Why this year's Indy 500 isn't as straightforward to call as you might expect

The Indianapolis 500 should be the easiest race in the world to preview or predict. Change is glacial at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the competitors are more than familiar with a chassis and engine package that has been in use since 2018. 

Spec cars and tightly capped rules prohibit ‘Eureka!’ breakthroughs. Budgets are blown seeking the slightest benefit from body fit and mechanical friction loss. The easiest way for a team struggling at Indianapolis to find speed is often to hire an engineer from a more successful programme. 

But even that doesn’t always work. Last year, Takuma Sato qualified in the middle of the front row, but his Rahal Letterman Lanigan team-mate Graham Rahal struggled to make the field, starting 28th. 

Rahal failed to qualify for the 33-car field in 2023, a fate that befell his father 30 years earlier and caught out other luminaries including Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, Paul Tracy, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and even a young, pre-Penske Rick Mears. Indy is not a place where you want to get spooked by the car.

Of course, Mears went on to become the greatest driver in Indianapolis history with a record six poles and four wins. Sato had already developed into an Indy specialist and would be a three-time winner had he come out on the right side of a last-lap clash with Dario Franchitti in 2012. 

Bumping won’t be a problem this year, because only 33 entries have been confirmed. It’s been hard work to even get to 33, with teams and sponsors unable to justify the cost and benefit of running a one-off Indy programme along with an unwillingness from manufacturers Honda and Chevrolet to build more engines. 

Mears took the first of his quartet of Indy 500 victories in 1979

Photo by: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The days of 40-50 contestants vying to make the field are long gone, as are the prospects of seeing a track record pole speed for the first time since 1996.

Pole Day and Bump Day (now one and the same) may have lost some of their lustre, but Indianapolis 500 Race Day maintains all its majesty. Nothing compares to the atmosphere of IMS when it’s packed to the brim with the energy and anticipation of 350,000 spectators, and the race itself rarely disappoints. 

Obviously, the complexion has changed over the years; even up through the 1990s, the Indy 500 was almost an endurance contest, as engines and other mechanicals were put to the test in a race two or three times longer than most of the other events on the calendar.

Dixon’s 59 Indycar race wins rank second only to AJ Foyt’s 67, but he is still given short shrift because he won the Indy 500 only once, back in 2008

In the modern spec-car era, reliability is not a concern. Now it’s all about keeping it clean over the first 400 miles to be in position for the sprint to the finish. Misfortune or misjudgement can strike at any time over the course of nearly three hours – even for a driver with the pedigree of six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, who has seen three of his five poles come to naught and ‘just’ one win. 

In 2017, while leading, he was swept into a terrifying crash triggered by Jay Howard. In 2021, stretching his fuel longer than the rest of the field backfired when Stefan Wilson brought out the caution the lap that Dixon was supposed to make his first pitstop. He dominated in 2022 but locked up on entry to the pits for his final stop and was penalised for speeding.

Dixon’s 59 Indycar race wins rank second only to AJ Foyt’s 67, but he is still given short shrift because he won the Indy 500 only once, back in 2008. Foyt set the standard of four in 1977, matched since by Al Unser, Mears (in half the starts) and Helio Castroneves, and a surprisingly large portion of the fan base will die on the hill that a driver doesn’t matter until they win the Indianapolis 500 more than once.

Dixon, still a one-time winner, was leading the race in 2017 when he suffered this shocking crash

Photo by: Michael C Johnson / Amarillo Globe News

Castroneves, who turns 51 in May, will try for a historic fifth win. Other multiple former winners include Sato and Josef Newgarden, whose first triumph in 2023 came at the expense of Marcus Ericsson under controversial circumstances when the red flag was thrown with just two laps to go. Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Will Power, Alexander Rossi and Ericsson have all secured the Borg-Warner Trophy once.

Alex Palou won in 2025 and there’s no reason to believe he won’t be the favourite again this year - a tag made even heavier as he stormed to pole at the weekend. As weight and complexity (in the form of aeroscreen and hybrid systems) have been added to the spec Dallara IR18 over the past five years, Palou has just got better and better while almost every other driver seemed to struggle. 

And his Indy record is stout: only once has he qualified lower than ninth, and his last five finishes are 2-9-4-5-1. The battle within Chip Ganassi Racing between Palou and Dixon – desperate to add another Indy win at age 45 – will be fascinating and intense.

Other questions: will it be a feast or famine year for the 20-time Indy-winning Penske team? Does Power’s team switch hurt Penske or boost Andretti? Can a one-off like Castroneves, Hunter-Reay, Sato or even Conor Daly spring a surprise? Perhaps predicting the Indy 500 outcome isn’t so easy after all.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the June 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Current IndyCar king Palou’s record at the Brickyard is strong, with a 2-9-4-5-1 run of finishes

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images via Getty Images