it’s safe to say it’s happening. It’s funny. Just one round ago, he was being nicknamed the King of the Streets. Now he has his first oval win. Uh-oh…

Kirkwood was always in the mix, all race long. Maybe not the quickest outright, but he took advantage of late race strategy and forced IndyCar’s fuel-save master Scott Dixon, and off-sequence Prema driver Callum Illot into burning enough fuel so that they couldn’t make the flag, this after Dixon gained a lap late on for David Malukas bringing out a caution for skimming the wall with 65 laps left, with only 50-55 laps at a push via a fuel save. (Props to our man REK on the video)

And if you can hold off Pato O’Ward in the clutch to win it out, you’re in big business. Kirkwood now has a career high three wins on the year, a number good enough to win titles in this series, he’s now won in two of the three major IndyCar disciplines, and at the half way point in the season, is third in the standings. ANY other season, he’s right in play for the title. If only that 500 car was legal…

2 – The End Of Team Penske’s 2025: We’re done here. Pack it up. This weekend felt like the last chance for Team Penske to salvage something out of what’s been a horrible season, and they were on course to do so via crushing qualifying. Will Power destroyed the field, and Penske locked out three out of the Top 5, four if you count David Malukas. 

Will Power hits the wall early doors, Scott McLaughlin was running Top 5 before technical gremlins removed him from the race. And Josef Newgarden… we’ll get to him. This is Penske’s hunting ground. Since Gateway’s return to the calendar in 2017, they’ve won six out of the eight previous races there. This was meant to be a salvage job. Now, their season might be effectively done. It wasn’t even their fault¹. Speaking of which:

3 – Josef Newgarden is the luckiest unlucky man out here: That was a terrifying crash. Louis Foster spins out on his own, but drifts towards the inside wall. Newgarden has a choice of left or right. He chose left and he got collected, putting him over the barrier briefly and upside down. Thankfully the aeroscreen did its job and protected Josef’s head, and he was fine. But if there was ever a visual metaphor for Newgarden’s catastrophic season, this was it. Unlucky as he’s been for the second time, it leaves him 16th in points, 203 behind Alex Palou. And guess what, the Spaniard, right behind Josef on track, chose right. Man. PS: That cancelling of going to an ad break… phew. 

4 – Angry Ginge: Christian Rasmussen might have just had the single best drive in IndyCar this season. He had a terrible qualifying session, starting from 25th on the grid, had his car briefly catch fire in the pits, and had to drop to the back with 110 laps left due to having to take emergency service, but he made over 60 overtakes to climb back through the field, and was in the right place at the right time on fuel strategy in the end to be right there with Kirkwood and O’Ward at the end of the race. 25th to a first IndyCar podium in third, and his confidence of the high line was masterful. Stunning drive from the Dane.

5 – How can you not be romantic about… Conor Daly?: It’s a tale as old as time. Conor Daly is now 33 years old, and he’s driven for every team on the grid not named Penske or Ganassi. He’s always been the plucky contender who takes advantage of the opportunities when presented with them. This was one of the most competitive races I’ve ever seen Daly in. His fight with Pato O’Ward with what was for the lead of the race at the time, was superb, back and forth, Daly’s persistence eventually getting him out in front. It was the single best battle IndyCar’s had since Palou vs Lundgaard at The Thermal Club. Awesome.

6 – Alex Palou needs to be careful: First time I’m saying this about Palou all year… but he needs to be careful here. The last two weekends have had his leadcut by a third, from 115 to 73. Detroit he was good for a Top 5 before the Malukas smash, but this was a race where he got away with awful race pace. Lapped during the race, before strategy got him an eighth place finish I’m still not sure how he managed to pull off. Ganassi’s short ovals have always been a minor weakness of theirs, and the worst case scenario for his title lead would be if Kirkwood and O’Ward start consistently finishing in the Top 5. 

7 – McLaren deserves (some) props: Credit where it’s due, I’ve mocked them in years past for being a disappointment, but this is a team that finally has some depth to add to its upside. Pato O’Ward while winless in 2025, feels like it’s due very soon and he continues to stuff the point sheet week-to-week, even when his prep has been sub-optimal. And Christian Lundgaard is in the Kirkwood club of breakout seasons, even if you could argue that was two years back at RLL. All three drivers have been retained, which is cool, but you have to wonder if Nolan Siegel was an easy decision. The #6 crew being largely new has been used as a “pass” but 21st in points for a much hyped NXT prospect and the David Malukas replacement is not working in this writer’s opinion. No driver in that team should be flirting with Leader’s Circle exemption. Speaking of…

8 – The David Malukas hype train derails: I’ve been guilty of it, as has most of IndyCar’s media², that the AJ Foyt move for Malukas was a test to see if he could graduate into the Penske line-up full-time in 2026. My verdict now we’re half way in? Nah. Don’t think so. Malukas had an outstanding 500 to finish as runner-up, but since then he’s dumped Palou in a wall, and was challenging for the podium at his signature track and lost it, grazing the wall and eventually finishing 12th. A huge missed opportunity, and across the garage, Santino Ferrucci now has three straight Top 5 finishes to now be 7th on points, the highest he’s ever featured. If Malukas can’t beat Ferrucci, forget about a Penske seat. 

9 – Unnecessary Clash: I know FOX has worked hard to avoid clashing with the NFL in September by cramming this season together, but as I’ve said before, there was no good reason why we couldn’t have ran this race in August as per usual, or last week so we could have let the IndyCar drivers who are on the roster, drive at Le Mans – Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, Colton Herta, Christian Rasmussen, and likely more, all missed out. If you ever wanted free publicity as to why your drivers are as good as any in the world… there was your chance.

10 – Quick, Devlin’s Returning to his car: Props to the cameraman, chasing Devlin DeFrancesco back to his car and then falling over and eating shit on live television. 

The Le Mans Lightning Round

Seriously though as I forgot to mention them in my F1 review – Hearty congratulations to the #83 AF Corse for an incredible win, and Robert Kubica in particular for completing an incredible story. 14 years ago, on the brink of being a Ferrari driver, he suffered a life-altering Rallying crash that resulted in breaking the bones of half his body, which required 17 operations to fix. 

This past weekend, he won Le Mans, and I think as the first driver with a disability³ to win outright (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure he is). Congrats to Phil Hanson and Ye Yifei becoming the finest Chinese driver to win outright too. And with Inter Europol winning in LMP2 for the second time in three years, Sunday was probably the greatest day in Polish Motorsport history. Awesome. 

Salute to the #6 crew for Porsche, who put up an incredible fight, with Kevin Estre pulling off some stint time heroics just to stay with a Ferrari factory effort that seemingly got a big ol’ BOP advantage. And looking at B-Pillar, Mick Schumacher put in WORK for Alpine. What a lad. Stay tuned for our full review on the Motorsport101 Podcast later this week. 

The Verdict: 8/10 (Great) – Comfortably, the best IndyCar race of 2025 and I don’t think it’s particularly close. Action up and down the field, some incredible stories in the process – Conor Daly and Christian Rasmussen looked like stars, fuel strategy convergence and more. IndyCar needs more ovals on the bill, because when it hits, it hits different. The first IndyCar race I’d genuinely recommend this year. See you at Road America. 

1. Will Power suffered a puncture, Scott McLaughlin was technical, Newgarden collective. Ouch. ↩︎
2. Buxton, looking at you. This wasn’t even a rumour, this was straight up speculation, not sure I’d want to be building race notes around it. ↩︎
3. Feels particularly important to mention that given the state of the UK and the fight with the government and PIP. Solidarity to all those on the front line, keep fighting the good fight. ↩︎