Pivotal Race in the Sunshine State - IndyCar 2026 Round 5 Recap

After a packed month of March, we've had a two-week break before the one race in April, the historic Long Beach GP. Not only is this an illustrious race that everyone wants to win, it's also one of the pivotal points of the season as the last race before the festivities of the Month of May. Let's go over some of the main stories of the weekend.

That Damn Spaniard

Felix Rosenqvist got pole position and had run off to a 3-second lead coming to the final round of pit stops. Unfortunately, a caution on lap 59, just short of the pit window, closed the gap and forced the entire field to pit under yellow. Alex Palou had a better pit stop, taking over the lead. What happened next was all but inevitable. This win puts Palou back in the lead of the championship by 17 points going into the Indy GP, where he's had plenty of success in the past.

Teammate Scott Dixon, meanwhile, had his lap time display turned off on his steering wheel by his team. It worked, and he made it into the Fast 6 for the first time this season, converting it to a 3rd-place finish, fighting off a late attack from Kyle Kirkwood. Apparently Dixon's qualifying issues this year have been at least partially in his head, and my panic from Barber was a bit premature.

I Owe Rosenqvist an Apology

All the way back at Phoenix, I mentioned how Rosenqvist has flashes of brilliance that rarely result in quality finishes. Today, he converted a pole to a 2nd-place finish. Rosenqvist is in a contract year, and showing that he can outrun his younger teammate, Marcus Armstrong, will go a long way to securing a contract extension with Meyer-Shank Racing. With that said, one race is an anomaly, so hopefully he can keep up the pace going into the Month of May.

A Strong Result for... Kyffin Simpson?

Kyffin Simpson has been criticized by fans for being a pay driver at Chip Ganassi Racing. It's not entirely an unfair assessment. He consistently runs outside the top 15, and he has 7 top 10 finishes across his 36 races for a team that expects to be fighting for wins every week. Compared to Palou and Dixon, he just hasn't shown the pace expected of him.

Today, in race 37, he picked up his 8th top 10 of his career. It was a surprisingly strong performance from him this weekend, making it into the Fast 12 in qualifying. He's had good qualifying runs before, and he normally falls back once the race starts, but today he hung on to a 10th-place finish, even pulling off a highlight-worthy pass to crack the top 10. Again, one race finish doesn't mean anything on its own, but I'm rooting for him to prove that he deserves a seat in CGR, because it's really hard to justify his ride with how he's performed so far.

Another McLaughlin Crash

The first of the group stages of practice 1 was interrupted when Scott McLaughlin skidded into the turn 9 tire wall. This is the third weekend in a row that he's had a practice incident. After a fairly anonymous day, the late-race caution elevated him to 6th, and he was able to hold that position. I said pretty much everything I needed to at Barber. McLaughlin has pace, but you have to wonder if he could be better if his crew wasn't stuck fixing his cars all the time.

Elsewhere at Team Penske, Josef Newgarden locked himself into the three-stop strategy early, while most of the rest of the field went for the two-stop. While he was fast on his second stint, it wasn't quite enough of a gap to make the strategy work. In his third stint, he was stuck behind Armstrong for a while before making a desperate lunge that flat-spotted his left-front tire. The final nail in the coffin was the caution, effectively putting him on the same strategy as everyone else.

David Malukas, at least, stayed mostly out of trouble. He was running in the top 5 most of the day, but lost positions during the caution, ending up 7th. Overall, yet another mixed weekend for Penske.

Andretti's Woes Continue

Marcus Ericsson retired early with a complete hybrid unit failure. Kirkwood had a similar issue in morning warmup. The hybrid unit is a stock part that the teams aren't supposed to modify, so it's unclear if this was a specific issue related to the Andretti cars or just sheer coincidence. It's something to keep an eye on, especially on the remaining street courses.

Will Power, meanwhile, was setting up for a solid top-10 finish, but he hit one of Caio Colett's crew members during the caution period, earning a drive-through penalty for his troubles. He ultimately finished in 19th. The Long Beach pit lane is narrow, and Power was trying to avoid cars in the fast lane, but it's on the team to release the car safely. If they had held him for just another second, he would have lost some positions, but not as many as he lost thanks to the penalty.

The Rookie Class

Mick Schumacher started the weekend with a mechanical issue, forcing him to miss all of practice 1. He did participate in the all-skate segment of practice 2, but crashed out early in the group stages. He ran in the 20s most of the day, but got bailed out by the caution, bringing in a 17th-place finishing position.

Dennis Hauger, likewise, ran near the back most of the day but got a ton of help from the caution, ultimately launching him up to 11th. Colett was the only rookie who didn't get an advantage from the caution, as he picked up a pit road speeding penalty and finished 22nd. At the end of this first segment of the season, Hauger leads the Rookie of the Year standings by 17 points over Collet, with Schumacher sitting 32 points back.

Conclusion

They say it's hard to pass at Long Beach, and that was on full display here. After the caution, plenty of drivers gained track position who had no business having it and were able to hold it simply by existing. There also wasn't a lot of strategy to look at; only a couple of drivers tried the three-stop, and that was effectively erased by the caution coming out where it did.

Regardless, that's all the IndyCar racing we'll get for April, although we do have the Indy open test toward the end of the month. Palou has set himself up well for the Month of May, so we'll see how the season continues to develop when we get to the IMS road course.