It’s time for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES to really get busy. Maybe even past time.
This weekend’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst at Barber Motorsports Park (1 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, INDYCAR LIVE, INDYCAR Radio Network) represents the first of the back-to-back event weekends for the traveling motorsports show this season. There also are two doubleheader weekends later in the year.
SEE: Race Details
Beginning with last weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, the series will be in action on seven of eight weekends over the next two months, including three weeks of activity in the Month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
While the teams have made the trek from Southern California to the venue in Alabama, they largely have done so without a lot of rebuilds. Only two cars suffered damage in Long Beach, both in the same incident. Jack Harvey’s No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda was collected by the spin of rookie Christian Rasmussen (No. 20 Guy Care Chevrolet of Ed Carpenter Racing). For a street race lined with concrete walls, that’s a collective win for the equipment and the mechanics.
Barber Motorsports Park, a permanent road course, represents a different challenge than Long Beach, but the competitiveness of the series is no different. Most of the 27-car field had the opportunity to test at The Thermal Club in last month’s non-points event. The circuits are different, sure, but much of the information gleaned from three days of track time will largely transfer. Or, one would expect it to.
Reigning NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing was the class of the field in The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge, but he will just be one of many to watch this weekend. Isn’t the first rival of any driver his own teammate? In this case, Palou must figure out how to beat Scott Dixon, who won last weekend’s Long Beach race by driving fast when he needed to and saving fuel when he had to.
And then there’s Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who was disqualified from his victory in last month’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding despite leading 92 of the 100 laps. Team Penske was found to have violated Push to Pass parameters set by the INDYCAR rulebook in the season-opening race. They had finished first, third and fourth, respectively.
McLaughlin also had his result disqualified while Power was docked 10 points as he was deemed to have not used Push to Pass when it wasn’t allowed on the start and restarts. After the penalties, Power finished second.
All three Team Penske drivers entered the season with title hopes. How things shake out for them the rest of the way will be a major storyline. Each has won a race at Barber, a 17-turn, 2.3-mile permanent road course in Birmingham, Alabama. They have combined to win six times.
Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward also figures to feel differently about his results this season. Being named the St. Petersburg race winner gave him five victories for his career. Barber was the site of one of them, in 2022. O’Ward stands fourth in the point standings after two races this season.
A look at the event themes:
Five Past Barber Winners Competing
Newgarden is far and away the most victorious NTT INDYCAR SERIES driver in Barber Motorsports Park history, but it can be argued that another driver has had more consistent success.
This is one of the few tracks where Dixon (No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Honda) has not gone to victory lane, but he has finished second six times and third on three other occasions. That’s nine top-three finishes in 13 races. Newgarden’s other podium finish was in 2016 with Ed Carpenter Racing.
McLaughlin (No. 3 Good Ranchers Team Penske Chevrolet) won last year’s race by 1.7854 seconds over Romain Grosjean, who was then driving an Andretti Global machine. Grosjean had won the NTT P1 Award in qualifying. McLaughlin had started fourth.
Palou (No. 10 Ridgeline Lubricants Honda) won the 2021 race and finished second in 2022. O’Ward (No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet) was the ’22 winner.
Power (No. 12 Verizon Business Team Penske Chevrolet) is a two-time Barber winner, but it’s been a bit since then. His victories came in 2011 and 2012. More recently, he finished second in 2021 and third last year.
Dixon Adding to Career Success
Dixon just keeps on adding to the record book.
Last weekend’s Long Beach victory extended his career mark of seasons with at least one victory in this series. He’s now at 22 years overall and 20 in succession. Think about the latter, in particular. Kyffin Simpson is Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammate at this event, and he was barely born when that streak began.
Power has the second-longest streak of consecutive seasons with a win at 16, but that came to an end last year. Newgarden has the second-longest active streak at nine.
Dixon now has 57 career wins, bringing him to within 10 of A.J. Foyt’s record that for years seemed like it would never be threatened. Dixon might not get there, but there now seems to be a path to it.
Dixon’s first season as a full-time series driver was in 2001. That’s 23 full seasons and an average of 2.4 wins per season. But since his consecutive season winning stretch started with the victory in 2005 at Watkins Glen International, he has won a race every 5.7 starts. At that pace he needs 57 races to catch Foyt. By that math he could get there in the 2027 season. That seems attainable, doesn’t it?
One thing Dixon won’t want to do this weekend is draw closer to Mario Andretti’s record of 56 career second-place finishes. Dixon has 50, with six of them at Barber.
Title Chase Already Heating Up
The season is only two points-paying races in, but it seems the cream has already risen to the top.
Newgarden expected to have the series lead now, but he dropped from first to 11th with the St. Petersburg disqualification. McLaughlin, who finished 26th at Long Beach, tumbled from 10th to 29th without points from the season opener. With just five points overall, McLaughlin trails four drivers who have competed in just one official race this season.
Dixon is seeking his record-tying seventh series championship and has historically been stronger in the second half of the season. Newgarden doesn’t figure to stay down long, especially with seven oval tracks left. He has won eight of the past 11 oval races dating to 2021.
The other driver with two recent titles is Palou. He, too, has escaped the earliest part of the season without trouble – finishing fourth and third in the points-paying race -- and he won at The Thermal Club, so put him squarely in the mix.
Colton Herta (No. 26 Gainbridge Honda of Andretti Global w/Curb-Agajanian) is second – two points behind Dixon after finishing third and second in the opening events -- after moving up a position with Newgarden’s disqualification. Herta has proven capable of dominant performances, and he has finished in the top five of the standings three times.
O’Ward is another championship hopeful. Team Penske’s penalties moved him to fourth in the standings, and St. Petersburg gave him five career race wins.
Strong Runs at Long Beach
It’s worth noting that Grosjean ran well at Long Bach in the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet – finishing eighth – as he returns to this track where he has had success. He led a race-high 57 laps in last year’s race. McLaughlin led 24.
Marcus Ericsson (No. 28 Delaware Life Honda) had his best finish as an Andretti Global driver in fifth at Long Beach. New teammate Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27 AutoNation Honda) finished seventh with Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda) continuing his impressive start to his Meyer Shank Racing days in ninth. Rosenqvist has twice been the fastest qualifier of an event, although because the one at The Thermal Club wasn’t a points race, the pole at Long Beach became the team’s first official pole.
Among drivers new to the series, Theo Pourchaire, last year’s Formula 2 champion, made an impressive NTT INDYCAR SERIES debut at Long Beach, finishing 11th in the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. He returns to the seat this weekend and should feel more comfortable as Barber Motorsports Park is more rolling and flowing like a European track on which he has trained. Conversely, the 21-year-old Pourchaire made note of the numerous bumps in the Long Beach street circuit, something to which he enjoyed getting accustomed.
Marcus Armstrong (No. 11 Root Insurance Honda) and rookie Linus Lundqvist (No. 8 American Legion Honda) finished 12th and 13th, respectively, in Long Beach. Simpson (No. 4 Journie Rewards Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) leads the Rookie of the Year standings by three points over Lundqvist.
The Weekend Schedule
The buildup to Sunday’s 90-lap race begins Friday with a 75-minute practice at 3:40 p.m. ET (Peacock, INDYCAR LIVE, INDYCAR Radio Network).
Saturday’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES action features practice at 12:15 p.m. ET and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 3:30 p.m. ET. Both will air live on Peacock, INDYCAR LIVE and the INDYCAR Radio Network. Ahead of Sunday’s race is the morning warmup at 10:15 a.m. ET.
INDY NXT by Firestone has its second race of the season this weekend. Practices are at 2:30 p.m. ET Friday and at 11:05 a.m. ET Saturday – both on INDYCAR LIVE and the INDYCAR Radio Network – followed by the 35-lap race Sunday at 11:15 a.m. ET on Peacock, INDYCAR LIVE and the INDYCAR Radio Network. Siegel, the series points leader after winning the season-opening race in St. Petersburg, finished second in the event last year.