IndyCar Drivers New Fans Should Know

For the season-long picture, start with Palou. His 2026 Portland win shows how he could combine outright speed with tire management, and his 2025 Indianapolis 500 win was his first on an oval. Watch his late run behind Marcus Ericsson at Indy to see how the draft set up the pass that put him in front.

Replay the last lap of the 2024 Indianapolis 500. Newgarden tucked in behind Pato O’Ward down the back straight, then went outside him into Turn 3 to win his second straight Indy 500. The pass makes a good introduction to what you can do with the draft and a second lane on a big oval.

O’Ward swept the Milwaukee doubleheader in 2026 and also won at Mid-Ohio. Watch one of the Milwaukee races and then the Mid-Ohio win. The pairing lets you compare what it takes to pass through repeated oval traffic with the kind of rhythm that pays off when the next corner turns the other way.

Dixon’s 2024 Long Beach win is a good race to watch when you’re wondering why a leader can look so slow. He conserved fuel and tires after the last stops of the cars ahead moved him into the lead, then raised his pace to finish. When the broadcast talks about fuel numbers, watch the time gap as well as the cars in the picture.

At Arlington in 2026, Kirkwood made a late pass on Alex Palou to win. It’s a good first look at an IndyCar street race, where you can follow a chase for many laps and see it decided by one opening between the walls. Kirkwood also won on the streets of Washington that season.

Start at Road America in 2026. A first-lap collision sent Lundgaard to the pits for a new front wing and tires. He came back from last to win. His earlier win that season was on the road course inside Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a separate layout from the oval used for the 500. Both are permanent road courses, with very different race stories.

Watch the final lap of the 2026 Indianapolis 500 twice. First follow Rosenqvist as he battles his teammate Marcus Armstrong for second. Then watch the run out of the last corner, when he goes after David Malukas and wins the closest finish in race history. An oval finish can be settled long after the last braking point.

Use Malukas to compare the two sides of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was runner-up on the infield road course in 2026, then led the final lap of the 500 on the oval before losing by 0.0233 seconds to Felix Rosenqvist. Both finishes say more about his range than the second-place line on either result sheet.

At Barber in 2024, McLaughlin won on a permanent road course, and that same season he took his first oval win at Iowa. Watch Barber for the pace that let him make his strategy work, then Iowa to see how the New Zealander went about learning a different kind of racing.

Put a Will Power qualifying lap alongside his 2018 Indianapolis 500 win. His career pole record is a reason to pay attention before the race even starts, and his Indy win gives you another way into a career that includes two series titles. Qualifying and race day are worth watching for different reasons here.

A late red flag left Ericsson with a short sprint to protect his lead in the 2022 Indianapolis 500. At Markham in 2026, his final stop instead put him back in traffic on a street circuit. Watch how he won both when the last few laps asked for opposite things: keeping cars behind at Indy and getting past them at Markham.

The last few laps of the 2021 Indianapolis 500 are a good way to understand why Castroneves is associated so closely with this race. He and Álex Palou traded the lead before Castroneves went outside into Turn 1 on the next-to-last lap and went on to win his fourth 500. Follow the traffic ahead of them as well as the two leaders.

Sato beat Castroneves for his first Indianapolis 500 win in 2017 and beat Dixon to win again in 2020. Then try a replay of his win on the streets of Long Beach in 2013. The extra race gives a view of what he could do in IndyCar away from the oval that made him famous in the series.

At the 2016 Indianapolis 500, refueling trouble put Rossi on an unusual strategy. He stretched his last tank for 36 laps and won as a rookie. For a second look at Rossi, try his third place in the 2026 season finale at Laguna Seca. The two races show why watching an oval for fuel mileage and watching a road course for track position can be very different experiences.

Rasmussen’s first IndyCar win came on the Milwaukee Mile in 2025. Watch the last stretch after he passes Álex Palou. Even with the lead, he still has to get through lapped traffic on a short oval. This is a good introduction to a race where the cars just ahead of the leader often matter as much as the car chasing him.