The IndyCar Afterburn: Mid-Ohio 2025

Today’s theme music: “Gasoline Kiss” by My Ticket Home

There were dark clouds over America this 4th of July weekend, but if anything can give us a reprieve from the horrors of our politics, it’s the beautiful chaos of motorsport. Sandwiched in between Nico Hulkenberg finally achieving his first F1 podium at Silverstone and Katherine Legge dragging a Camaro-shaped box of scraps to 19th on the streets of Chicago, IndyCar kicked off its packed and stacked July with its longest-running road course race, the Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

This track has a knack for slow-burners with tense finales, and right when things looked like they were about to end in a snoozefest, a dramatic twist gave us a welcome surprise winner and a whole new wrinkle to the championship picture. Without further ado, let’s get into the ups, downs, and all-arounds from Lexington, starting with the civil war that defined this event.

Dixon ices Palou out

This day unquestionably belonged to Chip Ganassi Racing, as their trio combined to lead 87 of the day’s 90 laps. Seventy-five of those went to polesitter Álex Palou, who dominated much of the day, executed well on his three-stop strategy, and looked poised to cruise to his seventh win of the season. Meanwhile, Scott Dixon seemed set for a long-awaited return to the podium off one of his signature fuel saves, as a couple cautions earlier in the day helped Dixon stretch the numbers and make it home on just two stops.

However, when it looked like Palou’s ugly new OpenAI livery was a lock for Victory Lane, the Spaniard accidentally opened ChokeGPT coming into turn 9 and went playing in the grass. That opened the door for Dixon to punch through and steal the lead, kicking off a furious five-lap finish where the Iceman put on a defensive masterclass, baiting Palou into making bad moves and throwing away all the push-to-pass in the #10’s tank before blasting off to take the checkered flag.

As such, what looked like another jewel in Palou’s empirical crown instead became another piece of history for the ageless Kiwi. Not only is this Dixon’s 59th career win in Indy racing, it’s his 7th at Mid-Ohio, further cementing him as the all-time king of the Buckeye State. As if that wasn’t enough, it also gives him a record-extending 21 straight seasons with a race win. There’s certainly a case that A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, or maybe even Palou peaked higher, but no one in the history of American championship open-wheel racing has ever been as elite for as long as Dixon, and finishes like this are a welcome reminder of why.

Lundgaard back in bronze

After a red-hot start to both the season and his tenure at McLaren, Christian Lundgaard had cooled off a bit, taking no hardware home for the entirety of May and June. That finally changed for the Dane this weekend, as he started on the front row and used it to his advantage, following the three-stop strategy to perfection and always staying within arm’s reach of Palou. Though it wasn’t enough to win, or even lead a lap, it did get Lundgaard his fourth podium of the season. This means that, in ten races of wearing papaya orange, he’s already taken home more trophies than he did in his four years at Rahal Letterman Lanigan.

Add in Pato O’Ward climbing the ranks from 14th to 5th, making it yet another day where McLaren is Chevy’s top team, and you have a strong haul indeed for the outfit. The question now is if Lundgaard will stay in O’Ward’s shadow on the ovals, as he has so far, or make his challenge for the team’s top spot extend to all three styles of racing.

Herta frustrated on pit row again

Kyle Kirkwood, with his winning ways, has stolen the title of Andretti Global’s top dog, but it was Colton Herta who led the charge today. Over the course of the day, he provided the only reprieve from Ganassi’s stranglehold on the lead, and he got the better of multiple fights with the McLarens, including snatching 4th place away from Pato O’Ward on the last lap. However, the image that will linger among Herta’s fanbase is that last pit stop, where, as is practically tradition, the crew bobbled their choreography and cost the #26 precious time. The fact Herta came as close to a podium as he did anyway is a testament to his skill, but after yet another race where his crew threw his result away, the higher-ups need to be asking serious questions about whether this crew is up to snuff and how they can cut down on these situations.

VeeKay beats Simpson for the crew

With Chip Ganassi’s Kyffin Simpson starting on the second row and Dale Coyne’s Rinus VeeKay starting second-to-last, few expected these two drivers’ paths to intersect at this race. Intersect they did, though, as VeeKay and his team brought both the plan and the execution necessary to climb the ranks and make noise, while Simpson stayed in podium contention all the way to his final stop. VeeKay joined Simpson in pitting that lap, and after Simpson stalled, the Island Boy got a very sloppy start out of his box, running over a VeeKay crew member’s foot in the process. Somehow, the tire changer managed to no-sell his injury and complete his work before VeeKay took off, but that kind of careless wouldn’t go unpunished. Simpson took a drive-through penalty for the incident, and the time lost there played a major role in VeeKay finishing 9th and crossing the line half a second before Simpson did. It was a nice bit of symbolic payback after that scary incident, and hopefully VeeKay builds off this momentum while Simpson learns to be more careful in these situations.

Ferrucci and Daly stir up the Hate Cauldron

To Santino Ferrucci’s fans, he’s the Paul Tracy of this era, a hard-charging dogfighter who races hard and doesn’t care who he angers in the process. To Ferrucci’s detractors, however, two things have kept him from being more than a yippy little chihuahua: his on-track results, which he’s improved this year, and his tendency to pick fights and act tough in practice, rather than in the race when it matters most. For the first half of this year, it looked like he would address the second issue by just not getting into scraps at all, but something must have flipped the switch, because for whatever reason, Ferrucci ran Conor Daly to the edge of the road and then bumped the Juncos Hollinger driver into the grass.

Though Daly’s car survived and Ferrucci took a three-place avoidable contact penalty, the A.J. Foyt driver ultimately finished better, and Daly took the fight to social media after the race was over. With two races on the shortest circuit of the year coming up next weekend, and both these men known to outdrive their machinery on ovals, this could boil over into a more prolonged feud in a hurry.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: Team Penske? More like Team Painske

Team Penske’s season-long disasterclass continued this weekend, as all three drivers got started from the back third of the grid and only Scott McLaughlin saw the checkered flag. In fact, the damage started on the opening lap, as Josef Newgarden lost the rear on the opening straight, spun into a wall, and permanently took Graham Rahal off the lead lap in the process. It could’ve been a whole-team wipeout, as Power bumped McLaughlin in the process of trying to avoid the accident, but thankfully the two made it through there.

However, Power would get his share of punishment soon after, as he pulled into the pits on lap 12 with engine trouble. Once that flared up into smoke and fire, the Australian’s day was done, giving him his second trip to the Sicko’s Guide in three races.

Finally, Christian Rasmussen appeared on track for a decent day, but the horrid luck that plagued his rookie year returned when he had to park his smoking car. That brought out the final caution of the day, and though he eventually got the car back out there, it was presumably just a data collection run before he retired the #21 for good.

Championship Collage: Dixon and Foster on the rise

The top three in the National Championship standings remains unchanged, with Álex leading Kyle Kirkwood and Pato O’Ward. However, Scott Dixon’s win has vaulted the Iceman past Christian Lundgaard into 4th, and Dixon could now mount a challenge for at least the season-long podium.

In the Rookie of the Year race, Louis Foster’s strong qualifying and midpack finish have officially pulled him past Robert Shwartzman and back into the lead. It’s only a five-point gap, but as we’ve seen, every little point matters in this fight, and it could be the most down-to-the-wire honor of the season.

Honda continue to put on a Manufactuers’ Cup campaign for the ages, taking the pole and the 1-2 to make it a perfect 10 in the win column. With over 200 points of advantage over Chevrolet and the 1,000 mark in their sights, the only question left now is if Honda can go 17-0.

Finally, in our official unofficial Nations’ Cup, Spain and the United States remain the top two, as well as becoming the first two nations to hit 400 points, while New Zealand hops past Mexico for 3rd thanks to Dixon’s win.

Future Flames: double trouble in Iowa

The Midwestern leg of this year’s tour promises to end with some spectacle when we pull into Newton next week for the Iowa 275s. As the shortest track and sole doubleheader of the schedule, it theoretically promises twice the action and twice the drama, but we’re going to have to hope for wrecks, because if it stays a Chattanooga choo-choo like it was in the second race last year, we’ll be in for a snoozer.

In its recent history, this place is an absolute Penske playground. Scott McLaughlin and Will Power took the wins last time, Josef Newgarden won five of the last seven runnings before that, and Pato O’Ward is the only non-Penske driver to win here since 2018. Those four will make up the likely favorites, but given that we’ve had two first-time oval winners in as many oval races this season, it’s hard to truly count anyone out of the running.

However, with the magic number finally above zero, we’ll absolutely be able to count some drivers out of the National Championship. Contrary to my calculations two weeks ago, Álex Palou managed to take the entire class of Indy 500 one-offs out of the picture, meaning that the endgame is afoot and every other full-timer is on the clock.