IndyCar Mid-Ohio Friday: tricky track conditions and drivers looking to improve

Written by Morgan Holiday

Credit: Dominic Loyer

IndyCar took to the track at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the first day of practice on Friday the Fourth of July.

DIVEBOMB takes a look at some of the storylines to watch this weekend.

“Low grip and unforgiving” track surface punishes drivers in practice

Friday’s practice session was marred by a number of drivers losing control and going off the track, the less fortunate ones hitting the barriers.

Colton Herta was one of those unlucky few, the Andretti Global driver taking two separate trips off the track, the latter being into the barriers at Turn 6. His report, unsurprisingly, was that there wasn’t a lot of grip.

“When I lost it, yeah, it was just the rear right from turning” he said after the session. “I don't know, it just seemed like overall maybe a little bit low grip and really unforgiving. If you kind of charged in too hard or you really over slipped one end of the car, it seemed like a lot worse than normal.

“So it is, I think, maybe a little bit more challenging than before. I'm not sure why. That's the way I feel.”

It was an all-around frustrating session for Herta, who still finished seventh overall in practice after completing 17 laps.

“I think, yeah, it's very annoying in these sessions, especially when you know you're fast and you just have nothing to show for it” he commented. “It's frustrating. I don't know, it is what it is.

“It's a little bit better with these sessions, but even for the beginning of the session, then you just don't really get laps. So you're kind of guessing the last half of the track, where to put it and how much speed to roll when you get the reds on. It definitely disrupts the flow of your work progress for sure.”

Malukas and Foyt looking for the final piece of the puzzle

Credit: Dominic Loyer

One driver looking to take a step up this weekend is A.J. Foyt’s David Malukas.

Malukas’ first season with the A.J. Foyt Racing team has been a slow and steady climb up the ranks.

After going the first five races without a top 12 finish, Malukas stunned at the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 and made it into the Fast 12 on qualifying weekend before running to an eventual second place finish (after penalties). According to Malukas, the Month of May was when everything started to click into place.

“It’s been good, the first half of the season went as expected,” Malukas told DIVEBOMB at the track on Friday. “New team, everything’s new, trying to figure out what we like and what we don’t, and after the Month of May, you have an entire month with the team, you get to learn each other, figure out what we want with the car. It went to plan, I had a feeling after May we would kick it into gear and I feel like it has been that big jump forward.”

Since May, Malukas’ results have reflected that jump forward–a 14th place finish in Detroit, a 12th place finish at Gateway, and a seventh place finish in Road America. But there’s still one more thing they need to work on, per Malukas’ assessment. And this weekend might be the key to figuring it out.

“The last piece of the puzzle that we need to fix is road course setup,” he said. “We made up a big chunk at Road America which was really good and now we’re here at Mid-Ohio we have another opportunity to make another step.

“If we can come out of here with a very good car we’ve pretty much fixed the whole puzzle for the second half of the season so we can keep our heads down and get some good results.”

Malukas’ Friday came to a premature end during practice when he spun and hit the barriers at Turn 9 early on in the session. But he’ll be working hard with the team for the rest of the weekend to find the missing piece of his season’s puzzle.

All eyes on Palou

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Álex Palou leads the IndyCar championship by 93 points coming into this weekend. His competitors up and down the grid are shaking their heads, knowing there’s nothing they can do to defeat him.

His two closest rivals, Kyle Kirkwood and Pato O’Ward, both know that it’ll take a miracle for them to have a shot at the championship this year.

For Kirkwood it’s especially frustrating, as the Andretti driver has taken three race wins this year (the only driver other than Palou so far to win an IndyCar race in 2025) and has had an incredible season, but it still isn’t enough.

“It takes away from what we’ve done, no doubt,” said Kirkwood when speaking about Palou’s performance this year. “When you feel like three or four years ago the run that we’ve had right now would have put us in contention to win the championship, but that’s just not the case this year. 

“We’re somewhat in contention but nowhere near, we would be leading the championship if we did what we did this year a few years back. It takes away for sure, from what we’ve done, but at the same time you have to accept that we’ve had a really good season up till now, so we’ll see what happens.”

O’Ward also voiced frustrations, despite the up and down season he’s had he’s still just 18 points behind Kirkwood in the championship. 

“We’re sitting third in the championship, we’re right there,” O’Ward said on Friday. “First is quite a ways, but all it takes is two DNFs from [Palou’s] side and two wins for me, and we’ll be right in the fight. But it just doesn’t happen to him, so I guess the longer we go and the better results that 10 car gets, we’re just going to have to kiss it goodbye and push for second.”

With eight races (including Mid-Ohio) left in the championship, all eyes are on Palou this weekend. It’ll only take a couple more race wins before he well and truly seals this year’s title.

Rookie looking for an “issue free” weekend

Credit: Dominic Loyer

It’s been a tough rookie season so far for Dale Coyne Racing’s Jacob Abel. He only has one top 20 finish to his name nine races into the 2025 season, and he sits 27th in the standings, last of all the full-time drivers.

But Abel is hopeful that internal gains can bring a boost to his performances after a tough year.

“Yeah, [my results] haven’t been great at all,” Abel said on Friday. “We haven’t really had an issue free race yet, much less an issue free weekend.

“I think we made a lot of gains internally in the last few races that I’m hoping will finally show themselves once we get through everything and have a good execution race, and I think we’ll hopefully move significantly up the grid.”

Mid-Ohio would be a great race for Abel to finally score a good result, as he counts this track as a home track of sorts.

While this weekend will be Abel’s first time at Mid-Ohio as a part of the IndyCar circus, he’s raced here plenty of times in the lower categories, and even worked at the school here.

“I think it’ll help a ton,” said Abel, when asked whether or not his experience at this track would help him this weekend.

“This has always been a self-proclaimed home track of mine. This is the first place I ever drove a race car, I worked at the school here for a couple of years. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time at this facility, at this place, and done a ton of laps around this track so I think that definitely gives me a lot more confidence heading into this weekend.”

While Abel may have a lot of experience at this track, he acknowledged that a lot of drivers have experience at Mid-Ohio, so the margins will be tight.

When speaking about what the biggest challenge of the weekend will be, Abel commented: “I think it will be adapting to everything, this surface was new last year. You always seem to see a pretty big change from that from year one to year two so I think it’s going to be whichever team adapts to that.

“Turn 4 is obviously a little bit different this year so I think that’ll be interesting but I think it’s just gonna be executing. This track is relatively small and we all have a lot of experience here so that tends to lead to very very close margins. So it’s all going to be all about executing and maximising here.”

Abel is one of many drivers looking for an upturn of fortune this weekend.

All photos in this article were taken by DIVEBOMB Photographer, Dominic Loyer. You can find Dominic's work on Instagram (@dominicloyer_photography)