An Unpredictable 500 - IndyCar 2026 Round 7 Recap

The radar was looking iffy in the lead-up to the Indianapolis 500, but the weather mostly held out to let us get the full 500 miles in. Let's go over some of the more interesting stories of the race.

The Ups and Downs of the 500

Thanks to a couple of extended cautions due to light rain, Felix Rosenqvist's team chose to go off-strategy and pit before the leaders, hoping for enough caution to bail them out. Rosenqvist managed to run two laps longer than Pato O'Ward, who was also on the alternate strategy, putting him in prime position to win his second IndyCar race.

Unfortunately, a late-race red flag closed up the field and removed fuel from the equation.

Rosenqvist initially lost the lead, but got a second chance when another caution set up a one-lap shootout. He battled the entire lap with his Meyer Shank Racing teammate, Marcus Armstrong, which looked like it was going to hand the win to David Malukas, who had taken the lead on that restart. However, he got an incredible run off of turn 4, beating Malukas to the yard of bricks by 0.02 seconds.

It was elation for Rosenqvist and devastation for Malukas. That's the duality of the speedway.

The "Safe" Strategy?

I was surprised that the leaders didn't go for Rosenqvist's strategy. At the point where he and the others made their penultimate stop, they were right on the edge of being able to make it on one more stop. A little fuel save could have put skilled fuel savers like Alex Palou or Scott Dixon in the window to be in the mix at the end. Sure, Malukas was in contention, but only because of the late-race cautions that closed the gap for him. Hindsight is certainly 20/20, but even in the moment the alternate strategy seemed like the winning one, and it seemed odd that none of the front runners went for it.

A Rookie Mistake

On a mid-race restart, Josef Newgarden clipped the curbing on the inside of turn 4, sending his car spinning into the outside wall and locking in his second straight 500 DNF. For a two-time Indy 500 winner, it was a surprisingly amateurish mistake. It really doesn't feel like Team Penske has fully recovered from last year's disastrous season, with Malukas being the only driver able to consistently bring home decent results.

Ed and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Race

The weekend for Ed Carpenter Racing started going downhill on Tuesday, when Alexander Rossi spun his front-row qualifying car and had a big crash that resulted in a fractured foot and hand, as well as a backup car.

Ed's race ended early when he was sent spinning on a restart by Takuma Sato. Personally, I think the crash was more of a racing incident than anything egregious, but I might be in the minority on that. Shortly after, Rossi had to retire his car with a mechanical failure, the second year in a row that this has happened to him. Finally, Christian Rasmussen had a mechanical failure on his car and wasn't able to complete the race. To put it lightly, not the day ECR would have liked.

Rough Weekend for Rookies

In post-qualifying tech inspection, Caio Collet lost his top-12 starting spot due to an infraction. With some clever strategy, he managed to get himself to the front briefly, and he was running reasonably well as the race played out, but he unfortunately had a massive fiery crash that brought out the red flag near the end of the race.

Dennis Hauger was also running well thanks to the strategy, but he picked up a speeding penalty on his final stop, erasing his result.

Mick Schumacher didn't have a particularly impressive day, but by virtue of finishing the race cleanly, his 18th-place finish was the highest of the rookies in the race.

Disappointment for Legge

Katherine Legge's announcement of her intention to do the Double, the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, came very late, just days before Indy 500 qualifying. I wasn't expecting her to finish all 1100 miles; the Live Fast car is not a car that usually runs up front. What I wasn't expecting was for her to crash out of the 500 early, trying to avoid a spinning Ryan Hunter-Reay.

On the NASCAR side of things, the 78 car wasn't especially fast, as expected, and she was sidelined briefly by a penalty for a loose wheel in stage 3. I guess she'll have to try again next year to see if she can get some better results.

A Tribute to Kyle Busch

On Thursday, May 21st, we lost Kyle Busch at the age of 41. He was a legend of NASCAR, a two-time Cup Series champion, the winningest driver across the three national series, and held the all-time win record in the O'Reilly and Truck series. As a driver, he was polarizing: either you loved him or you hated him, but pretty much everyone agreed that he was good for the sport. He was the heel of NASCAR, and he embraced the role, happy to rile up a crowd, and he backed it up with his performance on track.

Beyond his own career, he launched the careers of many others. A lot of Cup drivers go their starts at KBM. Those he raced against said he pushed them and made them better. As his son, Brexton, began his own racing career, I don't think there were too many people who could have been a better mentor.

I never met him, but I've seen positive stories from fans who have. People said he was a good family man, and seeing him celebrate with his family after wins, I believe he was a good father and husband.

When I first saw the announcement, I didn't believe it. Even now, it feels like it's still sinking in. Watching Kyle race was what got me into NASCAR in the first place, and, by extension, into motorsports in general. Several of his wins that I watched live were iconic: the win on Bristol Dirt, the fuel-mileage win at Pocono with a broken transmission, the win in the final race at Fontana. Even when I didn't know anything about NASCAR, I could tell he was something special.

After his last win at Dover in the Truck Series, when asked why winning still felt special, he replied, "Because you never know when the last one is."

Rest in peace, man.