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Dre’s Race Review: IndyCar’s 2026 Sonsio Grand Prix

by sports••0
Dre’s Race Review: IndyCar’s 2026 Sonsio Grand Prix

“Christian. Christian. At last, you’re on your own…”

Welcome back to another double header in the land of Dre’s Race Review. First time this weekend is… IndyCar?! Oh, the luck of your race being on Saturday night instead of the usual. So with it, they get to go first. Time for IndyCar’s Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indy Road Course. And with it a race that was marred by horrendous Race Direction, questionable strategy, and another bitter pill to swallow as a fan of the series. Let’s talk about it.

The Vibes Have Never Been More Off

Not too long ago, I genuinely had IndyCar as my favourite series to watch across the Big 3 I’ve adopted in Motorsport, alongside F1 and MotoGP. It was never the friendliest towards the International viewer (It’s a national series, a bit of that is inevitable), but the racing was great, the drivers were more open and engaging with the media. The content they were putting out of the Internet was hilarious, warm and still small enough where it felt intimate. 

What happened?

As a black IndyCar fan, it’s been a grim season and a half or so on the outside looking in. Just this week alone, we had AI Slop hit the IndyCar merchandise store in the form of new T-Shirts that made reference to the upcoming Freedom 250, with the slogan “One Nation, One Race” on it that could easily be interpreted as racist. My man Ryan King of Jalopnik pointed this out, and he got a bunch of idiotic people trying to silence him on it. And that’s before you mention the third leg sticking out of it.

I’ve made it abundantly clear how I feel about Donald Trump and how he fits almost every derogatory phrase you can think of that ends in “-ist”, and how Roger Penske has twerked as hard as he has to bring the series to Washington, using the shield of Patriotism as an endorsement for their government’s awfulness, but doubling down on it is awful and alienating. The shirt was pulled off the store shortly afterwards when shit got too hot on social media.

It didn’t help that Meyer Shank’s latest musical livery in their partnership with SiriusXM, had a Morgan Wallen livery on the car. The fact it was beige was offensive enough, but then you remember that Wallen dropped the N-Word slur back in 2021. How the fuck do you go from Green Day in Long Beach, to that?! The racing gods agreed with me and then decided to have that car obliterated via Felix causing a five-car pile-up off the line, and then being taken out entirely driving into the side of Kyffin Simpson on a restart. 

Long Beach’s push-to-pass scandal blew up again going into the weekend. After public pressure from fans on social media after Monday morning’s generic statement, IndyCar’s new independent officiating board revealed the 12 drivers who did use the button, and for how long, including race winner Alex Palou. 

There were some awkward conversations at the presser about it, but it goes to show you that exploiting the system has become a conditioned part of the series. These racing drivers are paid 6-7 figures a year to exploit every element of the rulebook to the maximum, the responsibility lies on the series to run a tight ship. I was told by a source within the paddock that the main reason half the field was on the button was because the system fails “once or twice a year”. So these drivers will be damned if they’re the ones to miss out on the series’ own incompetence. IndyCar declaring P2P legal on all restarts is a statement that essentially reads: “We can’t police this system, boys have it!”. It’s a horrible look for the series as a whole.

Once again over the weekend, the production isn’t great. Qualifying had nearly an entire round without a timing tower, with Buxton, Bell and Hinchcliffe mocking the situation, and we didn’t get GPS tracking until Round 2. And for Indy NXT Race 2, we had over a quarter of the race without sound, and the producer had a hot mic. Why has IMS production values tailed off so hard since the FOX switch?

And then the cherry on top of the cake – The worst vibes-based decision making in Motorsport, bar none. Yet another instance of a dead car in a dangerous part of the track, in this case Alexander Rossi’s ECR car stranded on the side of the main straight with other cars coming past at 170mph, and there was no caution until the leaders made a decision as to whether to dive into the pits or not. And this was after two big pieces of debris were on the racing line and ignored, one race after dropping a caution at Long Beach in the exact same scenario. 

It really shouldn’t be this frustrating following this series. For the last year, it’s felt more and more like a chore to watch IndyCar because of basic, solvable missteps. And the most frustrating thing? They’re crushing it. Their ratings are 40% up so far this year. There’s genuine growth here and FOX will throw the house at the Indy 500 in a fortnight’s time and most of this will be glossed over. And I don’t think IndyCar should be let off the hook for it. But here we are. 

Apologies if this is a little more ranty than usual, but I had to get a lot of this shit off my chest. Let’s actually review Indy.

Damnit, Dre Went Off On One Again

Alex Palou beat the field’s ass in qualifying and for most of the first stint of this race. Indy’s Road Course has now become a hunting ground for the reigning Double Champ – He’s won at least one race at Indy the last three years. He outqualified the field by half a second, and then had to dodge a huge Turn 1 wreck after Pato O’Ward was spun out by track husband Felix Rosenqvist, with Caio Collet, Scott Dixon and Louis Foster all caught up in it. After that was cleared up, Palou then pulled out another big four and a half second lead in the first stint of the race over an early charging Kyle Kirkwood. 

Then Barry Wanser, one of the best strategists in the field and normally bulletproof in the #10 car makes a huge error. Alex Rossi’s car dies on Lap 21 and IndyCar does their usual “wait for the leaders to pit” signal. Palou and Kirkwood both elect not to take it, get hosed on the yellow and sink to the back of the field. It gave control of the race to Will Power, who was now massively off-sequence after starting from the back and switching to an “effective” two-stopper, and David Malukas who had shuffled to the front after the opening lap melee and split in strategy. Straight off that restart, there was another huge bottleneck at the penultimate corner, as Simpson and Rosenqvist collided, with Felix going airborne and Marcus Armstrong caught up in it too. Kirkwood, via taking a tighter line through the grass, overtook Palou before the caution dropped. 

Kirkwood was being hyper-aggressive on his soft tyres, charging through the midifeld and using a large amount of his P2P to do it, but then during his second pitstop, another Andretti wheel change failure led to him dropping multiple places back. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.

It left a two-horse race at the front as David Malukas was being charged down by McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard. At the final round of stops, Lundgaard’s team went for the undercut and came out just behind Malukas one lap later, but Christian used his fresher tyres to go around the outside of Lil’ Dave just because the chicane to take the lead in what was easily the pass of the season so far. An exceptional bit of racing from both drivers and very fair of Malukas to give Lundgaard the racing room for a fair attempt, something that’s becoming increasingly rare with modern racing (Trust me, I watched the 6 Hours of Spa).

Lundgaard wouldn’t be challenged after that and it’s a marquee win in so many ways. For Christian himself, it’s his first win in 48 races. His first win for McLaren, a team he was supposed to be the floor raiser for, and the first McLaren IndyCar race winner in this era, not named Pato O’Ward. It’s Kyle Mower’s first win on the pitwall too after over a decade with Penske before the attenuator scandal. And don’t forget, Lundgaard is in a contract year and sitting down with McLaren on the negotiation table. He’s not just angling to be the #1 free agent in IndyCar, he’s angling to be the #1 at McLaren, showing some of the upside we so often praise Pato for. 

Not to mention, Lundgaard’s always been synonymous with the Indy Road Course. He made a shock debut there when Alpine’s F1 team let him leave their academy and was competitive on debut. Palou on hard tyres had been a nemesis for him and everyone else in the field. Not to mention the second place finish to Alex Rossi, when the latter had a technical infringement resulting in points deducted with the Californian allowed to keep the win. This has been a long time coming for Dane, and it’s why I see him as one of the elite drivers in the series, even if the oval prowess isn’t quite there yet. How many guys on road and street tracks are better?

The Lightning Round

I’ve made it clear over the years – I don’t mess with Alex Rossi as an IndyCar watcher, but I admit, the two-sentence response to Georgia Henneberry, saying the hybrid adds nothing to the series in terms of the quality of racing, and that the race was going to continue despite a dead car on the straight, while medium levels of rain delayed qualifying until Sunday morning… Man. It was damning and it needed to be said. Remember, this is the series that for years had a nasty habit of desperately punching up at F1 for similar problems. 

Better day for two-thirds of Team Penske. David Malukas is proving to be the real deal and answering every question asked of him as one of the six true elite seat holders in the series. Good recovery from Josef Newgarden to go from 10th to fourth too, about the maximum available given the circumstances. Begs the question though – What has happened to Scott McLaughlin?

Alex Palou got boned on a crash avoidance pass by Kirkwood, effectively had to take an extra stop and still finished fifth and 14 seconds off the win. Ha.

In regards to how many big names got wrecked and dramatic the result was – Seven of the Top 10 here had their best finish of the season here. Some to highlight – Louis Foster finally having a result reflective of his talent by taking seventh (Classic RLL Indy Road Course boon), Rahal back on the podium again, Dixon sixth despite being crashed into, and Dennis Hauger in 8th (And going +16) for Dale Coyne. Screams Andretti #28 for next year.

Two weekends in a row I can say – Good job by Nolan Siegel, this time in 10th. This NEEDS to be the standard if McLaren feels like it should keep him. 

Mick Schumacher was on for 12th, but then drove into the back of Santino Ferrucci to spin him out on the penultimate lap. Turns out, the stewards missed that Ferrucci deliberately backed off the throttle at the apex of the corner. That drive-through penalty, wrongly called, cost Mick eight places. And even if you disagree with that… no take out will be celebrated more amongst IndyCar’s internet hardcores I suspect. 

Remember when Romain Grosjean had a contract extension with Andretti torn up becuase he constantly lashed out at his crew? Well yesterday he threated to fist fight Marcus Armstrong. Normal.

Shoutout to Enzo Fittipaldi for taking after his grandad and winning at Indianapolis(NXT), as well as Poland’s finest in Tymek Kucharczyk taking Race 2. (That one’s for you, Jason.)

The Verdict: 6/10 (Decent) – I was going to give this a seven as one of the better IndyCar races of the season. I took a point off for really sloppy racecraft at the start and middle, but half a point back for the brilliant Lundgaard pass on Malukas for the win. A decent tactical race with a great finish, tainted by horrendous stewarding. That second caution is anger inducing. See you back here for a review of Indy 500 Qualifying. 

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