“Welcome to Jerryworld.”
Hey folks, welcome to the second part of this week’s DRR Double header, and once again it’s time for IndyCar, and Round 3 of their 2026 Championship was the debut of a brand new race event, two and a half years in the making – The Grand Prix of Arlington, Texas (Spare me the Polar Bear memes). A 2.73 mile street circuit that drives through the heart of two of Texas’ sports teams (The Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium and the Texas Rangers Globe Life Field), headlined by a 1.2 kilometer long back straight. Let’s talk about it.
On The Track
For the first time, IndyCar debuted One-Shot Qualifying for the Fast 6 Final Round format. I went into it thinking this was going to be an improvement because I’ve always said that a chaotic, six minute final round was bad for TV if you wanted to focus on the drivers, so actually slowing down and building up the tension was the right move in my opinion.
The execution though, was lacking. All six drivers put on used Alternate tyres so they could save their sticker sets for the race, a drawback of IndyCar’s new rules of having two alternate stints be mandatory. So lap times were a good second to two seconds a lap slower than the Fast 12 round because they only got one lap to warm the tyres up when the cars typically work best on two. Marcus Ericsson set the benchmark early on and then we saw everyone else set times nowhere near him. A combination of classic Andretti street track pace, combined with an excellent warm-up phase for Ericsson’s first pole position in any series for 13 years, last seen in his final season of GP21.
Now I openly admit, I’m not the biggest fan of one-shot qualifying because I think it can be a bit boring, but this was fine and better suits IndyCar as a product. But it needs work if the rumours are true that this was a trial run for a permanent format change. First of all, the IMS production truck has continued to be largely crap into its second season working with FOX, and having a timer that flashes red and green depending on split be your own timed reference was poor2.
There is ZERO good reason why FOX couldn’t have just use sector split times like every other racing series on earth as a visual aid. A huge oversight. Also, if you make the Fast 6, give everyone an extra set of Alternates like F1 did so we can see these cars at their quickest. Do that, and chuck out the stupid mid-session commercial break and you’re probably okay.
As for the race itself, for a good while, it was a race of tropes. This was a long race on paper – 70 laps, 95 seconds a lap, so roughly 110 minutes race barring cautions, and the Alternate tyre was showing signs of fading after as little as 12 laps. Marcus Ericsson held the lead early, but was first in of the leaders to change tyres, but a slow wheel gun on a tyre opened the door for Alex Palou to take the lead on track position and we all thought we were getting a re-run of St Pete. Palou was ripping the shit of Ericsson, as much as 1.4 seconds a lap quicker at times, pushing the lead out to eight seconds, so much so that Ericsson had to go for an extreme undercut just to stop hemorrhaging time.
But Andretti had already laid the trap. Ericsson cleared out the way for their other two Andretti’s to play the strategy game. Will Power went for a 2-stop strategy when three stops was seen as the conventional play, and had to stretch his stints out. Palou had to deal with Power in dirty air following him, while Kyle Kirkwood was laying down incredible pace on his Primary tyre – Something he hinted at doing the night before. Kirkwood got past Christian Lundgaard and had six seconds to make up on Alex Palou, and he did so with laps in hand. During the final stint of the race, Kirkwood took a huge, risky lunge into the final corner, with Palou making a wise business decision to give Kirkwood the space to pass, and it was a race winning move, even with Christian Rasmussen’s car dying with 4 laps left giving us one final one-lap shootout at the end. More on that mess in a bit.
Kyle Kirkwood on a street track might be the one genuine, NBA 2K-esque “100” stat in IndyCar, alongside maybe Josef Newgarden on Short Ovals and Alex Palou on Road Courses. He got the “King of the Streets” nickname for his brilliant street wins in Long Beach and Detroit, and even with ALL THREE Andretti cars having pitstop errors (Kirkwood also had a slow tyre change and Power had to be held as Louis Foster came through for his stop), and despite all that, Andretti ended up 1-3-4 again. I dunno how they work their dampers, but somehow, they just click on these bumpy tracks. Kirkwood was incredible and might be the only person that can beat Palou straight up in a dogfight in those conditions. And with it, Kirkwood takes a 24-point lead in the standings, and has gone 4-2-1 to start the season. Is this the Kirkwood title push year?
Off The Track (Content Warning)
So beyond the race review, what did I make of the track, and Arlington has a whole? Real mixed bag on this one, so strap in.
The track itself was fine, but the layout in my opinion needs work. Their massive 1,200m straight had a few passes but it was surprisingly hard to set up because of the slower section leading into it. You needed to be within four tenths and likely on the push-to-pass button. And the slower sections of the circuit were poor. Hard to follow, really slow, and led to some nasty pinch points and bottlenecks, especially coming out of the pits, as Christian Lundgaard found out when he was spun out by Mick Schumacher, and Josef Newgarden spinning himself out when he tried a divebomb on teammate David Malukas.
Given the amount of parking lot and space around these sports stadiums and the amount of land to play with, I think, was this the best they could truly do on this one? I think a faster layout, replicating the back end of the lap would go down better and opening up more passing opportunities. Amazed we only got one caution with barely three laps left.
As for the event as a whole, yeah, not bad. Apparently a lot of Texas Rangers season ticket holders got offered tickets to the race at a discount so it was an easy way of getting people to come down who likely usually do anyway, and apparently Sunday was a sellout. I’ll be curious to see if those same fans return, as Years 2+3 tend to be the big test.
They also had a fair amount of star power. Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, the Baseball Hall of Famer and DeMarcus Ware, Hall of Fame Cowboys edge rusher, gave the starter’s orders. On the one hand, nice to see T-Pain perform (Sadly cancelled die to the wind risk on Sunday), but on the grim side, All Time Low were also invited to perform on Friday, a group with rape accusations against them. Seriously, IndyCar’s vetting for their events has been utterly horrific since the FOX purchase and it needs to change. Now.
Overall, I think this event has genuine potential. I think if you tweaked the layout, tweaked the format of Qualifying, and kept up the big event feeling, you’d be onto something. But it also begs the question that my Jalopnik buddy Ryan King pointed out… All this effort for a race that’s 30 minutes away from Texas Motor Speedway. I know as a race it was let down by shitty promoters, PJ1 tarmac and poor local promotion, but did what we get instead really feel that much better? Hmmm…
The Lightning Round
IndyNXT saw Max Taylor sweep around F2 veteran Enzo Fittipaldi and gap him in what essentially became a three minute timed race. Very impressive and he’s going to be a coveted star if he keeps this going, he’s making the established class of Lochie Hughes and Myles Rowe look silly. Did I mention he’s 18?
Mick Schumacher already has three “Welcome to IndyCar” moments in three rounds. Taken out in 15 seconds in St Pete, a pitstop mishap ruining a 4th place start in Phoenix, and then spinning out Lundgaard on his second street race. It gets easier mate, promise.
Turns out it was Kyffin Simpson that caused the final lap pileup that ended the race, he drove into the back of Nolan Siegel, who then spun and collected Romain Grosjean. Chances are you also missed Felix Rosenqvist dropping P5 to P20 after the flag because it was deemed he jumped the restart and was given a back of the grid penalty. Really, really harsh.
Still waiting for the real Josef Newgarden to stand up.
Pato O’Ward is going cold on the idea of a Mexico race, mostly because he thinks it won’t be enough of an event to make it worthwhile. Yeeesh. Also, where’s his pace gone? 17 seconds behind Palou across the race despite the Top 5 finish is erm… unideal.
The Verdict: 5/10 (Meh) – This race didn’t move me. The drivers tried in all fairness, and it wasn’t completely dull, there was some strategic intrigue and Kirkwood’s surprise was neat, but his attack was so dominant, it turned a Palou walkover into a Kirkwood walkover in record time. Mix in a messy layout and it felt like an underwhelming race to me that could have been more. See you in Barber.