Winners and Losers: Road America

Morgan Holiday
Jun 24
5 min read

Written by Morgan Holiday

Álex Palou took his sixth victory in nine races at Road America this past weekend. In the midst of his sprint towards three consecutive championship wins, DIVEBOMB takes a look at who’s Road America weekend went well and who is walking away wishing for more.

Winner - Louis Foster

Foster became the second rookie this season to take the NTT P1 Award for pole position, and the second consecutive rookie to win pole at Road America (Linus Lundqvist had the honor in 2024).

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver finished sixth of the 14 drivers in Group 2 of qualifying on Saturday, granting him a spot in the Fast 12 for the fourth time this year. He then finished third, behind Palou and Christian Lundgaard, moving him up to the Fast 6.

And in the Fast 6 Foster went fastest of anyone, setting a lap time of 1:44.514 (over a tenth of a second faster than Palou) to take pole position for the first time in his IndyCar career. It was a good day for RLL as a whole as Graham Rahal also made it into the Fast 6.

Sunday didn’t go quite as well as Foster would have hoped, as he led from the start but began slipping down the order early on. An eventual 11th place finish may have been a big disappointment considering where he started from but still equalled Foster’s best IndyCar race finish to date.

Getting to be disappointed with an 11th place finish is ultimately a huge positive for the RLL rookie, and Foster now sits just two points below Robert Shwartzman in the Rookie of the Year battle.

Winner - Santino Ferrucci

Road America was a continuation of a hot streak from A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci, marking his fourth consecutive top five finish and second podium in three races.

After qualifying 18th, Ferrucci was in for a tough race to continue his run of good form, but the chaos at the beginning of the race that resulted in several early on cautions allowed him to take advantage of the alternate strategy he chose.

Ultimately Ferrucci came home in third place behind Palou and Felix Rosenqvist, just making it to the finish line with low fuel. It was a feat Scott Dixon couldn’t accomplish, the Chip Ganassi driver making the same choice but was just shy of his fuel target and had to pit from the lead with two laps to go.

Ferrucci barely made it to the finish line on fuel and pulled over on the track after the race. He wasted no time celebrating his second podium of the season, rushing over to the crowd at Turn 1 and grabbing a well-earned beer from a fan.

After not finishing in the top ten in the first five races of the season, this comeback for Ferrucci surely feels sweet and he’ll be hoping to continue his streak of top fives in Mid-Ohio next weekend.

Winner - Nolan Siegel

Siegel was one of our losers from last weekend’s Gateway 500 for qualifying 20th and finishing 19th as the clear bottom driver for Arrow McLaren.

This weekend he has earned his place in the winners column for the opposite result at Road America after earning his best finish of the year so far and finishing ahead of both of his McLaren teammates.

Siegel just missed out on the Fast 12 on Saturday, finishing seventh in Group 1 of qualifying and cementing a 13th place start for the race. On Sunday he ran towards the back for most of the race but also benefited from a strategy choice and made his way up to eighth in his final stint.

While Siegel’s teammates Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward both qualified in the top 12 (fifth and 11th respectively), both suffered in the race (O’Ward to 17th and Lundgaard to 24th). A poor result from his teammates put Siegel at the top of the McLarens in terms of race results, and combined with his best result of the year so far, that cemented a positive weekend for the young American driver.

Loser - Sting Ray Robb

Unfortunately for Sting Ray Robb and Juncos Hollinger Racing, Road America was another disappointing result.

Robb finished 13th in Group 2 of qualifying, putting him second to last for the race start. He lost any chance to improve for his race result on Lap 9 on Sunday when he lost control of the rear of his car going into Turn 5 and went straight into the tyre barrier.

Robb only has two top-20 results so far in 2025, a ninth place finish in Long Beach and a 15th place finish in Detroit. While his teammate Conor Daly hasn’t fared all that much better, this weekend has been representative of the all-around rough year that Robb has been having.

Loser - Josef Newgarden

A frustrating season for Newgarden and Team Penske has gone from bad to worse to even worse after a bad qualifying and then crash in the race at Road America.

He narrowly missed out on the top 12 in qualifying before a penalty for Dixon bumped him up and gave him a shot at the Fast 6. But he wasn’t fast enough to advance again and ultimately qualified tenth, frustrated at his lack of pace.

Newgarden was running second in the race on Lap 30, when he spun on his own and hit the wall going into the final corner of the track, ending his day before he had a chance to improve on his qualifying result.

Newgarden currently sits 16th in the championship with just three top ten finishes to his name this season. It’s been about as rough a year as anyone could have imagined for the two-time Indy 500 champion, and Road America was yet another devastating result.

Loser - Álex Palou haters

IndyCar’s 2025 season has been the Palou show as the Spanish driver has won six of the nine races so far this season, one of them being the biggest race of the year, the Indy 500.

While Kyle Kirkwood has been giving him a run for his money and won the last two races, Palou was back on top at Road America, qualifying second and taking the win ahead of Rosenqvist and Ferrucci. Palou has been unstoppable this season and is showing no signs of slowing down.

If you’re not a fan of Palou, you may be considering sitting the rest of the season out. It seems inevitable that he’ll take his third consecutive championship win as he sits 93 points ahead of Kirkwood and over 100 points ahead of O’Ward.

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