Indianapolis 500 qualifying: What you need to know
Driving the news: It's qualifying weekend for the Indianapolis 500.
Vibe check: Quals are a lower key way to get a taste of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
You get all the speed — we're talking 230-plus miles per hour — without the race day crowd.
How it works: Qualifying starts at 11am Saturday and by 6pm spots 13-30 will be set.
Drivers who qualified in the top 12 on Saturday will be back on track Sunday to secure their starting position.
During top 12 qualifying, those who finish 7-12 get those spots for race day.
The fastest six advance to the Firestone Fast Six later in the day to determine positions 1-6.
The intrigue: Bumping is back.
34 drivers are competing for 33 spots in the field.
Drivers who finished in the bottom four on Saturday come back on Sunday for a last chance to qualify.
If you go: Fast Friday, the final day of practice before qualifying, starts at noon and the qualification draw starts at 6:15pm.
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Fox Sports
17 hours ago
- Fox Sports
In His Own Words: Alex Palou On What Each Win Meant In Title Run
NTT INDYCAR SERIES In His Own Words: Alex Palou On What Each Win Meant In Title Run Published Aug. 11, 2025 2:44 p.m. ET share facebook x reddit link PORTLAND, Ore. — Alex Palou's remarkable season has included the most victories by a driver in 18 years. A driver earns at least 51 points for a victory. So in some ways, they all count relatively the same. But what role did his victories (and maybe his non-victories) play into his fourth series title, clinched after 15 races of the 17-race schedule? Palou sat down with me following his championship-clinching run Sunday at Portland International Raceway to give me almost an immediate oral history of the season's major turning points. Win No. 1: St. Pete (Season Opener) Palou: That was one of the most important wins of the year. It was a place that we struggled in the past, and we knew that by pushing really hard there and trying to improve a couple of stuff that we had, we're going to be able to fight for the win. Getting that win there just kind of allowed everybody to believe that we were a little bit better than everybody else, that we were a little bit more prepared than everybody else, and we wanted to take advantage of that and try and get more wins and try to get more good results. Alex Palou opened the season on a winning note at St. Petersburg. Win No. 2: Thermal (Race 2) Palou: When we went from St. Pete to Thermal, that was amazing. We had to fight for both of those races so hard, but it was amazing to get two wins in a row, which I've never had in my entire career at the start of the season. And it felt amazing. ... It felt more like, OK we won the first two, it's looking very good to fight for the championship again. But there's no chance that I would have even thought about getting eight wins in one year. Like zero chance. ADVERTISEMENT Win No. 3: Barber (Race 4) Palou: It was the first weekend of May. We forget about the wins very easy. Not only us, but everybody. You have to because you cannot allow yourself to try and enjoy them. You need to keep on working towards more, because if you don't do it, otherwise somebody else will catch you. Barber, for us, was a good way of starting the month of May, giving everybody a big boost of energy. Because the month of May, it's very tough for everybody, especially mechanics, the engineers. They spend so many days out of home, and it felt amazing to give them that little bit of fuel that they needed to try and go for May. Win No. 4: Indianapolis Grand Prix (Race 5) Palou: It was a very fast race. We knew we had an amazing car there, and honestly, the pace that we had was amazing. It was just so good, we were able to manage a little bit. But, again, it kind of gave us a huge boost for the month of May. It kind of pushed us to work more and try to get the 500. Win No. 5: Indianapolis 500 (Race 6) Palou: The 500 is a completely different race. You spend so much time there and you know it's so hard that even though you won the week before or the two weeks before, it just doesn't feel like you can carry that momentum. It's like everybody starts from zero. The 500, it's always separate. Even if you've won zero or five races before that, you don't care. You just want to go there and you want to win. And that's the way we felt this year. Winning the 500 is super special. It's amazing. It puts yourself in a very cool group of other drivers. But our season is so long, you cannot rely only on one race [to make your season]. What I like is going to every single weekend, fighting for the wins, getting wins, getting good results. So I don't think I would have been happy struggling for six months and only being happy one week. That [first oval win] kind of allowed me to believe that I could win on ovals, that I had everything I needed to win more on other ovals. It kind of allowed me to have even more confidence in myself and the team. It's just like every single race that we did this year, it kind of gave us more confidence. Alex Palou broke through to capture his first Indy 500 victory. Win No. 6: Road America (Race 9) Palou: (In this race, Palou argued with his strategist over what to do). We always have those talks. Even today here at Portland, there was a strategy that was we could have done the other thing and just follow everybody else. But it's fun. It's what keeps this thing interesting. It's what keeps our relationship so good. But Road America, again, was a high boost of confidence of how good we were on road courses this year and another win to add to the amazing, magical season. Win No. 7: Iowa (Race 12) Palou: I needed that. I needed that very badly. I wanted that. I didn't need to. I wanted it. The fact that we won at the 500 felt amazing and that we could take the oval win, but I think it's a very different oval compared to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Iowa. So for me, it was very important to get that Iowa win. I felt super happy to get that win. It counted even more than just one. Alex Palou celebrates in victory lane after Race 2 at Iowa Speedway. Win No. 8: Laguna Seca (Race 14) Palou: It just put us in the position to get the win [of the title] here at Portland. But at the same time, the pace that we showed there was so good, it was so big, and kind of allowed us to believe everything that we've done this year. It gave us more confidence to try and win another race and try and go for 10 wins. Clinching Race: Portland (Race 15, third) Palou: We could have been in a really bad spot with our strategy. We had to overtake a lot of cars on track, and we had to recover [from falling behind by] 20 seconds that both [Will] Power and [Christian] Lundgaard gave us. We recovered that and then we fought for second as hard as I could — twice — and it didn't work. It's still another podium from starting fifth and not having cautions for us. It kind of hurt us a little bit. So to get another podium is amazing. Alex Palou wrapped up the 2025 title in Portland with his eighth win of the season. The Non-Wins Palou: Finishing second in Long Beach [in the third race], it helped us quite a lot. Mid-Ohio, although it could have been another win and I made a mistake, I think that helped me a lot to not get relaxed at all and go down one level of confidence. Although I'm very confident, to know that you make mistakes, and that everybody's there waiting for you to make a mistake. For sure, that's going to make me a lot tougher. It made me tougher, but I'm sure in the long run, it's going to be good. Finally, Are A Record-Tying 10 Wins Possible (winning Milwaukee and Nashville) Palou: By numbers, yes. But it's no. Realistically, no. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. share
Indianapolis Star
a day ago
- Indianapolis Star
IndyCar Series 2025 drivers championship, Rookie of the Year, Leaders Circle standings after Portland
The 2025 IndyCar Series season is nearing its conclusion, and Alex Palou has wrapped up the series championship with eight wins, most notably the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Kyle Kirkwood has won three races, Pato O'Ward two, and Scott Dixon and Will Power one each. Here's where the drivers and teams stand in the season-long points, Rookie of the Year and Leaders Circle races. Report from Portland: Power snaps Team Penske drought as Palou clinches championship (Through 15 of 17 races; Alex Palou has clinched the season championship) By virtue of finishing two spots ahead, 13th versus 15th, of his neck-and-neck IndyCar Rookie of the Year rival, Louis Foster tacked on another couple points onto what had been a four-point lead over Robert Shwartzman entering this weekend at Portland. IndyCar's Leaders Circle program pays eligible teams just over $1 million the following season in guarantees. To qualify for one of the 22 spots, the entry must be associated with one of IndyCar's 25 charters — teams are allowed to have a maximum of three. Only Prema Racing's two cars remain unchartered. The 25 chartered cars are then ranked by entrant points and, at the end of this season, the top 22 eligible entries will be paid $1.2 million or more by Penske Entertainment throughout the 2026 season. Here are the cars around the bubble after IndyCar's Portland race: 20. Andretti Global No. 28, 208 points 21. Arrow McLaren No. 6, 195 points 22. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing No. 45, 189 points ------------------------------------------------------------- 23. Juncos Hollinger Racing No. 77, 160 points 24. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing No. 30, 145 points
Indianapolis Star
a day ago
- Indianapolis Star
'My phone number is wide-open': Could Kyle Busch make his Indy 500 debut?
NASCAR veteran Kyle Busch has twice come close to an Indy 500 debut opportunity, and he says he'd still be interested. Busch was close to finalizing a deal with Arrow McLaren in the fall of 2022 for a ride that ultimately went to Kyle Larson. Busch: 'I'm not going to be making calls and pushing for it. If somebody calls me and says that they're ready to go ... we'll go do it.' Twice, Kyle Busch has had a major consumer-facing sponsor lined up to foot the bill for an Indianapolis 500 debut, and twice last-minute semantics have derailed his plans yards from the figurative finish line. Is he willing to pursue what remains his last remaining bucket list-type race before he hands up his helmet for the final time? 'Sure, I would do it. I would give it a go, give it whirl,' the 21-year NASCAR Cup series veteran told IndyStar last month. 'I know Kyle (Larson) ran into some terrible luck with some weather, so Mother Nature wasn't on his side, but maybe they'll be on my side. 'But my phone number is wide-open, so (teams): Call me.' Busch is among the favorites, of fans on social media since IndyStar reported that McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown is targeting a 'mega,' 'unreal' candidate to pilot Arrow McLaren's fourth one-off 500 entry next year – a driver Brown and team principal Tony Kanaan hope to get in a car for a rookie oval test in the coming weeks or months before deciding whether there's a fit for both sides. 'Conversations with that are ongoing, and it would be mega,' Brown told IndyStar in Toronto. 'I think we're going to do a test first, and when we do that test, it's going to be a bit of a giveaway on who it is, because I don't think we'll be able to do a top-secret test.' In order to check the 'mega' and 'unreal' boxes, many minds have immediately gone to ex-Formula 1 aces, though several – Daniel Ricciardo and Jenson Button, both major names of the sport's last couple decades who have McLaren ties – have said publicly they have no desire to make a run at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Notably, four-time F1 champ Sebastian Vettel said previously he would entertain the idea of running the 500, and he's just 38 and has said he still would like to race after stepping away from F1 after the 2022 campaign. But beyond trying to get into Brown's head and discern just how 'mega' and 'unreal' he means, there's otherwise no indication the retired German F1 driver would be the selection. Others have called for Xfinity breakout star Connor Zilisch, who seems primed to make a leap to full-season NASCAR Cup series action in 2026, and Zilisch has said the 500 is most certainly on his to-do list, but doing so as a Cup series rookie at 19 years old would seem unwise. And for what it's worth, Brown denied to IndyStar Sunday morning that the six-time Xfinity series race-winner was his target. But Busch? He held talks with the team three years ago, not long after announcing his switch to the Chevrolet-powered Richard Childress Racing Cup team that would clear the pivotal manufacturer and team owner hurdles he'd struggled with in the past. According to Busch, in 2017, he had a deal 'signed, sealed and delivered' funded by his Cup sponsor M&Ms, and his Cup OEM Toyota had okay'd the plan to run for a Chevy-powered IndyCar team during the Month of May. 'But guess who said 'No'?' Busch asked fellow Cup veteran Denny Hamlin on an episode of the latter's 'Actions Detrimental' podcast back in May of this year, to which Hamlin answered the team owner they'd shared for the bulk of their careers: 'Joe Gibbs.' Busch nodded. 'And then I had it signed, sealed and delivered again, and then (Kyle) Larson took it,' Busch replied. As the two-time Brickyard 400 winner tells the story, he had a sponsor – believed to be Menards – that was in talks with Brown in the fall of '22, and most of the details had been settled, until the sides got to who would cover the cost of buying the brand-new car for the effort. 'I don't really think it's worth it': Why Kyle Larson may not do the Indy 500-NASCAR double 'The deal was done, and we were about ready to go to contract, and Zak Brown told the sponsor, 'Hey, I need you to buy the car.' And the sponsor was like, 'Why do I want to buy the car? I don't want to buy the car. I don't need the car. I want to sponsor the car. I'm sponsoring Kyle, and he's going to drive the car, but I don't want to buy the car,'' Busch said of the conversation. 'It wasn't two weeks later that I'm talking to this sponsor guy, and he says, 'Yeah, I guess we're too late anyways, now that the opportunity is closed because Larson got it.' 'And it was then I found out Larson signed a two-year deal, and we were only going to do a one-year deal.' It had been mid-September of that year when Busch announced his shift from JGR to RCR, and by the first week of October, Brown told reporters that someone within Arrow McLaren had been in touch with Busch about the opportunity. Three months later, Arrow McLaren announced that Larson, Hendrick Motorsports and Arrow McLaren had put together an elongated program that would see the 2021 Cup series champ slowly get up to speed over the ensuing 17 months ahead of a May 2024 Indy 500 debut. That extra 2023 Indy 500 seat at Arrow McLaren would ultimately go to Kanaan, who here made his final 500 and IndyCar start before assuming an advisory role that within 18 months would evolve into his present team principal position. In May of 2023, Busch told Fox Sports in the wake of his second Indy 500 opportunity that fell through that he was done proactively trying to make the dream happen – seemingly the same attitude the 40-year-old still holds. 'I'm not going to be making calls and pushing for it,' Busch said just over two years ago. 'If somebody calls me and says that they're ready to go, and it all lines up right, so be it. We'll go do it.'
