IndyCar recovers from St. Pete with Phoenix banger

IndyCar delivered under real pressure this weekend. Not only was it sharing the Phoenix weekend with NASCAR — and thus facing a chance to be 40 MPH faster than the racing many more people than usual were tuning in for — the opener at St. Pete had been kind of a snooze, at least in summary. Yes, it had the usual great IndyCar racing throughout the pack, but Álex Palou dancing away with another championship is not a storyline likely to deliver a critical growth year.

Fortunately for the storyline, Phoenix turned it on its head. Palou wrecked out of contention early in the race, and with Josef Newgarden surging back to his traditional position at the front of any short oval race, there is now a championship leader other than Palou for the first time since the 2024 season. Palou’s incident coming up on Rinus Veekay may have been a bit of a spotter fail, and another potential spotter fail of the same nature took Will Power and Christian Rasmussen out of contention later on. All day, Rasmussen continued to earn his reputation as the craziest man in IndyCar short oval racing, and it would have been quite a romp for him if he’d been able to hang on and win.

More shoutouts are necessary. Shoutout to Mick Schumacher for qualifying FOURTH in his first oval race ever. He didn’t have a glorious finish, but he sure had a glorious start. Shoutout to Dennis Hauger for one of the best saves I’ve ever seen (seen below). And — Will Power fan that I am — I must reserve my final shoutout for David Malukas for taking the 12 car to pole. That guy really has to prove he deserves the equipment upgrade he got, and this is some pretty good proof.