Series Shifts Gears to Intense Street Fight This Weekend in Motown

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES’ variety show continues this weekend in Detroit.

Following road course and oval races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the series ends the month with a race on a street circuit. The diversity of tracks spans this season. Comprising the 18-race calendar are six road courses, six street circuits and six oval tracks.

SEE: Event Details

The driver hoisting the Astor Challenge Cup in September will have proven to be the year’s most well-rounded.

Currently, that driver is Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, who will take a 37-point lead into Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear (12:30 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX One, INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls). He has won three of the season’s first seven races and was the pole sitter and seventh-place finisher in last weekend’s Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. He won the inaugural Detroit street race in 2023.

To take another big step toward capturing a record-tying fourth consecutive series championship and fifth in six years, Palou will need to fend off the rest of the field eager to get back to racing following three weeks at IMS.

A look at the Five Things that Palou and the rest of us will be watching:

Malukas Takes a Big Step at Indy

David Malukas has firmly established himself as the Team Penske driver most likely to challenge Palou for the series title.

The Chicago native (photo, above, front) finished second in the “500” for the second consecutive year, and he did so with his second different team. He was this close to winning Indy, a blink-of-an-eye trailing of Felix Rosenqvist by .0233 of a second in the closest INDYCAR SERIES finish in 110 years of oval racing at the Brickyard.

Malukas also finished second in the Sonsio Grand Prix, making him the highest-scoring driver of the two IMS races. Those 94 points pushed him to second in the standings, 37 points behind Palou, and he leads all Team Penske drivers through seven of 18 races.

For the season, Malukas has scored 55 points more than Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the “500,” and 69 points more than Josef Newgarden, a two-time series champion who crashed in Turn 4 at Indy. McLaughlin and Newgarden rank sixth and eighth, respectively, in the standings.

All three of Roger Penske’s drivers will hope for better results in their return to the event their boss promotes. In last year’s race, Newgarden advanced 15 positions to finish ninth; McLaughlin came home 12th. Malukas finished 14th in his only race at the track with AJ Foyt Racing. He was penalized on Lap 77 for avoidable contact with Palou in Turn 1.

Kirkwood Putting Indy Behind Him

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood entered the month trailing Palou by 17 points. After two disappointing finishes at IMS, he has fallen to 49 points behind and is third in the standings.

This weekend’s 100-lap race on the 10-turn, 1.645-mile downtown circuit offers a redemption opportunity for the Floridian (photo, above). He won last year’s race by 3.5931 seconds over AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci after leading a race-high 48 laps.

Street races have been Kirkwood’s forte since joining the INDYCAR SERIES for the 2022 season. Five of his six series wins have come on such circuits, including this year’s Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, the season’s third race on March 15. Kirkwood also won last year’s Detroit race from the third starting position.

In the Sonsio Grand Prix, the team’s mistake on pit road cost Kirkwood about eight seconds, the biggest factor in him finishing ninth. In the “500,” he advanced 10 positions from where he started, but finishing 16th was still a dent in his title hopes.

Rosenqvist Looks To Ride Momentum

The “500” winner likely hasn’t come up from air given the celebrating and media duties, including Tuesday’s nonstop day in New York (photo, above). But Rosenqvist realizes a new era for him begins Friday when he competes as a driver who has earned a likeness on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

Indy winners often have struggled in the race following the “500.” The last Indy winner to win the ensuing race was Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000.

Rosenqvist has encountered a pair of difficult endings to recent Detroit races, including last year when his car was struck from behind by rookie Louis Foster, whose car had suffered front suspension failure. In the first race of the 2021 doubleheader at Belle Isle Park, Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren SP car incurred a stuck throttle, rocketing him into the Turn 6 wall.

Rosenqvist had a rough start to the season with an average finish of 14.0 in the first four races, and he was reduced to a 23rd-place finish in the Sonsio Grand Prix. But he has qualified well in recent races – first, third and fourth in the past three – and was the driver to beat in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 19 before Palou beat him out of the pits on the last stop to swipe the lead and then pulled away for the victory. Winning Indy lifted Rosenqvist to seventh place in the standings.

McLaughlin, Armstrong, O’Ward on the Climb

Like Rosenqvist, McLaughlin and Marcus Armstrong scored their best “500” finishes, and they did so in dramatic fashion. Armstrong led the race at the white flag before settling for fifth place as McLaughlin charged through a pack in the final few yards to grab third place.

The separation between McLaughlin and Armstrong, with Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward squeezed between them, was a negligible .0155 of a second. That’s half of the time between Rosenqivst and Malukas -- .0233 of a second – that was an event record.

O’Ward (fifth), McLaughlin (sixth) and Armstrong (10th) are all in the top 10 of the standings after seven of 18 races.

Armstrong (photo, above) is eager to get back on the streets of Detroit after finishing a solid sixth in last year’s race. He also scored his first career podium finish on this track in 2024. He placed third.

O’Ward (photo, top) finished seventh in last year’s Motor City race, with he and McLaughlin each leading three laps. McLaughlin finished 12th. O’Ward doesn’t have a podium finish in this version of the event, but in the 2021 doubleheader at Belle Isle Park, he finished third as the polesitter in Race 1 and won Race 2. The latter was his second career race win; he now has nine.

The Weekend Schedule

It certainly will be a quick turnaround for the INDYCAR SERIES given that the dust has barely settled at IMS.

The first practice of the event is at 3 p.m. ET Friday on FS2, and all 25 of the car-and-driver combinations are expected to participate. Both of Saturday’s sessions will air live on FS1, beginning with the weekend’s second practice at 9 a.m. and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 1 p.m.

Preceding Sunday’s race is a practice at 9:30 a.m. ET on FS1.

FOX One and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls also are broadcasting every session.