The IndyCar Afterburn: Long Beach 2026

Today’s theme music: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day

In a month where geopolitics took out multiple F1 races and open-wheel racing fans wound up primarily watching Super Formula in order to get their fix, IndyCar put on the most prestigious street race in the entire Western Hemisphere, the 51st annual Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Unfortunately, while there were some climbers through the ranks and a few surprises, the overall race wasn’t the greatest, with little on-track fighting for the lead and a potentially satisfying arc abruptly collapsing dozens of laps early. Still, it’s another piece of the National Championship puzzle, and with how high of a status this race carries, it always means something. So without further ado, let’s get into the ups, downs, and all arounds from the streets of Long Beach and see what this all means going into the most celebrated month on the calendar.

That Damn Spaniard steals Rosenqvist’s crown

For most of the weekend, everything was coming up Meyer Shank Racing. After their #93 Acura won the IMSA race on Saturday, Felix Rosenqvist took the Long Beach pole for the second time in three years, and this time, he was able to do something with it. The Swede led a career-best 51 laps, sweeping the bonuses, dominating the first two-thirds of the race, and looking good while doing it in his Green Day livery. But on lap 57, a large piece of debris on the racing line forced the day’s lone yellow flag, meaning the #60 crew had to be 100% perfect on their second and final stop. Sadly, that stop was maybe 2% shy, and it was all the margin the Spaniard needed to leapfrog Rosenqvist on pit row. The third act consisted of Palou, unfortunately clad in a terrible OpenAI livery, running off into the distance and leaving Rosenqvist to settle for silver. It’s still a tie for Rosenqvist’s best result with MSR, but he and his whole team will be ruing what could have been.

Meanwhile, on top of everything else, Palou now stands in even more rarefied air. As per the definition I outlined in last week’s column, Palou is now just the seventh driver in American open-wheel history to complete its Triple Crown, and the first since Josef Newgarden completed his own in 2023. On top of that, he’s now strung two straight wins together and has one of his favorite circuits up next on the calendar. If the rest of the field can’t get a lid on him ASAP, he might run away with everything yet again.

Dixon takes bronze sword

Scott Dixon entered the weekend under some pressure, as for the first time since 2005, his final year driving a Toyota, he’d failed to make the top five in any of the first four races. But all the Iceman ever needs is one good opportunity, and after hovering around his starting position of 6th for most of the day, an incredible pit stop from the #9 crew launched Dixon to 3rd, and with some savvy defensive driving to make up for a massive push-to-pass disadvantage, the Kiwi secured his first podium of 2026, as well as his first since earning his knighthood. Between that, Palou’s win, and Kyffin Simpson coming 10th here for the second year in a row, it’s safe to say that Chip Ganassi Racing had the best day of any team in the paddock.

Kirkwood, O’Ward stay consistent

Kyle Kirkwood and Pato O’Ward have both been among the most consistent names in the sport, and they both continued that trend, albeit not with the execution they probably wanted. Pato qualified on the front row, fell behind Palou early, but managed to stay respectably in the fight and finish 5th, matching his career best at the track. Meanwhile, Kirkwood came tantalizingly close to his third podium of the year and first ever bronze finish, but couldn’t find a way around Scott Dixon and had to settle for five straight top-fives to open the season.

Penske prove bad gamblers

For Team Penske this weekend, the name of the game was sticking to the script. Scott McLaughlin played things the straightest of the three, both in terms of planning and execution, and ultimately took 6th place for it, scoring Manufacturers’ Cup points in the process. David Malukas looked primed to snatch a podium by running the preferred red tire while the top three were forced to bet on black, but his crew completely fumbled the pit stop, costing him several places and ultimately leaving him 7th. But the big rollercoaster, as has been the theme for years now, was Josef Newgarden. At first, his gambit to pit on lap 9 in pursuit of a flat-out three-stop run seemed to work well, giving him plenty of clean air and five laps led on the subsequent stint. But when Newgarden pitted again had to blend out into traffic, and suffered a massive flat spot on one of his tires, the strategy fell apart, and he finished right where he started in 14th.

RLL sustain their momentum

Divisive as he is, Graham Rahal’s podium three weeks ago at Barber was certainly a surprise, but the question was always whether Rahal Letterman Lanigan as a whole would keep the energy up or regress afterward, especially on a street circuit. This time, they delivered an even bigger surprise by actually keeping the snowball rolling. By finishing 8th, Rahal notched consecutive finishes in the top eight for the first time since early 2022. Meanwhile, Louis Foster had the pace to finish in the top ten before tire management came back to bite him, and Mick Schumacher stayed out of trouble to finish 17th, the Swiss-German’s best IndyCar result yet, and finally escape dead last in the season standings. None of them had perfect drives, but all of them looked better than they did at the start of the season, and with the team’s favorite track coming up, they have reason to believe the next race could be their coming-out party.

Siegel shows composure

Nolan Siegel’s time left at McLaren looked extremely short coming into this weekend, at least in open-wheel, and qualifying dead last didn’t help matters. However, the kid actually did all right for himself this time, scratching and clawing his way up to 12th, a career best on street circuits. If he can seize on the road course race coming up next, Siegel might finally start to dig himself out of his reputational hole in a way that doesn’t involve him driving a sports car.

Collet, Power linked in misfortune

Caio Collet and Will Power are at near-opposite ends of their career arcs, but for one day, they were united in absolute penalty-induced misery. It all went wrong for both of them on the second stop, starting when Collet sped on the pit lane, forcing the Brazilian to restart at the back and costing him what had been a simmering fight to win the day’s rookie battle with Dennis Hauger.

However, Power, who’d led two laps, looked on course for at least a top 10, and even had his most famous fan Flavor Flav in his entourage for the weekend, did far worse, leaving his box at the wrong time and running right into Collet’s outside tire changer Ryan Marzec, who managed to finish the stop on sheer adrenaline before going down with an injury. Power took a drive-through penalty for the error, and it cost him about a dozen places when all was said and done. That said, he still wasn’t the unluckiest Andretti of the day.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: Ericsson suffers Enron-style outage

Our lone DNF of the day was a strictly mechanical one for a driver whose run of form evaporated. After looking very strong on the first couple street circuits of the year, Marcus Ericsson just didn’t have the sauce this time out, qualifying 15th and running anonymously in the midpack before electrical issues killed his ability to use hybrid power. He limped it for as long as he could, but ultimately retired the car.

While this DNF isn’t on Ericsson, it is worth noting that Dennis Hauger, who’s got an Andretti tech partnership over at Dale Coyne, ran one of his strongest performances to date while this was all happening. That’s not a pairing of events Ericsson can afford to repeat if the Swede wants to keep his job.

Championship Collage: defending champs back on top

Kyle Kirkwood’s first career stint as your National Championship leader is over. Álex Palou has now overcome the DNF in Phoenix to reclaim the throne, leading by 17 points over Kirkwood. Third through seventh is a mosh pit of Penskes and McLarens all residing outside immediate striking range of the championship lead, with Scott Dixon not far behind in 8th. Finally, representing the smaller teams, Felix Rosenqvist and Graham Rahal round out the top 10.

Dennis Hauger put on his strongest performance since St. Petersburg, and combined with Mick Schumacher managing to stay out of trouble and beat Caio Collet, that helps the Norwegian consolidate some power in the Rookie of the Year race. Hauger now leads the category by 17 points.

Honda dominated its home race across multiple disciplines this weekend, and in the Manufacturers’ Cup, that translated to an absolute haymaker shot, claiming the pole, a third consecutive win, and a sweep of the top four positions, with Chevrolet forced to settle for a 5-6. That extends Honda’s lead to 85 points, and what once looked like it could be a back-and-forth fight is quickly turning into a repeat of last year’s blowout.

Finally, in our official unofficial Nations’ Cup, defending champions Spain are back on top of the podium, passing the United States by a single point and setting up a massive confrontation three weekends from now. Our other big winners are Sweden, who jumped two spots to 4th off the strength of Felix Rosenqvist’s performance. We’ve also got two ties to break up, as Denmark stands deadlocked with Mexico for 5th while France freed themselves from Brazil only to immediately get tangled up with their archnemesis, the United Kingdom.

Future Flames: ruh-roh, Rhaggy! Roval racing!

The Month of May is almost upon us, and now that the embargo’s dropped, I can confirm that we now have 32 drivers confirmed for the 110th Indianapolis 500. After two non-race weekends, the festivities will kick off on Saturday, May 9th, when the Brickyard’s road course will play host to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.

The obvious man to watch at the lone roval on the schedule is Álex Palou, who’s won three straight spring runnings of this race and three out of four once you factor in 2023’s summer edition. Many other series heavyweights will have obvious cases to back them going in, including Will Power, Scott Dixon, and Christian Lundgaard, but the romantic story will be at Rahal Letterman Lanigan. That team always nails this track, even if they soil their pants everywhere else, and last year it was enough to get Graham Rahal the majority of laps led before Palou finally caught up to and blasted past him. With Rahal having scored a podium at the series’ most recent road race in Alabama, and the team as a whole genuinely gathering a head of steam coming into this event, this could be RLL’s moment to really stick it to the big boys and establish themselves as kings of the midfield.