The IndyCar Afterburn: Detroit 2025

Today’s theme music: “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit” by Fedde Le Grand

After a monthlong stop in the sport’s home state, IndyCar got back out on the National Championship trail for a broader Midwestern leg that’ll take us through mid-July, and we got started by going straight from elegance and pageantry in front of over a quarter million fans to the Detroit Grand Prix, the most Hobbesian track on the schedule.

The streets around General Motors’ Renaissance Center are nasty, brutish, and short, creating races that are always eventful, but this year’s running stood out by actually being good. In fact, it might have been the best of the year, finally bringing the full mix of speed, strategy, and chaos that IndyCar fans love and expect out of any race where drivers have to turn right. That gives us plenty to talk about, so without further ado, let’s recap the ups, downs, and all-arounds from Hockeytown.

Kirkwood is king of the streets again

After illegal modifications to his car cost him 6th place in the Indy 500, Kyle Kirkwood found himself with a bad fast car and a ton of drama to outrun. In  Friday practice, Will Power tried to snowplow through Kirkwood for clean air, and mistakes in qualifying cost the Floridian a great chance at the pole. It wasn’t even trouble-free in the race itself, as he left behind kibbles off the back of the car and spent the final stretch managing a floppy front wing.

Yet in spite of that, Kirkwood drove like a man possessed, pouncing on every opportunity that came his way and opening up every gap he possibly could. It all added up to Kirkwood’s second win of the year, and certainly the more dominant of the two. If he can start translating this form to road courses and ovals, we might have a title fight on our hands after all.

Ferrucci plays his cards right for silver

Townsend Bell aside, few people thought much of Santino Ferrucci’s chances coming into race day. He started the race in 21st, while teammate and Indy 500 runner-up David Malukas qualified on the front row and threatened for the lead much of the day. Incomplete fuel numbers on the dash even forced Ferrucci to go old-school and just get gas when he saw the light. However, that turned out to be exactly what he needed, as it meant he didn’t need to come in during a late caution when most of the field did, cycling him to a free lead. Ferrucci made the most of that opportunity by leading eight laps, then making an overtake on Will Power after slipping back a bit to solidify silver and ensure he’d stand on the podium between the drivers he infamously called “boyfriends” a year ago.

With this result, Ferrucci becomes the second A.J. Foyt driver in two weeks to take a career-best runner-up finish. The preseason hype around this team is paying off, and if things keep going this way, we may see one of their drivers in Victory Lane for the first time since Takuma Sato’s famous 2013 win at Long Beach.

Herta finally gets somewhere

Over in F1, Fernando Alonso finally snapped his horrendous run of luck and scored his first points of the year in Spain, and in parallel, IndyCar’s unluckiest top gun also had things go his way. Barring cartoon anvils, Colton Herta is usually good for a great run on street circuits, and after painful pit row bobbles in St. Petersburg and Long Beach, he finally got to prove it, starting by taking his first pole of the year. While Herta’s time in the lead ended earlier than he would’ve liked, as an elbow from Nolan Siegel allowed Kirkwood to slip past for the effective lead, the #26 hung in there the whole way, and Herta took full advantage of his crew finally having a flawless day.

While Herta couldn’t quite get past Ferrucci, and in fact burned all his push-to-pass in the attempt, some choice lines and great defending down the inside kept Will Power off the podium and put Herta on it for the first time since last year’s season-ending win at Nashville. It’s a massive shot of vindication for a driver who desperately needed it, and he’ll look to build on that to try and join Kirkwood in some semblance of the title fight.

Simpson surprises

Since the switch from Belle Isle to the RenCen circuit, Detroit has typically been Chip Ganassi Racing territory. Àlex Palou won it in 2023, and Scott Dixon entered this year with the local crown. However, with an engine swap penalty weighing Dixon down and Palou off in the Sicko’s Guide, CGR’s biggest gun actually turned out to be Kyffin Simpson. Like Ferrucci, a dip into alternate strategy let the Caymanian stay out when most of the field pitted late under yellow, and it paid off. Simpson had raw pace throughout the day, setting the race’s fastest lap, and made it difficult for others to overtake him, as exemplified when he lost out to Kyle Kirkwood, but clipped the #27’s wing along the way.

It all added up to a career-best 5th place for Simpson, who, between this and his 10th-place finish at Long Beach, might be developing into a capable street fighter. 

Newgarden leads backfield chargers

Santino Ferrucci going 21st to 2nd was obviously the big comeback of the day, but he wasn’t alone, as the four worst qualifiers all saw significant climbs up the field. Nolan Siegel surviving a punt from Scott McLaughlin to go from dead last to 19th, Conor Daly matched that +8 for 17th, and Sting Ray Robb rose 11 spots to 15th while getting a front-row seat to much of the destruction around him.

However, the big standout of this group has to be Josef Newgarden, who achieved a smaller-scale version of what he’d tried to do last week at the 500. This time, Newgarden was at the back on straight merit, qualifying only 24th, but he joined Pato O’Ward in starting on two stints of hard tires rather than getting his softs out of the way early. While that didn’t quite go to plan, as Pato got the better of it for 7th, Joey Plants still made a nice run of it and climbed all the way to 9th, a far cry from his nightmare P26 finish at last year’s Motown visit.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: 7 smashed in street fight

We had more yellow flags in this one race than the entire pre-500 slate, and that naturally means a lot of cars bowing out. The first victim was Rinus VeeKay, who had a great qualifying, but quickly lost power the Dale Coyne #18 and had to retire after just six laps.

After a couple near-misses, including Scott McLaughlin dumping Nolan Siegel into a wall, we finally got our first full-on crash on lap 67, when Callum Ilott wrecked in Turn 1. That brought out the caution that changed the game going into the final stretch, and Àlex Palou looked primed to take advantage and keep his podium streak alive. However, that wouldn’t be so, as David Malukas dumped Palou in the first corner, ruining the former’s day via stop-and-go penalty and snapping Palou’s streak of dominance in an instant.

After Christian Rasmussen, who’d led the second-most laps all day, quietly retired, we got the biggest and scariest wreck of the year so far. Louis Foster was looking like RLL’s best shot at a result, but on lap 83, his front suspension snapped. The rookie Brit pinballed off the wall and into Felix Rosenqvist, who’d survived a spin of his own early in the race, but got shoved violently into a corner barrier. Foster, meanwhile, still had so much momentum that he slid all the way down the runoff and hit the tire wall. Given how bad it looked, it’s a miracle neither man was seriously hurt.

That all brought out a red flag as marshals repaired the barriers, and amidst that, Devlin DeFrancesco became our last casualty. He’d had trouble all day, including a poorly-attached wheel that presumably ran off in protest of his awful Dogecoin livery from last week and a penalty for causing an avoidable yellow, but the team apparently decided he’d come in too banged up, setting him back to 23rd behind Rosenqvist and Foster.

Championship Collage: party in the Cayman Islands

As was mathematically guaranteed, Àlex Palou still leads the National Championship, but Kyle Kirkwood has reasserted himself in a major way. The Floridian moves to 3rd on the year, splitting the McLarens of Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard. While Will Power may have missed the podium today, his bronze back at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis helped him force his way to 5th by giving him the tiebreaker over Felix Rosenqvist. Rounding out the top 10, we have Scott Dixon, Scott McLaughlin, Colton Herta, and Santino Ferrucci, whose runner-up rocket to the spot makes yet another parallel to what last week did for his teammate Malukas.

Louis Foster’s busted suspension came as great news for Robert Shwartzman, whose best finish yet of 16th allowed him to finally end a race leading the Rookie of the Year standings. Jacob Abel also managed a career-best of 18th, meaning he’s no longer behind Takuma Sato in the overall picture, but he likely won’t rise to challenge either of his classmates for ROTY honors.

Chevrolet’s defense of their Manufacturers’ Cup continues to get more painful with every race, and this weekend brought extra humiliation as they lost in front of their own headquarters. Honda engines are now 7 for 7 on the year, and they lead this cup 630 to 509.

Finally, in our official unofficial Nations’ Cup, an all-American podium and a Spanish DNF helped the United States significantly close the gap to first while leaving everyone else behind. Positions-wise, the Cayman Islands are the big winners, as Kyffin Simpson’s career-best day pulled them past the United Kingdom into 9th place.

Future Flames: a Gateway to prime time

In two weeks’ time, we’ll cover two states at once by hitting the Illinois part of Greater St. Louis to run the Gateway 500. The name is a bit of a lie, as it’s really only 325 miles, but as the only night race of the year, it’ll have an aura all its own.

Josef Newgarden is the reigning overlord of this mid-size oval with five wins, including four of the last five runnings. If anyone’s going to break his stranglehold, the romantic pick is Illinois’s own David Malukas, who’s proved something of a specialist at his home state’s track by taking a podium every time he reaches the checkered flag. Suffice to say, if this race becomes Lil Dave’s first win, it’ll be the feel-good moment of the year.