The IndyCar Afterburn: Thermal 2025

Today’s theme music: “BLACKOUT” by Turnstile

Once upon a time, Southern California’s Inland Empire was home to the West Coast’s finest superspeedways. From 1970 to 2015, its ovals hosted 500-mile races, crowned champions, and saw practically every form of triumph and tragedy American open-wheel racing could provide. But with Ontario Motor Speedway long gone and its successor in Fontana falling into disuse, things have changed. Here in 2025, the desert became a dump spot for the Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix and what, from a viewing perspective, was likely the nadir of the season.

Despite the paltry attendance, piss-take strategies, and poor fan reception to last year’s $1 Million Challenge, this bizarre hybrid of a private racetrack and neighborhood for car collectors received the honor of a full-fledged championship race. What we got in return was 65 laps of nonstop green flag action on track and a surprisingly compelling climax at the cost of a major broadcast issue that took the race off TV for a massive chunk of the midgame. While the producers try to figure out what happened there and how to prevent that, let’s sort through the chaos of this race and see who was hot, who was cold, and how it all shaped the emergent championship picture.

Palou goes back-to-back

Álex Palou returned to the land of Coachella and motocross as the local champion, having won last year’s $1 Million Challenge, and this time around, he was one of three clear threats to win all day, starting from 3rd and running about there most of the day. However, it was once again a mix of smart strategy and clutch performance that won the day, as Palou saved his fresh set of soft tires for last, put them on with 16 to go, and went Super Saiyan. The Barcelona native launched off pit row directly into a thrilling wheel-to-wheel battle with Christian Lundgaard for 2nd, shrunk his 9-second gap to Pato O’Ward in a blink of an eye, then sprinted off into the distance, leading the final 13 laps to come home with the win.

With this defense of his Palm Springs crown, Palou becomes the first driver since Scott Dixon in 2020 to kick off a year with consecutive victories—and remember, when that happened, Dixon went on to win his sixth National Championship. 

McLaren takes bittersweet double podium

McLaren had an amazing start to the weekend on both sides of the Pacific, with a 1-2 in the Chinese Grand Prix and a 1-2 in Thermal qualifying. With Pato O’Ward turning his first pole position since 2022 into 51 laps led and Christian Lundgaard right behind him all day, it could have been a perfect finish as well, but O’Ward’s choice to start on his fresh reds and end on the hard tire combined with Palou’s perfect counter meant McLaren had to settle for a mere 2-3. Still, a double podium is never anything to sneeze at, and while Lundgaard celebrated his first podium in papaya orange, Pato’s full slate of bonus points helped him rise to second in the season standings and assert himself as a major title challenger.

Power turns it around

It was a snakebitten Saturday for Team Penske, as all three drivers shockingly bombed out in the first round of qualifying. For Will Power, that meant a paltry P21 start, but with a full deck of fresh tires to play with, a clever undercut on the pit cycles, and some impressive overtaking, the Australian managed to make up 15 places on the grid by race’s end and finish 6th. By playing his cards this perfectly, especially in the wake of his disastrous first-lap exit at St. Pete, Power made a massive rebound not only for the day, but for the season, and it could set him up for big things in the near future.

Rossi peaks early again

Alexander Rossi had an amazing qualifying, reaching the Fast 6 and providing yet more evidence that Ed Carpenter Racing made the right call by picking him up. As with St. Pete, he then made his presence felt throughout the early going, and while his attempt to overcut the field didn’t pan out, it did get Rossi his first lap led with ECR and an extra championship point to go with it. When all was said and done, Rossi finished 9th, four spots down from where he started, but one above his last finish, and if he can find a way to compete as effectively close to the checkered flag as he has after the first green one, we could see him making serious noise sooner than expected.

Ericsson gets paid dust

Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson is a known non-fan of this circuit, and this trip certainly didn’t improve his opinion of the place. Teammates Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood both managed top-ten spots, with Herta finishing 4th, but Ericsson spent his day flying off his line, spinning, and generally playing in the dirt. That turned a P5 start and what should have been a great day for the Swede into a tumble off the lead lap into 21st by race’s end.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: spins and smacks for Scotty Mac

In a far cry from his podium and massive cash bonus last year, Scott McLaughlin had a disastrous trip to Thermal, starting with a spin and P25 in qualifying. Things went from bad to worse before the start, as Devlin DeFrancesco punted and spun McLaughlin on the formation lap, which led to DeFrancesco taking a well-deserved drive-through penalty. It also set up a confrontation after the race where McLaughlin got so mad he started doing Italian hands.

In between those moments, Scotty Mac suffered an overheated hybrid unit, which took so long to fix on pit row that he spent the rest of his day running six laps down until he retired the car, making him the lone driver not to finish this race.

Elephant in the Room: Thermal still sucks

The fundamental problem with Thermal as a venue is that it doesn’t suit the real audience. Obviously, rich patrons will inevitably get involved in all sorts of ways, as is the way of motorsport, but the average IndyCar fan is a working/middle-class person with a job to match. In an America where the rich have spent the last half-century further concentrating their wealth and power, and massive corporations like BlackRock and Vanguard are buying up properties in bulk to ice the working and middle classes out of home ownership, the last thing anybody needs is a bunch of mansions owned by rich weirdos shoved in their face in absence of an actual audience. While Fox at least avoided NBC’s mistakes of constantly making the broadcasters go “Pleeeeeeease buy a house here! Please please pleeeeeeease!” and then cutting to disinterested millionaires staring at their phones instead of watching the race, it’s still a bit tasteless in concept and creates a dead atmosphere on race day.

Of course, that’s all before considering the disastrous electrical issues in the production truck, which shorted out on lap 28 and didn’t get fixed for about a dozen laps. In the meantime, Fox subjected us to commercials, snippets of NASCAR’s race at Homestead, and more commercials, all while frustrating viewers globally to no end. Frankly, it’s a miracle that Palou went God mode and produced the highlights he did at the end, because if not for something positive like that, we would have nothing but negativity to talk about for the next few weeks.

If IndyCar continues to run their West Coast testing at Thermal, that’s fine. If the networking they do there gets them sponsors and keeps struggling teams alive, that’s great. I’ll even admit the track layout they came up with for this year worked out a lot better than I expected. But after what happened today, I don’t think anyone will mind if the Grand Prix of Arlington replaces this track entirely on next year’s schedule.

Championship Collage: the field sharpens its focus

With two races in the bag, an actual National Championship picture is starting to take shape, and naturally, Álex Palou is on top of the ladder. He holds 39 points’ advantage over nearest contender Pato O’Ward, who has both Scott Dixon and Christian Lundgaard within three points of him. Obviously, there’s still plenty of time for teams like Andretti and Penske to put their drivers fully in that mix, but Ganassi versus McLaren brings compelling narratives of its own that will only get more prominent if those two teams manage to wall out all other competition.

The Rookie of the Year race continues to be a bit of a wimp fight, as all three finished off the lead lap and outside the top 20, but Robert Shwartzman’s gritty performance despite getting virtually zero track time before qualifying helped him further carve out his edge over Jacob Abel and Louis Foster.

In the Manufacturers’ Cup, Chevrolet once again picked the wrong day to triumph, as their Saturday pole flipped into a Sunday victory for Honda, who spread their wings and extended their lead to 38 points. Honda now have a golden opportunity to blow things wide open at the next race, and the fact that it’d be their home turf of Long Beach has to have the whole factory salivating.

Finally, in our official unofficial Nations’ Cup, Spain doubled its point total to stay in the lead, while Colton Herta did a bit of a Nashville rerun and pulled the United States exactly a point ahead of New Zealand, albeit in second this time rather than first. Just behind them, Mexico surged up three places to 4th, while Denmark held its ground in 5th and Sweden dropped two to 6th despite a 5th-place finish from Felix Rosenqvist. However, it’s Australia who made the biggest leap of all, as the Lucky Country leapfrogged Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Cayman Islands to go from dead last to 8th, with the Netherlands now next on Oz’s hit list.

Future Flames: Long Beach’s golden jubilee

In three weeks’ time, the most iconic street circuit in the Western Hemisphere will celebrate fifty years of action. Over the decades, Long Beach has seen action from such series as Formula One and Formula E, and IMSA will once again join the party with its first sprint round of the season. However, the centerpiece, as always, will be IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Long Beach, and if any race can wash the taste of Thermal out of our mouths, it’s this one, especially on the heels of the instant classic that last year’s running provided.

Naturally, Álex Palou will be out to extend his winning streak, and a track where he’s scored two podiums and recorded its fastest IndyCar lap ever makes quite the candidate. However, with six active previous winners in the mix, there’ll be some extremely stiff competition. The toughest fight of all might come from Scott Dixon, who enters as the defending local champion and could become its first three-time winner since reunification.