First Oval of the Season - IndyCar 2026 Round 2 Recap

Fans have complained for years about the large gap between the first two races of the IndyCar season. The past two years, IndyCar responded by adding races at the Thermal Club, but this year the solution was the return to Phoenix in a crossover weekend with NASCAR. It's been a while since we've had an oval this early in the season, so what can we learn about this side of the schedule from the weekend?

Penske's Lucky Break

In qualifying, Penske grabbed a front-row lockout, with David Malukas taking the pole alongside Josef Newgarden. While they managed to hang on for most of the first stint, they fell back quite a bit throughout the middle of the race.

They caught a lucky break when a late-race caution came out. Many cars stayed out, but Newgarden was among those who decided to take fresh tires with around 50 laps to go. While initially it seemed Pato O'Ward had the advantage, Newgarden drove by him and the cars that chose to stay out to take the win.

Penske clearly had one-lap pace, but the race pace didn't seem to be there, especially late in a stint. They got lucky with the late yellow bailing them out, but we'll have to see if those issues persist when we get to Iowa.

Malukas, meanwhile, grabbed his first podium since joining Team Penske, finishing 3rd, while Scott McLaughlin brought home a top 10. People were skeptical of the signing of Malukas, but I think the past two weeks have shown that he really does have Penske-level potential. We'll see how the remainder of the season plays out, but so far things are looking good.

Alex Palou's DNF

Alex Palou has been the championship leader since June 23rd, 2024. That streak ended when he crashed out of the race early thanks to contact with Rinus Veekay. In his 100 IndyCar starts, this is only his 9th DNF.

While you could argue that Veekay should have backed out of the move into a gap that was always going to close, I put more of the blame on Palou. He and his spotter should have had more situational awareness of where Veekway was and how much overspeed he had over Palou. Better to give up a spot and live to fight another day than end up in the wall, especially only 20 laps into a race. It's a rare mistake from a driver that's known for backing out of low-percentage situations.

Will Power's Mixed Weekends

Will Power's weekend hit an early speed bump with a crash in qualifying that put him near the back to start the race. Some aggressive driving and clever strategy found him fighting for the lead with less than 50 laps to go.

The end result was a crash between him and Christian Rasmussen. Rasmussen was able to continue, despite a big hit to the wall, but a flat tire left Power finishing 17th, 8 laps down.

Like the Palou/Veekay crash, this seems like an issue that could have been resolved with better situational awareness. You also have to remember who you're racing when you find yourself side-by-side with another car. Rasmussen is infamously aggressive, and you have to assume that he's going to go for low-percentage passes. Once again, better to live and let live when you know there's a high chance that an aggressive defense will end in a crash.

Rasmussen's Rough Finish

Despite surviving the crash with Power, Rasmussen was among those left on older tires during the final stint. He ended up hitting the wall a second time, forcing him to pit and relegating him to 14th place.

It's expected for Rasmussen to be aggressive, but I think he was equally to blame as Power for that crash, regardless of what he might think. Ultimately, however, old tires are what truly did him in, and I would have wanted to pit for fresh tires, especially for as long of a run as the final stint ended up being. He can at least take away that he was easily the strongest car in the field, always ending up back in the lead even when strategy put him back in traffic. We'll see him get another chance toward the end of the season, when we get into the rest of the short ovals on the schedule.

The RLL Surprise

Rahal Letterman Lanigan ended up locking out the second row of the grid, with Graham Rahal and Mick Schumacher starting 3rd and 4th, respectively. Rahal ended up finishing in the top 10, while Schumacher fell all the way back to 18th, two laps down.

RLL has struggled a lot on pretty much every oval for the past three years, even fighting each other in the last-row shootout for the Indy 500 for several seasons. Qualifying was a big improvement for them, and Rahal's result shows that maybe RLL is starting to move back in the right direction.

This was Schumacher's first time on an oval, so I wouldn't read too much into the result. Hopefully he can finish the race in Arlington so we can actually get a good indicator of where he stacks up compared to his teammates.

Felix Rosenqvist

Rosenqvist was the first to crash during the weekend, with a big hit just over 20 minutes into practice 1. He wasn't able to get the car fixed in qualifying, starting him near the back of the grid, but he did manage to rally back to a 12th-place finish.

Since Rosenqvist's move to Meyer Shank Racing, he's shown bursts of potential that don't really ever result in anything by the end of the race. The practice crash pretty much cements what I've seen from him over the past few seasons. I'd like to see more consistency from him, because he doesn't seem to be able to maintain the pace that I would expect to see from him, especially with teammate Marcus Armstrong finishing in the top 5 today.

The Schedule

Now seems like as good a time as any to complain about the current IndyCar schedule. Part of what gives IndyCar its own unique identity is the mix between ovals and the road and street courses. While IndyCar is trying to maintain that balance, they seem to be focusing on adding more short ovals over longer tracks. Other than the Indy 500, there really aren't any proper superspeedway-style ovals left on the calendar.

I'm not really sure what the solution is. Texas doesn't seem interested in working out scheduling with IndyCar, probably less so now that Arlington is on the schedule. Drivers are outspoken about how dangerous they believe Pocono is, and it's unlikely that IndyCar is interested in revisiting Las Vegas anytime in the near future. With Fontana gone, our options for 2-mile tracks are limited pretty exclusively to Michigan, and there are plenty of 1.5-mile ovals like Homestead-Miami that IndyCar has gone to in the past, but scheduling would be the main concern.

I don't have the answer, but I would like to see IndyCar at least explore adding a 1.5-mile oval back onto the schedule rather than relying exclusively on short ovals to fill the calendar.

Conclusion

I had concerns about the lack of passing toward the front during the first stint, but Phoenix did ultimately deliver as the race went on. How much of what happened here can be used to predict the results of ovals later in the season remains to be seen, but at least we put on a good show here to start the season. Arlington is coming up pretty soon, making three races in as many weeks, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the championship continues to develop.