“The title alone is cringe. Scott Borchetta is a loser.”
And welcome back, and in Part 2 of my DRR Double Bill, it’s time to head to Nashville Superspeedway for the IndyCar season finale. And while it wasn’t the title decider so many were hoping for (FOX Included), the season ended on a high note with its best race of the season, some genuine chaos, and a hometown feel good win for a man who’s been riddled with disaster in 2025. Welcome back, Josef Newgarden.
Here Comes The Pizza (Content Warning: Racism/Sexism/Sexual Assault)
I briefly mentioned this after Toronto, but I feel this warrants its own section. IndyCar needs to be very careful about who it gets into bed with. The Fastest Seat In Sports was given to Barstool Sports owner and founder Dave Portnoy, who had significant TV time before the race started.
Not to be too upsetting here, but this is a man who has been openly racist. He said Colin Kaepernick looked like a terrorist (Osama Bin Laden, specifically), in the peak of his push for racial equality in the NFL. He’s openly joked about his colleagues using black face. There’s videos of him saying the N-word on the internet. When challenged on it, he said: “I’m uncancellable”. In 2020, he launched a Podcast titled: “Barstool N.I.G.G.E.R. (Now It’s Gonna Get Extremely Real) feat. The Minority Report.”
He’s also joked about rape culture, saying: “Even though I never condone rape if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?”. Portnoy also had three sexual assault allegations made against him in 2021, accusing him of violent and aggressive encounters and filmed them without consent. Portnoy tried to counter with a lawsuit but he quietly dropped it in 2023.
It’s not a surprise, this is already the second Barstool tie-up after Toronto earlier this season. It’s part of a new partnership with FOX Sports, who of course, now own a third of IndyCar. This is the person the series openly invited to its race weekend to help promote it. It’s appalling and if the series is that desperate to justify its new investment, it risks driving away the new fans IndyCar has been desperately chasing for the last decade.
Despite me being British and an International fan of the series, I know how the sausage is made stateside. We all know FOX is the Murdoch family, who are extremely right-wing. Roger Penske, two-third owner of the series, is a Trump supporter who’s donated towards his Presidential runs. A lot of Motorsport is right-wing leaning due to the amount of money thrown around in it and its capitalistic nature. I’ve seen drivers like Alex Rossi endorse Trump in his social media likes before Elon made them private. I can ran off countless examples, so none of this surprises me, but the series can do so much better than sell some of its social soul to the devil.
You don’t get to parade around Myles Rowe as your black star in Indy NXT, or talk about Juneteenth and the Black History of the series as a positive, when you’re also pushing to let people like Portnoy and Barstool push the series in the hope more people will watch you. It rings hollow of the entire series and who they want to watch, and to be completely honest, I’m disappointed at how many people on social media and people who I know love the series, have turned a blind eye to it.
I’ve had no problem being direct about this on social media. And on Twitter, I got replies calling me a pussy, to change the channel if I don’t like it, that I wasn’t a serious person because I had my pronouns in my bio, and even called “retarded” by someone for making the comment. Not a surprise, white frat bros don’t want their cult called out, but as I said… is the kind of audience that IndyCar wants?
I get it. The series has a hardcore niche of around 700,000 fans who will watch no matter what. Chances are, if you’re in this deep where you’re reading my work, you’re probably going to be less likely to be critical of that thing you love. That’s how fandoms operate. If you feel like you have to dap up racists to increase that number, maybe you deserve the consequences of who you’re attracting to your product. Consider this an ample warning.
For The Pigs
Am I the only one who was surprised to find out that this was Pato O’Ward’s first pole position on an oval? It was a stunning three quarter of a mile per hour advantage over David Malukas (Stop me if you’ve heard that one before from last week), and Christian Lundgaard that had the grid set, ahead of Alex Palou and Scott Dixon.
We got early drama with Lundgaard starting below the yellow line, and Christian Rasmussen finally having the crash he’d been teasing for about half the season, losing control in the middle of a 4-wide on the opening lap and hitting the outside wall. We then got a tremendous battle for the lead between Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou, with the two best oval racers of 2025 locked in wheel-to-wheel combat for several laps. It was incredibly tense racing and a joy to watch.
Alex Palou didn’t have the car setup he had in Milwaukee to deal with traffic, and had to settle in to fuel save in the first stint, but at the start of the pit window, he suffered a huge puncture to his front right, a blowout that the team confirmed as a cut tire. Palou was able to limp the car back to the pits, there was no damage to the car, and he came back out in fourth, having somehow only lost a couple of seconds despite the carnage.
Pato O’Ward was leading pretty comfortably out in front ahead of Malukas and Scott McLaughlin, but then Malukas got taken out by Louis Foster in a bizarre incident. Foster was already a lap down to the leader, then aggressively chopped Malukas on the main straight, before Malukas turned down into Turn 1, with contact and Malukas spinning into the outside wall. He was taken to hospital for pre-cautionary checks, but was released that evening. Foster was given a drive-through for blocking, and rightly so, it was a really dangerous move and completely unnecessary given he was already a lap down.
Once we got going again, Pato was still leading until half-distance when Pato’s front right tire caved in and he went into the outside wall. The best oval driver in IndyCar this season, gone. And just as Will Power gets to the front, he misses his pit box, and loses a lap to the field via penalty for running over his equipment. He’d ultimately finish three laps down.
The two remaining Penske’s inherited the lead fight, with the Bus Ex’s Newgarden and McLaughlin at the front, with Scotty leading, and Josef giving chase. It was another intense fight, and it was just peaking when McLaughlin drifted up too high into the marbles, and grazed the outside wall, bringing the race’s fourth and final caution.
On that final restart, Newgarden led, and was holding off a last ditch run from Alex Palou, who passed McLaughlin low and took second place. But Newgarden used the pick of the draft from Marcus Armstrong to hold off Palou and take victory at home, with the man himself jumping into the stands again to celebrate. Palau had to settle for second, but became the Oval King for 2025 on points scored, and Scott McLaughlin just held off a shock attack from Kyffin Simpson to take third.
It’s been a very challenging season for Newgarden in 2025, a year riddled with errors, bad luck and underwhelming results. Was he the fastest man in Nashville? Probably not. But when it mattered most, he came through, and this time, he got the rub of the green he’s not had all season. And it keeps Josef’s streak of 11 years of a winning season alive. Just.
Really, Colton?
Another big prevailing rumour coming out of the weekend was that Andretti’s Colton Herta may leave IndyCar to head to F2. With Herta’s 11th place in Nashville, he finished seventh in the overall standings, leaving him on 35 Superlicense points, with 40 required to race in F1. It means that five FP1 sessions next season of 100km or more would be enough to get him there, but the murmurs are an F2 seat, maybe with Prema, would be the aim to make sure of getting over 40, as well as preparing Colton on European tracks for what an F1 seat would entail.
Honest opinion? I think Colton and Andretti’s whispers in his ear are mad for considering this. Does Herta have an F1 itch he feels he needs to scratch that badly?
Dan Towriss has said that he wants to keep the pathway open for an American F1 driver1, but I fear the cake has already been baked. Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, Cadillac’s confirmed F1 drivers, are both on “multi-year” deals. Meaning the earliest Cadillac could hire Colton barring a disaster, is in 2028. By that point, it’s his Age 28 season.
Then it’s the nature of F2 itself. As much as some want to dismiss its usefulness, it’s still got great talent that can perform at F1 level at the high-end, and pretty much anywhere else just below that. The only way Colton would likely leap off the page would be if he dominated F2, and I’m just not convinced that’s possible with how competitive it is. 18 different drivers won a race in 2024, and one of the people who didn’t in that field is a shining example of how it can go wrong.
Ritomo Miyata, one of only six men to have done the Super GT/Super Formula double went to F2 to test the waters, and barring Spa’s wet feature race this season, has been poor in the series, with one podium finish and just 13 points finishes in 48 F2 races to date. If Miyata, who I think has every chance of being a future Hypercar driver, isn’t cutting it in F1’s biggest support series, I can’t say with confidence that Colton will.
And even if everything goes right… What’s the payoff? A cruel reminder of what I wrote about this two years ago – F1 team bosses aren’t hiring IndyCar talent. Alex Palou nearly screwed himself over by trying to leave CGR to join McLaren… only for McLaren to rightly hire Oscar Piastri instead. Remember, Zak Brown saw Colton Herta in a development contract at McLaren in collaboration with Andretti. He’s seen Pato O’Ward for years in IndyCar, and they’ve never had a sniff. If Alex Palou, with arguably two of the greatest modern seasons ever seen in IndyCar can’t get a look-in, Colton doesn’t have a prayer.
It’s what makes all of this feel like a waste of time. Colton Herta is a superb IndyCar driver, his ceiling is as high as anyone’s in the series. But I think the F1 dream has sailed unless Towriss is prepared to put his money where his mouth is, and he’s already proven he’s not prepared to do that.
The Final Lightning Round
By all accounts, looks like Will Power’s about to become a free agent after 17 years at Penske, stay tuned for the season review for more…
So adding in the two yesterday, I count five tire blowouts on oval races, from three different teams at two different ovals this season. Does Firestone have anything to say about it? I doubt it.
Alex Palou ended his season with just eight wins, but another major honour – the single season points record. 700 was breached for the first time, with 711 points in total, more than Scott Dixon’s 678 in 2018, and remember, Dixon did this with a Double Point decider in Sonoma and the Indy 500 itself.
Conor Daly is a weapon on an oval. A Top 5 finish in the All-American Rejects Juncos, and remember, he started 24th on the grid, picking cars off on restarts like he so often does. His fourth Top 10 finish on an oval this season for Juncos, and on points, their best ever season in IndyCar, 268, two more than Callum Illot’s 2023. He should be back next year, but as we so often question with him, will the sponsors be there?
Despite Foster’s recklessness at the end, he did do just enough to win Rookie of the Year honours, beating Robert Shwartzman by just two points, the latter getting dinged for a late block on Santino Ferrucci dropping him from 9th to 14th. Still not sure I’d call it a “good” season for Foster, mind… (PS: Also heard murmurs that Lil’ Shwartzy is already fed up with racing in North America and wants to head back to Europe. Not ideal.)
Graham Rahal drove this race like a loser. His car was woefully slow, finishing five laps down, and it seemed to me he was intentionally trying to hold up Palou while moving aside for other drivers. I don’t know what his deal was, but it was a really lame drive from someone who we expect better from.
Scott McLaughlin went winless on the year. Man.
If Prema were eligible, Nolan Siegel would have beaten the Leader’s Circle cutoff… by 3 points. Man x2.
And on a final note – FOX’s timing tower froze at the finish line and the broadcast went off the air minutes after the race finished, despite a 45-minute pre-show with Chris Myers brought in for no good reason besides thinking there might be a decider… despite Alex Palou having a 100-point title lead entering May. Wonderful.
The Verdict: 8/10 (Great) – IndyCar saved its best weekend for last. While this was a little slower in the middle, the opening fight and the finale at the end were excellent with exceptional driving displays from Palou, Pato, McLaughlin and Simpson. Add in some strategic variance with the cautions and Palou’s exceptional final undercut and we got the best all-round IndyCar race of 2025 for me. Before I go, I’d just like to say thank you as ever to everyone who’s kept up with my IndyCar words this season, it really does mean a lot, especially in difficult times like these, and I’ll be back with a three-part season review in the coming weeks. Thanks again, and Sayonara.
- “Am I dead to you?” – Jak Crawford, probably ↩︎
