Road America Friday: keys for success and eyes on the title
- Morgan Holiday
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
IndyCar opens the second half of the 2026 season by coming to one of the most historic and well-loved tracks on the calendar: Road America. They began the weekend with practice on Friday afternoon, topped by the Meyer Shank Racing pairing of Marcus Armstrong and Felix Rosenqvist.
DIVEBOMB takes a look at some of the important storylines to follow throughout IndyCar’s weekend at Road America.
The title fight is Palou’s to lose
Halfway through the season, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Álex Palou is leading the standings by 49 points. That’s the largest gap between any two consecutive (full-time) drivers. Still, with less than a race win’s worth of points between Palou and his nearest rival (Kyle Kirkwood), there’s a lot at stake for the Spanish driver.
Speaking to DIVEBOMB about his confidence level in his points lead, Palou said: “Never secure, never, until it’s done, and then you feel a bit more relief. I think it’s good, every week here in IndyCar allows you to make a big swing in points, it’s the same for everybody but also for us to try to get ahead a little bit more in these next couple of races.
“I think we need to keep on pushing, keep on executing, there are at least five or six cars that can still be really good in the next three weekends and take the lead, so we need to avoid that and still get it for us.”
Palou is on the hunt for his fourth consecutive IndyCar title, a feat that would match the record for most consecutive American open-wheel titles set by Sébastien Bourdais.
“It’s exciting, it’s great,” Palou told DIVEBOMB about the prospect of a fourth consecutive title. “I mean it’s super tough to do obviously, and I know that it’s not every year that someone has the opportunity to do that. But it’s tough. What motivates me the most is trying to get another championship, but that’s just another thing on top that could make it even cooler.”
Palou comes to Road America in 2026 as last year’s race winner, and has the chance to become the driver who has won the most indyCar races at this iconic track should he take his fourth win here this weekend.
Rookies adapting to a new category
IndyCar’s rookie class of 2026 consists of three drivers: Dennis Hauger, Caio Collet and Mick Schumacher.
Hauger leads the group in terms of points scored, the Danish driver 34 points ahead of Collet in the standings. But even for the best of them, adapting to a new series has been a struggle.
“I feel like I’ve maximised 99% of what I can control,” Hauger said, speaking about the first half of his rookie year. “I know we’ve had our struggles in qualifying as a team, but we always seem to come up in the race. The only mistake I can clearly see was obviously the [Indy] 500 where we were up there, and a mistake by me cost us a pretty good result.
“But otherwise I feel like I’ve done everything I can, I’ve just taken every experience as I can, and hopefully we can keep some momentum going into the second half of the season with a bit more experience under my belt, and hopefully we will have pace to attack.”
Hauger and Collet battled for the win at Road America last year in the Indy NXT series. Collet came out the winner in that particular fight but it was Hauger who took the championship. Now they’re back at this track in IndyCar, which is a major step up in every sense.
Speaking to DIVEBOMB about adapting from Indy NXT, Collet spoke about all the different variables that need to be considered by the driver in a top-tier series like IndyCar.
“There hasn’t been a single thing that has been easy to adapt,” he said. “I would say the difference of compounds is something that is tricky, on race day when it comes to strategy and dealing with what you can do and what options you have is tricky as well.
“And the weekend in general, to manage… There are so many more variables and so many more things inside the car that you can extract from a driver and you can use it at your side, it’s just a lot to understand.”
The keys to success at Road America
Road America is the longest track on the IndyCar calendar at 4.014 miles (6.460 km) long. Due to the length of the track, it’s more important than ever to put together a clean lap in qualifying and start higher up in the order.
According to Team Penske’s David Malukas, one mistake in a qualifying lap can set you back much further than it might at other tracks, due to how long it takes you to get around the track to try again.
“It’s such a long track, especially for qualifying,” he said. “If you make one mistake in Turn 2, well now you have a whole other over two minutes to get the car where it needs to be to go for a second lap, and that second lap has to be the one or else the tyres are going to be over-degged. So it’s all going to be about consistency.”
If you qualify higher, you start higher, and track position at Road America can be key. That doesn't, however, mean that there's no chance for improvement if you get knocked down the order, as Malukas well knows.
“Yeah, it is very important, however, last year we qualified seventh but then I made a big mistake in Turn 3 and started dead last, then worked my way back up to seventh which was pretty cool," he said. "So the opportunities are always there but with this track, yes, it’s very important, you want to qualify up front. It’s just such a long track, there’s so many long straightaways, fuel saving, all of that, and being up front makes all that work a lot easier… And the field gets so spread out because it’s so long, so qualifying is above most important.”
What is Malukas' key for success above all else? “Being calm, cool, and collected.”
But no matter what happens in qualifying, race day will make or break your weekend. For championship leader Palou, the big challenge of the weekend will be executing a good race and having a fast car.
“This weekend, executing,” he told DIVEBOMB. “It’s a tough race, you need a fast car, and first of all you need to be fast as a driver. Just executing, making sure that we have a fast car to win so that we can manage good strategy and make it to the end.”
The IndyCar grid will qualify for race position tomorrow afternoon in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, at 13:05 local time.
