Phoenix Raceway (Avondale, Ariz.) — The venue is kind of new but it’s the same old INDYCAR question heading into the second race of the season.
How are teams going to beat Alex Palou?
“We need to improve and be better — but I think the whole field needs to try and do that for sure,” said Marcus Ericsson, who finished sixth in the season opener last Sunday at St. Petersburg.
The INDYCAR teams made a quick turnaround and race Saturday at Phoenix Raceway, a 1-mile oval that last played host to an INDYCAR race in 2018. Why the rush? To join NASCAR in what is a mega weekend of U.S. motorsports in the desert at a track where both NASCAR and INDYCAR have rich histories.
Here’s what to know going into the event, including comments from drivers from their chats today with me and other reporters, the day before practice and qualifying Friday for the 250-lap Good Ranchers 250 on Saturday (3 p.m. ET, FOX) followed by NASCAR’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1) in the Desert Double.
Are fans and drivers rooting against four-time INDYCAR champion Alex Palou?
Palou has won the title the last three years, including in 2025 when he won eight races, and now is 1-for-1 in 2026 after his St. Pete win.
“I can feel it when there’s driver intros, and there’s some people that just come at me and be like, ‘Can you stop winning?’ But I feel like we’re past that,” Palou told me and other reporters. “There’s people that used to say that, they now are cheering for us. So it’s good.”
Three-time reigning INDYCAR champion Alex Palou continues to have a target on his back.
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Palou isn’t concerned about people outwardly rooting him to lose
“Last year was magical and this year, that was great [at St. Pete],” Palou said. “But it’s not that we have an edge on everybody. We have an amazing team, and we execute very well.
“But it’s not like we go out and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, look, it’s easy.’”
He’s not considering himself a favorite this weekend at Phoenix.
“It’s going to be a struggle for the 10 car [of me],” Palou said. “We didn’t have an amazing test. We had an OK test. So we know we have to work quite a lot.”
Is this a NASCAR event or an INDYCAR event?
This has been the regular NASCAR spring weekend at Phoenix as part of a West Coast swing for several years. To add a little boost to this weekend, INDYCAR was added for a doubleheader Saturday with NASCAR’s O’Reilly Series and then the Cup race Sunday.
INDYCAR does have a rich history at Phoenix as this is the 65th INDYCAR race at the track. It has brought up the topic on whether INDYCAR is the “support” series.
INDYCAR veteran Graham Rahal noted that the INDYCAR driver motorhomes are not parked in the same area as the NASCAR driver motorhomes even though there is space in that lot.
“We shouldn’t be viewed as a support series,” Rahal said. “These are two of the highest level professional series that there are in the country. Let’s just treat each other with that respect. ,.. Let’s just try to figure out a way to make it a little bit more cohesive for everybody.”
INDYCAR and NASCAR will share the track this weekend at Phoenix.
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How is Mick Schumacher doing?
The rookie and former Formula 1 driver seems OK after an opening race where he didn’t even finish the first lap before getting collected in an accident.
Schumacher spent the rest of the race on the pit stand trying to understand what the engineers are looking for during a race.
“It was important for me to go back to pit stand and see what the engineers were talking about, what we would have done maybe differently in certain scenarios, just to kind of pretend like we did the race, to be able to analyze, take away key elements of it,” Schumacher said.
Will the INDYCAR drivers cut the apron like the NASCAR drivers do?
No. They cannot. The rule for all INDYCAR ovals except Indianapolis reads: “At Oval Events, Drivers must not place any of the four wheels of the Car below the solid boundary line at any time.”
Prior to their test here last month, the drivers were asked by INDYCAR officials if they thought the rule should be amended.
“I think there was one or two guys raising their hands, but there didn’t seem to be like a lot of interest,” said INDYCAR’s Meyer Shank driver Felix Rosenqvist. “I feel like somehow you just want to be inside the lines. But NASCAR makes it work. I don’t think it really changed anything.”
Team Penske INDYCAR driver Josef Newgarden is looking for a breakthrough at Phoenix.
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Who has raced here before?
There are five INDYCAR drivers who have raced at Phoenix previously. Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden both have wins, while Will Power has a second, Alexander Rossi has a third and Graham Rahal has a fifth.
The cars are a few hundred pounds heavier now with the aeroscreen and the hybrid.
“I liked it a lot more,” Rahal said about the test and how the cars handled compared to 2018. “The last couple times we were here. there were some massive crashes [with the high] cornering speeds. … I feel like the drivers in a little more control.
“Then it was like, just how crazy are you? And are you going to stay flat and you’re going to hang on?”
So who’s the favorite for the INDYCAR race?
The consensus is that Team Penske, which typically is strong on the short ovals, will be strong this weekend.
David Malukas, who replaced Will Power at Team Penske, was fastest on the first day of testing at Phoenix last month. Rossi was fastest on the second day.
“We know the Penske files will be good around here,” said McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard. “They were competitive at the test, very competitive, just as we always see them on one short ovals.”
Can Tyler Reddick go 4-for-4?
After three races, it’s hard to bet against Tyler Reddick, no? Then again, he set a new standard for wins to open the NASCAR Cup Series season with three in a row, so the odds of him getting to four in a row are slim.
Reddick hasn’t won in any series at Phoenix. He has led only twice in 12 Cup starts and has just two finishes better than 20th in his last five starts at the track.
Can Tyler Reddick win four straight races to open the season?
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Cup teams are getting into the meat of their season as far as different type of tracks as they have the 1-mile Phoenix and then the 1.5-mile Vegas over the next couple of weeks.
“I’m really excited to see what we have for speed and pace over the next two weekends because we’ve worked really hard to improve things here,” Reddick said in his news conference after winning at Circuit of the Americas. “We’ve worked hard to kind of rethink how we get around Phoenix, and we’ve just kind of doubled down on the things that we’ve been improving at Vegas.”
So who’s the favorite in the NASCAR race?
Go back to the answer on the INDYCAR side and you’ll find the answer here. Team Penske, once again, is the favorite.
Ryan Blaney won the last race here in November. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell won it a year ago.
But the Penske drivers seem to shine here. And just like for their INDYCAR brethren, a win would be coming at the right time.
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.
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