Winners and Losers: Grand Prix of Alabama

Morgan Holiday
14 hours ago
5 min read

Written by Morgan Holiday

Alex Palou was the big story of the weekend in Alabama as the Spanish driver had a dominant weekend to take pole position and then his third win of the season.

He was the clear winner of this year’s Grand Prix of Alabama, but who else had a particularly good (or bad) weekend? Let’s take a look at some of the winners and losers of this past IndyCar race weekend.

Winner - Rinus VeeKay

This past weekend at Barber Motorsports Park saw VeeKay achieve his best IndyCar finish since 2022.

After five seasons driving for Ed Carpenter Racing, VeeKay made the switch to Dale Coyne Racing for 2025. It wasn’t the smoothest of transitions, as the Dutch driver had been expecting to continue with ECR before the team opted to sign Alex Rossi instead.

Switching teams for the first time in his IndyCar career may very well be tough for VeeKay, though he’s already put in several good results. A ninth place finish in his opening race for DCR at St. Pete put him in the top ten before two unassuming results at Thermal and Long Beach.

But VeeKay came alive at Barber, making a shock appearance in the Fast 6 in Qualifying, where he solidified a starting position of fifth place for the race. And in the race he held off Will Power and Pato O’Ward to finish fourth, securing his eighth top-five finish and capping off the weekends with one of the best drives of his IndyCar career.

Winner - Arrow McLaren

Last time out in Long Beach, Arrow McLaren was a team on the list of losers coming out of the weekend. None of their three drivers made it into the Fast 6, and Christian Lundgaard’s hard won podium was the only brightside in a dismal weekend for the team.

This past weekend, a hard won podium for Lundgaard was one of several positives, as the team made strides forward in their collective competitiveness and out-performed their close rivals Andretti Global.

On Saturday at Barber, all three McLaren drivers made it through the first round of Qualifying to the Fast 12. And although two of them were knocked out before the final round, Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward finished at the top of the eliminated list in seventh and eighth.

It was McLaren’s newest driver, Nolan Siegel, who made it through to the final session, marking his first appearance in the Fast 6. And although he was the slowest of the top drivers and qualified sixth on the grid, it was an excellent showing from a young driver with two well-performing teammates to live up to.

In the race it was yet again Lundgaard who shone, as the Danish driver picked up second place in his third consecutive podium – a result that puts him second in the championship standings. O’Ward also made up ground in the race to finish fifth, and while Siegel dropped back he still finished ninth, putting all three McLaren drivers in the top ten and rounding out a solid weekend for the team.

Winner - Scott McLaughlin

Another driver who had an all-around solid weekend was McLaughlin, who finished in the top ten in every single session.

He qualified second ahead of Colton Herta and his Team Penske teammate Will Power. The fact in the race was that he was no match for Álex Palou (who is?), or even the McLaren of Lundgaard. But McLaughlin is a driver who made the most of what he had this weekend and solidly out-performed his teammates and most of the field.

He finished the race in third, two places above Power and seven places ahead of their Penske teammate Josef Newgarden. The podium (his first of the year) bumped him up to fifth in the standings, also ahead of both of his teammates in that order.

It’s hard for drivers to fight in the face of the reality that is Palou’s dominance at this point in the season – but McLaughlin did everything he was capable of and could not have realistically asked for more this weekend.

Loser - Andretti Global

Andretti has historically struggled at Barber, and this weekend was no exception. Marcus Ericsson’s crash in Practice 2 put him on the back foot going into Qualifying and was unable to progress out of Group 1. Kyle Kirkwood in Group 2 didn’t fare much better, though he finished ninth in the group for an 18th place overall and also was unable to move forward to the Fast 12.

In Qualifying it was Herta who carried the team, putting his No.26 car in third place behind Palou and McLaughlin in the Fast 6. It was his best qualifying result at this track in his IndyCar career, and for the race he looked good to also improve on his best finishing result at Barber Motorsports Circuit (eighth place, achieved in 2024).

And he did, albeit just barely as he came home at the end of Sunday’s race in seventh place. A chance at a top five finish was lost when Herta stalled in pit lane after his second pit stop.

Herta’s lone top ten finish was the best result of the day for the Andretti team, as Kirkwood and Ericsson both improved from their starting positions but lacked the pace to really compete. They finished the race in 11th and 20th respectively in a weekend that lacked any real good result for Andretti.

Loser - Scott Dixon

While his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Palou was storming to a dominant win from pole position, Dixon’s weekend was less than ideal, though not without promise.

A trip into the gravel during the final moments of the first part of qualifying cost him the chance to advance – he finished 13th out of 14 cars in that session which put him 26th for the race start.

In the race on Sunday, Dixon was the recipient of IndyCar’s least desirable award: the Biggest Mover award. He moved up 14 places throughout the race to finish 12th in a race with three mandatory pit stops and no cautions.

His pace and excellent recovery makes you wonder what he could have done if he had started towards the front of the grid. No one wants the biggest mover award because no one wants to qualify far back enough to make up that many places, and Dixon’s weekend certainly would have been better if he wasn’t in the place to need to make so many overtakes.

In what was really an incredible race for Dixon, this weekend is still a loss as he mourns what could have been if not for his troubles earlier in the weekend.

Loser - Rookies

This year’s rookie class consists of three drivers - DCR’s Jacob Abel, PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman and Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Louis Foster. The other thing these three drivers have in common? They were the bottom three finishers of this past weekend’s Grand Prix of Alabama.

Of the three rookies, Foster had the best weekend at Barber. He finished 15th in Practice 1 and fifth in Practice 2, before doing a lap good enough for sixth in the first part of qualifying to make it through to the Fast 12.

He qualified 12th (his best IndyCar qualifying result to date), well ahead of his fellow rookies Shwartzman and Abel, who qualified 24th and 25th respectively. But an excellent qualifying ultimately went to waste as he lost control of his car halfway through the race and struggled to get going again. Ultimately he finished the race in 26th.

Pit stop issues plagued Abel in the race and he came home dead last on Sunday in 27th. Shwartzman only lost one place in what was another tough weekend for the debuting PREMA team, and he finished in 25th.

This year’s rookie class has already, just four races into the championship, put on some good performances. But this weekend, outside of Foster’s remarkable qualifying, was not a winning showing from the group.