2026 Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey

McLaughlin Ends the Wait at Laguna Seca as Kirkwood Locks Down Second

Scott McLaughlin spent the entire weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca saying the same thing: road courses had been his weakness, and the No. 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet had finally found a direction. On Sunday he proved it over 95 laps, leading 87 of them to win the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey and close the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season.

It is McLaughlin's eighth career victory and his first since Milwaukee Race 2 in 2024, a 36-start gap entering the weekend. It also ended a 33-year drought for his manufacturer at this circuit — Chevrolet had not won at Laguna Seca since Paul Tracy in 1993.

"Really proud to get our first win together on a road course where the last couple years we probably struggled at the most," McLaughlin said, crediting engineer Raul Prados and a test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course that he has referenced all weekend. "What a great way to end the season."

The margin was 1.3739 seconds over Kyle Kirkwood, and it never grew much beyond that. McLaughlin's advantage peaked near 4.9 seconds on Lap 31, sat between three and four through the middle of the race, then compressed steadily from Lap 68 to the flag. He said afterward that was the plan.

"My goal was to keep it at two seconds the whole time," he said.

The final stint came down to rubber, and the two leaders went different ways on it. McLaughlin spent his new alternates in the opening stint and ran new primaries for the rest of the afternoon, taking blacks again for the run from Lap 71. Kirkwood matched him through the middle of the race but saved a set of new alternates for the finish — and McLaughlin, who had spent the day watching him on the primaries, liked that trade.

"I was thankful that Kirkwood had reds to put on at the end. He was quick on the blacks," McLaughlin said. "I knew if I could just get through the out-laps, then control that first part of the stint, he would probably die off a little worse than I would."

That is not to say the harder compound was comfortable. "I was probably surprised how bad I was at the end of a black tire stint," he said. "But we made it progressively better. That's what you need to do."

Kirkwood was not chasing the win so much as protecting a number. Second place gave Andretti Global's driver 545 points and the runner-up spot in the championship, 10 clear of Christian Lundgaard, and he raced accordingly.

"We played it a little bit safer than I might have hoped for the last race of the season, but we had to for the championship," Kirkwood said. "Probably could have had a go at Scottie at the end on the first few laps on reds. The number one goal was to make the tires last."

He framed it as the latest step in a steady climb. "Every year we halved the points to the lead or position to the lead. Two years ago seventh, last year fourth, this year second."

Alexander Rossi completed the podium at his home race, and the result carried more weight than a third-place finish usually does. It was his first top-three finish of 2026, and it came after a run of mechanical failures, crashes and what he called a pit lane fire.

"Anything that could go wrong really did go wrong from crashes to failures of gearboxes, hybrids, engines," Rossi said. "This is a great result to kind of reward that effort, just rebuild the confidence in everyone that we're capable of doing this."

The race's only caution came immediately. McLaughlin led the field into Turn 1 and the yellow flew before the lap was complete, Dennis Hauger going into the barrier at Turn 6 after contact from behind from Sting Ray Robb. Hauger's race was over without a completed lap. Robb was assessed a 10-second stop and hold for avoidable contact on Lap 5 and finished 23rd, a lap down. The caution ran three laps, and the remaining 92 went green.

From the Lap 4 restart, McLaughlin was never overtaken except by pit sequence. All six lead changes came out of stops. Felix Rosenqvist inherited the lead on Lap 20 and again on Lap 44, Rossi held it from Laps 21 to 24, and Marcus Armstrong led Laps 45 and 46 before McLaughlin resumed control on Lap 47 and stayed there.

Seventeen of the 25 cars ran three stops, and the podium came entirely from that group. McLaughlin and Kirkwood pitted on identical laps — 20, 44 and 70 — with McLaughlin holding a 3.9-second cushion at the first stop and 3.5 at the last. Kirkwood never got the undercut he needed. Rossi took a different route, stretching his opening stint five laps longer to Lap 25, which is where his four laps led came from.

Alex Palou was the exception among the front-runners. The five-time champion ran second through Lap 16 before an extra stop on Lap 31 dropped him out of the top 10, and he recovered to eighth, the only driver in the leading group to make four stops. He finishes the season on 631 points.

He put it down to a gamble that did not come off. "We started on used alternates and we kind of survived," Palou said, before a second set of used alternates undid the strategy. "We, like, killed ourselves there. Yeah, just tough. It's tough, man. It's tough to win even when you have nothing to lose, you gamble that way."

He had praise for the two drivers who finished ahead of him in the race and in the standings. "Happy to see Scott winning. He deserves it," Palou said. "Happy to see Kyle finishing second in the championship. He deserves it, as well."

The championship fight behind him resolved less kindly for Pato O'Ward. Eliminated in the first round of qualifying on Saturday by 0.0090 of a second, he started 10th after grid penalties reshuffled the front of the field and finished 11th, ending fourth in the standings on 522. Lundgaard was sixth from 11th on the grid and takes third on 535. David Malukas was fifth in the race and fifth in the standings on 514.

Santino Ferrucci was the day's biggest mover, climbing nine positions from 21st to 12th on a long opening stint that ran to Lap 25. Rinus VeeKay set the fastest lap of the race at 1:11.6544 on Lap 38 and finished 16th, having also been quickest through the newly dedicated Zanardi Corkscrew.

The Rookie of the Year award went to Hauger despite his first-lap exit, his 228 points finishing 15 clear of Mick Schumacher, with Caio Collet third on 203. Hauger watched the balance of the race from the pit wall.

"Even with a DNF, we still got the title," Hauger said. "I just went back to the pit wall with the team and looked at where everyone was at. Just hoped for a miracle, to be honest. Luckily we had a buffer going into this weekend that helped us a lot."

Two farewells closed out the afternoon. Rosenqvist finished fourth in his last start for Meyer Shank Racing before returning to Arrow McLaren in 2027, having qualified third and led two laps. Scott Dixon's 25th and final season with Chip Ganassi Racing ended with a 17th-place finish, four pit stops and a drive-through penalty in Saturday's final practice, closing a year in which he did not win for the first time since 2004.

For Team Penske, the win capped a season Jonathan Diuguid described as a foundation rather than a triumph. "We're strong on road courses, street courses and ovals now, which is what it takes to be competitive in the championship," he said, noting all three cars finished inside the championship's top eight.

Conditions were sunny and mild, with 67 degrees ambient, 51 percent humidity and a track temperature of 107.7 degrees at noon. The race ran 1:59:29.6163 at an average speed of 106.756 mph, with 160 total passes and 146 for position.

McLaughlin ended the day at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with the unique distinction of having led the first lap of the 2026 season at St. Petersburg and the last lap of it here.

Rosenqvist Closes a Stop-Start Final Practice on Top as Schumacher Impresses Again

Felix Rosenqvist ended the last practice session of his Meyer Shank Racing career at the top of the sheet, leading final practice for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey on Saturday evening with a lap of 1:10.4275.

It capped a strong day for the Swede, who qualified third earlier in the afternoon. Mick Schumacher was second at 1:10.7058, ahead of pole winner Scott McLaughlin, and the rookie has now run near the front in three consecutive sessions — a run that began the morning Meyer Shank confirmed him for 2027. Scott Dixon was fourth and Kyle Kirkwood fifth, with Caio Collet sixth for his best result of the weekend.

The times themselves say little about outright pace. Rosenqvist's lap was more than 1.2 seconds slower than the one that put him on the second row, and the order bore almost no resemblance to qualifying: Alex Palou ninth, David Malukas 15th, Pato O'Ward 23rd. With race stints and tire behavior the priority, and with degradation the theme of the entire weekend, teams spent the half hour learning about long runs rather than chasing a number.

Two red flags interrupted that work. Sting Ray Robb brought out the first six minutes in, making contact with the barrier in Turn 10 and climbing from the car without assistance from the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team. He was later seen and released from the INDYCAR Medical Unit, and was assessed a five-minute time penalty for causing the stoppage. His three laps were by far the fewest of the session and leave him with 22 for the weekend, the lowest total in the field.

Kyffin Simpson caused the second, running off course in Turn 5 with 14 minutes remaining. His car was able to continue, but he drew the same five-minute penalty and finished with 16 laps, second-fewest on the night. Race Control added five minutes to the end of the session, pushing the checkered flag to 5:45 p.m.

Dixon also collected a penalty, a drive-through for improper pit entry or exit, and still ran 21 laps on his way to fourth — the last practice session of his 25-year tenure with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Only five drivers improved on their best time of the weekend: Schumacher, Kirkwood, Collet, Josef Newgarden and Christian Lundgaard. For the other 20, the benchmark set in Friday's opening session still stands, and Palou's 1:09.8994 from Practice 1 remains the quickest practice lap anyone has managed here all weekend. The field has now turned 956 laps across the three sessions, with Dennis Hauger leading everyone at 48.

For the drivers with something to settle Sunday, the evening offered mixed reading. Kirkwood was fifth and Lundgaard eighth; O'Ward was 23rd, though he and Rinus VeeKay ran a session-high 23 laps apiece. Four points separate the three of them in the fight for second in the championship, and O'Ward already has the hardest job after being eliminated in the first round of qualifying.

Lundgaard and Collet both carry six-position grid penalties for unapproved engine changes following Milwaukee, to be applied to their qualifying results of fifth and 12th. The official starting lineup posts following this session.

The 95-lap season finale goes green just after noon local time Sunday, with FOX coverage beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET.

McLaughlin Edges Palou by 0.0177 for Laguna Seca Pole and Chevrolet's 250th

Scott McLaughlin has spent the last couple of seasons calling road courses his weakness. On Saturday afternoon at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca he answered that with 0.0177 of a second.

The Team Penske driver took the NTT P1 Award for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey with a lap of 1:09.1363 in the Firestone Fast Six, edging Alex Palou. It is McLaughlin's third pole of 2026 and the 14th of his IndyCar career, and INDYCAR notes it as Chevrolet's 250th pole in series competition. He took the 249th as well, at the Milwaukee Mile last weekend.

"I don't know if all of us did a really good lap. That's what is so hard about Laguna," McLaughlin said. "If you can do it enough, be committed in the right spots."

He credited a direction the No. 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet has been chasing since a test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course roughly four months ago, and he gave the pole to his engineer more than to himself. "Really proud of Raul, my engineer. We've been clicking," he said. "This is his pole. He's a great friend of mine. Had an up-and-down season just like I have the last few."

Felix Rosenqvist qualified third at 1:09.1931, putting the top three inside 0.0568 in his final qualifying session for Meyer Shank Racing. Alexander Rossi was fourth at his home circuit at 1:09.3247. All four ran their fastest laps on new alternate tires, with Palou and Rosenqvist opening the shootout on used primaries before switching.

The other two Fast Six runners did something different. Christian Lundgaard turned two laps on used alternates and never took new rubber, posting a 1:10.2227. David Malukas ran two laps on used alternates and two more on a new set without improving, his best a 1:12.8461 set on his opening lap — more than 3.5 seconds off the 1:09.3208 that had carried him into the shootout.

Palou's own disappointment lasted about as long as the question that prompted it. It is his third front-row start at Laguna Seca, following poles in 2024 and 2025, and his 2026 season has already produced eight of his 20 career poles. "Yes and no. When it's that close, the car was so good, I think we could have got it when you're that close," he said. "I think Scott and his team, they did a better job." He then predicted the race would be, in his words, an overtaking fest.

That forecast rests on tire wear, which has been the recurring theme of the weekend since Friday. Palou located it precisely: the slow corners are where the Firestone Firehawks give up.

"Lower-speed corners, last corner, Turn 2, a little bit in I would say three," he said. "High speed is good. We have so much downforce that kind of doesn't feel like it's been a huge difference on grip. The lower speed, when you go on power, you feel it. You feel the tires, you have one really good lap, then degrades a little bit, which is great. I think that's how it should be. It makes it more fun."

He attributed the increase to a softer construction than last year's Laguna Seca tire, and said the gap between the two compounds is wide enough that teams have found workable paths through both three and four stops. McLaughlin, for his part, said he feels good on both compounds and will learn more about long runs in final practice.

Getting to the shootout required surviving a Round 2 that was tighter than the leaderboard suggests. Palou led it at 1:09.1496 from McLaughlin, Malukas, Lundgaard, Rossi and Rosenqvist, with Kyle Kirkwood missing the cut by 0.1628 to Rosenqvist and qualifying seventh. Marcus Ericsson was eighth, Kyffin Simpson ninth, Marcus Armstrong 10th, Louis Foster 11th and Caio Collet 12th.

The most consequential result of the afternoon came a round earlier. Pato O'Ward, four points out of second in the championship, was eliminated in Round 1 by 0.0090 of a second — the margin between his 1:09.5544 and Simpson's 1:09.5454 for the last transfer spot out of Group 1. He qualified 13th. On raw time his lap was the seventh-quickest of the entire session and 0.0182 faster than Kirkwood's, the driver he is chasing.

That inversion runs through the bottom half of the sheet, a product of the format rather than the stopwatch. Drivers eliminated in Round 1 are ordered by group, not by time — Group 1 taking the odd positions from 13th and Group 2 the even ones. So Mick Schumacher's 1:09.5721, third-quickest among all Round 1 casualties, sits 15th, behind Will Power's 1:09.8617 in 14th. Scott Dixon's 1:09.6184 in 17th was quicker than four cars ahead of him, and Dennis Hauger's 1:09.9611 in 24th beat Romain Grosjean's 1:10.3840 in 23rd.

Both Lundgaard and Collet carry six-position grid penalties for unapproved engine changes following Milwaukee, which will be applied to their qualifying results of fifth and 12th. The official starting lineup posts after final practice.

Conditions were sunny and cooler than Friday, with 69 degrees ambient, 46 percent humidity and a track temperature of 114.9 degrees at the 1:35 p.m. green flag. The 25 cars found roughly three-quarters of a second over Friday's best lap across the three rounds.

Final practice runs at 5:10 p.m. local. The 95-lap season finale goes green just after noon Sunday.

McLaughlin Leads a Shortened Practice 2, but Friday's Benchmark Survives

Scott McLaughlin was quickest in Practice 2 for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey on Saturday morning, and it still was not fast enough to displace anything set the day before.

The Team Penske driver's 1:10.3014 topped a session that Race Control cut nearly in half. The start was held for course repair, pushed back twice — first to a target of 10:50 a.m., then to 11:10 a.m. — and reduced to a single 25-minute run for all 25 cars. The group segments that had produced the weekend's fastest laps on Friday were scrapped entirely.

What followed was the rare practice session in which not one driver improved. Every entry on the combined sheet carries a Practice 1 time, leaving Alex Palou's Friday lap of 1:09.8994 as the weekend benchmark and the combined order unchanged from the day before: Palou, Felix Rosenqvist, Pato O'Ward, McLaughlin.

The conditions go a long way toward explaining it. Friday's running took place on a track surface reading 121.4 degrees under sunny skies. By the time the green flag flew Saturday it was 97.9 degrees, a drop of more than 23 degrees, with 71 degrees ambient, 38 percent humidity and partly cloudy skies. Drivers spent Friday afternoon describing a circuit whose grip level shifts from year to year and lap to lap; Saturday handed them a different one again, hours before qualifying.

What the session did produce was compression. Rosenqvist was second at 1:10.5433 and Palou third at 1:10.5575, and from Rosenqvist back to Rinus VeeKay in 11th the entire group fit inside 0.2202 of a second. The gap from the front of the field to Sting Ray Robb in 25th was 1.2818, against 1.5274 on Friday. On a circuit where the middle rounds of knockout qualifying have been getting slower and tighter each year, that is the number that should worry anyone hoping to advance comfortably this afternoon.

Mick Schumacher had the morning's most encouraging run. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing rookie was sixth at 1:10.5897, his best session of the weekend, and quicker than both Kyle Kirkwood and Christian Lundgaard. He came to the circuit Saturday a day after Meyer Shank Racing confirmed him for 2027 in the No. 66 alongside Marcus Armstrong, and the shortened format cost him and fellow rookies Dennis Hauger and Caio Collet the extra group running that had accounted for most of their Friday laps.

Lundgaard's improvement was the more consequential one. Ninth here after finishing 18th on Friday, the Arrow McLaren driver needs the pace: he carries a six-position grid penalty into Sunday for an unapproved engine change following Milwaukee, and he leads Kirkwood by two points and O'Ward by four in a fight for second in the championship that will be settled tomorrow. Collet, who will receive the same penalty, was 15th.

O'Ward was 17th on eight laps, the fewest in the session alongside Josef Newgarden, with his best coming on Lap 3. David Malukas was fourth and Will Power fifth, the latter continuing a strong close to his first season with Andretti Global. Marcus Armstrong was 24th, the only entry outside the top 20 among cars that had run inside it Friday.

The field turned 301 laps across the 25 minutes, bringing the weekend total to 472. Hauger leads all drivers with 30 laps completed; Santino Ferrucci has the fewest with 12, his Friday cut short by contact with the tire barrier in Turn 9.

Qualifying for the NTT P1 Award follows at 1:35 p.m. local in three knockout rounds, with final practice at 5:10 p.m. ahead of Sunday's 95-lap season finale.

Palou Opens the Finale on Top as Tire Wear Sets the Tone at Laguna Seca

Alex Palou began his final weekend as a recently clinched five-time champion the way he has begun most weekends at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca — in front. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver led Practice 1 for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey on Friday afternoon with a lap of 1:09.8994, the fastest of only two laps in the 1:09s all session.

Felix Rosenqvist posted the other one. The Meyer Shank Racing driver's 1:09.9907 left him 0.0913 of a second adrift on the combined sheet, and Pato O'Ward completed the top three at 1:10.1764. Behind them the field was compressed to a degree that will ensure Saturday's knockout qualifying is highly competitive — third through 25th covered 1.2504 seconds.

The 80-minute session ran in three parts: 40 minutes open to all 25 cars, then separate 12-minute runs for Group A and Group B, with the three rookies eligible for both group segments. Palou topped the opening segment at 1:10.9060 and then found just over a second in Group A, a swing that says more about how quickly the circuit rubbered in than about anything the cars did. Rosenqvist led Group B, where O'Ward and Scott McLaughlin also lapped quicker than anyone managed in Group A apart from Palou himself.

That improvement curve matters because it may not repeat. Tire degradation dominated the conversation afterward, and Christian Rasmussen, 10th overall and sixth in Group A, framed it as the defining variable of the weekend.

"Definitely found a lot of pace on the red tires. We were struggling a little bit on the blacks," Rasmussen said. "The tire deg increases year to year here. That is no joke this year. Like, tire deg is very, very big. Once you're past that first run, you're never going to find that same lap time again."

Firestone brought revised primary and alternate compounds to Laguna Seca this year, both built on the same constructions used at Barber Motorsports Park and Portland International Raceway and both designed to add grip over last year's specification. The surface is doing its part to take that grip away. Rasmussen said he had been studying how much slower the middle rounds of qualifying have become in each of the last two years, and expects another step in the same direction.

Rosenqvist reported no such split between compounds. "Good on both compounds, which is always nice," he said, before turning to what the circuit asks of a driver over a race distance.

"This track always tests everyone in terms of, as I say, deg, elevation. Probably the most physical track, as well," Rosenqvist said. "Track is kind of a weird one with the grip, how it changes every year. Sometimes people start experimenting with different lines. It's one of those where you just kind of go out and improvise a little bit, which is a lot of fun, as well."

He also pointed at a detail that rarely gets attention until it costs someone a position: the pit lane runs downhill and then back up, and the cars are geared for a first gear that stretches to roughly 100 mph. Launching uphill out of a tight box, he said, is trickier than it looks.

Two red flags interrupted the opening segment. Josef Newgarden spun off course in Turn 6 at 2:15 p.m. and rejoined under his own power, and was assessed a five-minute time penalty for causing the stoppage. Santino Ferrucci brought out the second at 2:39 p.m., running wide in Turn 9 and making contact with the tire barrier before the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team assisted him back to pit lane. Ferrucci's 13 laps were the fewest of any driver, and his best came on Lap 6, before the contact.

For the three rookies, the day was as much about accumulating laps as chasing a time. Dennis Hauger ran 32 laps, seven more than anyone else, and all three found their best lap in a group segment rather than the open running. Mick Schumacher's day was the most lopsided — a 1:14.9827 across two laps in Group A against a 1:10.8378 in Group B, where he was seventh and quicker than every Group A runner except Palou. He arrived at the circuit Friday having been confirmed that morning at Meyer Shank Racing for 2027, taking the No. 66 alongside Marcus Armstrong.

Christian Lundgaard was 18th and Caio Collet 24th, a placing worth watching for reasons that have nothing to do with Friday pace. Both carry six-position grid penalties into Sunday for unapproved engine changes after Milwaukee, which means whatever either produces in qualifying will need a cushion. Lundgaard's is the more consequential: he leads Kyle Kirkwood by two points and O'Ward by four in a fight for second in the championship that will be decided Sunday.

Rosenqvist, meanwhile, is closing out three seasons with Meyer Shank Racing before returning to Arrow McLaren in 2027, and he made no attempt to hide what the weekend means. "I think it's just been a home, a family to me the last three years," he said, crediting a run of livery partnerships with SiriusXM — Nickelback, Creed, Eminem and Grateful Dead among them — that he counted in the 20s.

His season has been a study in extremes. The Indianapolis 500 win in May was the highest point of his career, and he has three podiums on the year, but he arrives at Laguna Seca off four consecutive finishes of 17th or worse. Rosenqvist called it something short of his most complete year while allowing that the peaks had been very high. He is ninth in the standings and, by his own reckoning, can climb no higher than seventh or fall no further than 11th.

Conditions were warm and clear, with 73 degrees ambient, 43 percent humidity and a track temperature of 121.4 degrees under sunny skies at the 2 p.m. green. Practice 2 opens Saturday at 10:05 a.m. local, with qualifying at 1:35 p.m. and final practice at 5:10 p.m.