2026 Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey

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Zanardi's Corkscrew, Palou's Playground and a Four-Way Fight for Second

The championship was settled last Sunday at the Milwaukee Mile, but almost nothing else has been. The NTT IndyCar Series closes its 2026 season this weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with four points covering second through fourth in the standings, the Rookie of the Year award unresolved and a Monterey Peninsula circuit about to put a legend's name on its most famous corner.

The Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey is the 18th and final race of the year, and the last of six races crammed into five consecutive weekends. It runs 95 laps and 212.61 miles on the 11-turn, 2.238-mile permanent road course, a circuit that climbs and falls roughly 180 feet every lap and asks more of a driver's commitment than almost anywhere else on the calendar.

Christian Lundgaard arrives second on 507 points, two clear of Kyle Kirkwood and four clear of Pato O'Ward. David Malukas sits fifth on 484 and is not out of it either. With 54 points available to a driver who takes pole, leads the most laps and wins, the runner-up position is genuinely live, and three of the four contenders have a realistic claim to it.

"We know exactly what we need to do at Laguna Seca — race up front and put everything into locking down second in the championship," Lundgaard said. "It's a track I enjoy, and I feel good about our chances to end the season on a high note."

The Dane has the strongest recent Laguna Seca form of the group, finishing second here last year from seventh on the grid, and he still holds the track qualifying record at 1:06.4610, set in September 2023. O'Ward, meanwhile, comes in on the hottest streak in the field. His doubleheader sweep at Milwaukee capped a five-race run that produced 167 points, more than any other driver over that stretch, and pushed Arrow McLaren to a team-record five wins and 10 podiums in a single season. He will run a one-off "Smart to Intelligent" Arrow livery on the No. 5 Chevrolet.

"Our big day in Milwaukee has us in position to fight for P2 in the championship, so we're going to push and be aggressive," O'Ward said. "I would love to keep the win streak going heading into the offseason."

Kirkwood's case is built on volume rather than a late surge. The Andretti Global driver has 14 top-10 finishes in 17 starts and two wins, both at inaugural events — the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington and the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington D.C. A runner-up championship finish would be comfortably his career best. His Laguna Seca record offers less encouragement: four starts, a best finish of fifth in 2024 and 24 laps led, second-most among entered drivers.

That distant second is telling, because the man ahead of him on that list has turned this place into something close to private property. Alex Palou has led 250 laps at Laguna Seca, won three of his five starts here and finished no worse than third, an average of 1.6. He has taken pole and the win in each of the last two years. Now, with a fifth Astor Cup already secured, he has nothing left to protect and a track he openly adores.

"It's my favorite track that we go to, road and street course, apart from the Indianapolis 500," Palou said. "But every lap I do there with any car, like even a road car, it's incredible and I have a smile on my face."

Palou's No. 10 DHL Honda will carry the red and yellow "Lightning Bolt" throwback livery of Alex Zanardi, and the tribute is the weekend's emotional center. On Friday morning the circuit will dedicate the Corkscrew as the "Zanardi Corkscrew," marking 30 years since the last-lap pass on Bryan Herta that has been known ever since simply as "The Pass." Chip Ganassi, Max Papis and Doug Boles are among the guests expected, and plans for a permanent commemorative marker will be unveiled. Zanardi, a two-time CART champion and 15-time race winner who returned from the loss of both legs to become a Paralympic gold medalist, died in May at 59.

The anniversary carries a second layer for Chip Ganassi Racing. The same September weekend in 1996 that produced The Pass also delivered Jimmy Vasser the organization's first drivers' title, and Palou's championship last week was the team's 18th, breaking a tie with Team Penske for the most in series history. The first of the team's three separate four-title runs began right here.

Scott Dixon has his own reason to want a result. The six-time champion makes his last start for Ganassi on Sunday after 25 seasons and 58 wins with the team, and he is winless for the first time since 2004. He is 12th in the standings, but Laguna Seca has been kind to him — eight starts spanning both Indy car eras, an average finish of 6.3 and a victory in 2023.

"I think Laguna will be emotional, for sure," Dixon said. "Laguna is tough, the surface, after it got repaved, is changing every year. I think even right now they've had situations where it's been repaved in some areas so that makes for some unknowns, and strategy is always crazy."

The Rookie of the Year fight is the season's other unfinished business. Dennis Hauger leads on 223 points from Mick Schumacher on 205 and Caio Collet on 193, and none of the three has turned an IndyCar lap here. Collet, at least, knows the way around: he swept both INDY NXT by Firestone races and both poles at Laguna Seca last season, and he tested here in July with AJ Foyt Racing teammate Santino Ferrucci. He will be in a backup car after being sent into the wall late in Race 1 at Milwaukee, a repair job the Combitrans Amazonia crew completed overnight.

"I'll definitely attack. It's the last race of the season," Collet said. "The team deserves to finish the season on a high note."

Ferrucci, whose best finish here is ninth in 2024, sees a circuit that rewards aggression and punishes it just as quickly. "It's a very technical track because of the layout, and it's very easy to go off. There are no runoffs — it's very old school in that way," he said. "Tough braking zones, a lot of blind corners, and a lot of good mid-speed corners, third gear corners."

Two Californians will be racing in front of home crowds. Alexander Rossi, from Nevada City, has four top-10 finishes in six Laguna Seca starts and a podium here in 2024, his best result of that season. Nolan Siegel, from Palo Alto, is closing out his Arrow McLaren tenure and did not hide it, thanking "the colleagues, friends and fans I've met along the way" from his time "in papaya."

Felix Rosenqvist is leaving too. The Swede, ninth in points and a pole winner here in 2023, will be driving his last race with Meyer Shank Racing. "This year's Laguna finale will be bittersweet as my last race with MSR," he said. "Been an awesome three years and I will always love this team and be grateful for all we accomplished." His No. 60 Honda carries a SiriusXM Octane and Nickelback livery, a detail his farewell note leaned into with a couple of well-placed lyrics. Teammate Marcus Armstrong has finished eighth here twice, in 2023 and 2025, the best result Meyer Shank has managed at the circuit.

Firestone brings roughly 1,400 tires for the weekend, with five sets each of primaries, alternates and rains per entry, plus an extra primary set in Practice 1 for the three rookie entries. Both the primary and alternate compounds have been revised from last year's Laguna Seca specification to add grip, and both must run at least two laps in the race. Drivers get 150 seconds of push-to-pass with a 15-second maximum per activation, and unlimited hybrid deployment capped at 350 kilojoules per lap. Track surface age is the variable to watch, along with wind blowing dust across the circuit and shifting grip from lap to lap.

Several milestones are in reach. Dixon will attempt his 375th consecutive start, extending his own record, and can push his career mark to 437 starts. Graham Rahal goes for his 275th straight, third-longest in series history. Josef Newgarden will make his 236th consecutive start and the 250th of his career.

FOX coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, with the green flag scheduled just after 3 p.m. Qualifying runs Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on FS2 in the usual three knockout rounds, following Practice 2 at 1 p.m., with final practice at 8 p.m. Practice 1 opens the weekend Friday at 5 p.m. INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls carries the race on affiliates nationwide and on SiriusXM 190.