“FREE MY BROTHER LUNDGA-”
And finally, here’s Part 3 of my triple-header edition of DRR Reviews, and this time, we’re looking at IndyCar’s Round 4 of 2026, as for the first time, the Grand Prix of Alabama takes place in March, the earliest it’s ever been staged. Georgina was back in her rightful place and she got to watch… something resembling an IndyCar race. Kind of. Let’s talk about it.
Putting The Entire Race Review In One Segment
Okay, I’m one paragraph into this and I’m not going to pretend that it’s all that exciting. Alex Palou got the Fast 6 and qualified on pole again ahead of David Malukas and… Graham Rahal?! And it’s not the Indy Road Course?
There was even some early drama as Kyle Kirkwood tried to go around the outside of him through Turn 2 off the start, Rahal banging wheels and forcing him to back down. Palou does what he does best early on, pulling out a lead in open air on a new set of Primary tyres, holding off Malukas on the alternates and going longer than anyone else on their opening stints, 27 laps in total. Rahal was now running second after starting on the Primary and overcutting Malukas and he actually stayed with Palou in an interesting game of strategy. Palou and Rahal both went Alternate’s for their second stint, and to my surprise, Rahal was keeping pace with Palou for the first 10 laps of the stint…
…But we’ve seen this story before. Palou in the back half of the stint was putting a pounding on Rahal, to the point where it was bringing Christian Lundgaard into play, and this is where the deviance in strategy came into play. Lundgaard went for his Alternate stint in his third stint, and had used sticker Primaries to that point, whereas Palou wanted to use primaries that had already been through a heat cycle. On the plus side, they get up to speed quicker. The downside, they don’t have as much life in them. And I think Lundgaard’s plan was better, bringing Palou’s lead down from seven seconds, to within three before the final round of stops.
Palou came in first to avoid the slim chance of being hosed on a caution. Hinchcliffe worked out you need about 28 seconds for a full stop. Palou was 27.6 behind as Lundgaard came in… but the McLaren pitcrew botched the stop, the right rear tyre wasn’t fixed properly as the jack came down. As they had to rejack the car up to fix it, the stop took 17 agonizing seconds. Just like that, Lundgaard was dropped back to third behind a distant Rahal, and the race was effectively over.
Rahal tried to hang on at the end, but Lundgaard overtook him with three laps to go for second place. Davld Malukas tried a late push for the podium with Rahal out of push-to-pass, but ran out of road. All this going down 13 seconds behind Alex Palou, who took his second win of the season in an undeserved, dominant fashion.
This was a frustrating race to watch. I really like Barber as a track, but you can tell at times that it was built with bikes in mind, passing is at a premium around it and it shows. This was a genuinely interesting strategy race, with Lundgaard going on a tear in the back half. If that stop was clean, it would have been extremely tight as to who comes out in front, probably a similar situation to the Thermal Club race last year where Palou had the advantage on warmer tyres but still had to work very hard to get in front. But the botched stop sucked all the fun out of it, and that stinks as a finale. Palou looked genuinely vulnerable at the front of a road course race, which is rare – and McLaren let him off the hook. It’s those kind of flashpoints that can swing Championships. When Palou gives you an opening, you have to punish him.
Gah. Play The Lightning Round and let’s get out of here.
You Know What This Is
Palou, Lundgaard, Kirkwood. The three best road and street track drivers in the series now. Who says no?
That’s also Palou’s 10th win in his last 21 starts. Also not mentioned, apparently Palou was being super conversative on fuel and had more pace in hand. But sssh, narrative.
You know how I said Barber is a bike track and it feels that way sometimes. See McLaughlin, Scott. Who spun at Turn 1, headed backwards towards the wall at 90mph, and the concrete/grass runoff lifted the car off the ground enough where it went over the wall and into the catch fence. Thankfully, McLaughlin was fine. And I get why the run off is the way it is, tarmac actually works best for bikes as it lets them slide and be compact rather than be flipped by gravel, but having grass on the track edge to respect limits, followed by two levels of elevated gravel lifting a car up via friction is a bad idea. It’s why hybrid tracks need to keep in mind that different surfaces work best for both two wheels and four.
Here’s another look at Scott McLaughlin’s big crash at Barber Motorsports Park as he goes through the fence in practice. pic.twitter.com/SKhymSDjsw
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) March 28, 2026
McLaughlin had to wrap his backup car, whose sponsor for Long Beach was a secret meant to be revealed the week before the race. Whoops. And then he broke the backup car and had to settle for a drab 16th place. With Newgarden still feeling mid on road/street and McLaughlin a surprise underperformer so far this season, call forth David Malukas looking like the best Penske so far. Not sure it’s even close either.
The rest of McLaren was miserable. Nolan Siegel had a fuel pump issue so he had to do heavy amounts of Lift and Coast to make the flag, and Pato O’Ward had no pace and no explanation for finishing 17th, just two seconds ahead of Siegel. Not ideal for his title aspirations. Is Lundgaard becoming a genuine threat for McLaren’s #1?
Just when you think the Will Power revenge tour was back on track… a brake failure in qualifying. Man, this sucks. Decent comeback to 12th mind you.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is weird. Buxton lost his mind at Rahal finishing third. Like gassed him up more than Palou winning, and he LOVES Palou if you hear him on broadcast or on one of his 17 podcasts. Which was weird given Rahal’s last podium finish in the series was in 2023. Less than three years ago. There’s far worse streaks out there than his, and it’s not like he’s been bumped from the 500 again. Weird call. Also, why was he so good, and then Foster and Schumacher so bad by comparison? Very bizarre happenings in the camp.
There was also genuine confusion by Rahal and the broadcast booth over the fact the “Running two sets of alternates” rule only applies to Street Circuits, not Barber.
Christian Rasmussen is quickly becoming a rich man’s Conor Daly with how big his disparity between ovals and tracks that turn right is.
Three Top 10 finishes in four rounds to start the season for Marcus Ericsson. Good stuff, form good enough that may just save his job.
I love that so many people from F1 fandom flooded the comment sections of IndyCar’s highlight videos without realising that the series also uses hybrids. That was adorable. You can tell they’re new because they didn’t actually watch the race.
And finally, from all of us at Motorsport101, best wishes to Barry Wanser, whose cancer has sadly returned. He was on an operating table last week and he still made it back for Barber. They make them tough over there.
The Verdict: 5.5/10 (Okay) – Not a classic. As said earlier, this was actually building up quick nicely towards a really nice strategic finish at the end, but the Lundgaard botched pitstop sucked the life out of this one. A few okay battles on track here and there but, I’m starting to lose a little of my love for Barber. A shame. IndyCar takes two weeks off, I’ll see you at Long Beach.