The NTT INDYCAR SERIES ended its 2025 season on Labor Day weekend, and crowned the same champion they’ve had in four of the last five seasons, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou. The young Spaniard came close to taking five straight but fell to Will Power in 2022. Palou won eight of 17 races including the Indianapolis 500, and gave Chip Ganassi Racing its 17th INDYCAR championship.
Although they won’t be racing again until March of 2026, the series has been active with teams changing drivers once the post-season ensued. First Team Penske announced that Australian Will Power, who has brought Roger Penske two championships and an Indianapolis 500 victory, was leaving the team. Power was the only Team Penske racer to win a race this year; neither two-time champ Josef Newgarden nor Scott McLaughlin stood at that center step.
Then Cadillac F1 Racing confirmed Andretti Global’s Colton Herta as that Formula One team’s 2026 test and reserve driver. Herta’s 2025 season wasn’t up to his usual standards; he finished seventh in the final standings and failed to win a race this year. How he does amongst the F1 piranhas will be anyone’s guess, but Herta’s European experience is extensive and he’ll be able to increase his knowledge of F1 tracks as he competes in the FIA’s Formula 2 series next year.
Race wins in 2025 were hard to achieve if you weren’t Alex Palou or his closest competitor, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, who finished second in the standings and won two races. Only that a duo, along with six-time champion Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood (3 wins), Power and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen were 2025 winners.
Once Andretti’s seat was open, Will Power was confirmed to take that Honda seat at Andretti’s INDYCAR squad (oh, the knowledge they’ll inherit!) and late this week, A.J. Foyt Racing’s David Malukas – known in the paddock as Li’l Dave, assumed the seat formerly occupied by Power at Team Penske; he’ll be racing the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet/Dallara.
Malukas’ move was predicted, but all the appropriate boxes had to be ticked before he was confirmed. Malukas broke into the series in 2022 with Dale Coyne Racing, appropriate for the Chicago-area driver, then intended to race with Arrow McLaren i 2024 before an off-season bicycling accident sidelined him. Meyer Shank Racing took him on in 2024 at the latter stages of the campaign and he’s driven well for Foyt this year.
Rinus Veekay, who has worked with Ed Carpenter Racing and, this year with Dale Coyne Racing announced he won’t be back with the Chicago-area team again in 2026, but the source of his next racing activities is not yet known.
What is known is the schedule for 2026 and, like this year it is going to be exceptionally difficult for the men and women who service the cars, drive the trucks and perform other duties surrounding each of 17 contests in this campaign. For starters, March brings three consecutive race weekends to begin the season, with the traditional starter on the streets of St. Petersburg, FL beginning the month, followed by a return to the Phoenix Raceway mile oval, while the inaugural contest on the streets of Arlington, TX takes place a week later.
With a one-week hiatus, the NTT INDYCAR SERIES reconnects at beautiful Barber Motorsports Park, followed three weeks later by the 51st Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Another near-three-week gap ensues before activities at Indianapolis Motor Speedway take place: the road-course race is set for May 9, while the 110th Indianapolis 500 is scheduled for May 24.
No rest for the weary after Indy, as the streets of Detroit take center stage a week after the 500-mile race, followed a week later by the oval contest on World Wide Technology Raceway’s track next to St. Louis. There’s a single week to exhale before the Indy cars go to Elkhart Lake and Road America, and another gap before the July 3-5 holiday celebration on Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course’s road circuit takes place.
Nashville Superspeedway, site of the season closer in both 2024 and 2025 gets its race on July 19, while Portland International Raceway’s natural road course hosts the Indy cars on August 9. A new Canadian race on the streets of Markham, rather than in nearby Toronto, is scheduled for August 16th, featuring a 12-turn, 2.19-mile street circuit. There’s a slight pause before Labor Day weekend, when INDYCAR goes to the historic Milwaukee Mile for a doubleheader, before finishing the year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca a week later.
All of these events air exclusively on the FOX broadcast network, unless the previous show runs over and then the race will begin on one of the broadcaster’s streaming sites, FS1 or FS2 before returning to network viewing. The INDYCAR Radio Network provides audio coverage of all events. INDYCAR indicated its 2026 schedule for the INDY NXT by Firestone ladder series will be revealed shortly.
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