Josef Newgarden's No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet on the Streets of St. Petersburg, the 2027 IndyCar schedule season opener

2027 IndyCar Schedule: First 8 Races and What Comes Next

September 14, 2026

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Race Preview - the storylines and what-to-watch column that normally sets up Sunday. The 2026 season is over, so this week we set up the next one.

The Short Version

There is no race this week. The 2026 season ended September 6 at Laguna Seca and IndyCar will not turn a competitive lap again until spring. What we do have is the front half of the 2027 IndyCar schedule: eight confirmed dates starting March 7 on the streets of St. Petersburg and running through the 111th Indianapolis 500 on May 30. Add the first oval laps for the 2028 car and a rewritten rulebook on who is even allowed to drive one, and the quiet part of the calendar is not that quiet.

The 2027 IndyCar Schedule Starts With a Sprint

IndyCar released what it is calling Phase One on August 12, and the headline is the opening stretch. St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 7. Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, March 13. The Streets of Arlington in Texas on Sunday, March 21. Three races on three straight weekends to open a season, which is the second year in a row IndyCar has done that and, per ESPN, only the fifth time in the sport's 118 years.

That matters more than it sounds. Three races in three weekends means no time to fix a bad car and nowhere for a slow-starting team to hide. Whoever unloads well in March builds a cushion before anybody can test their way out of trouble.

From there it settles down. Barber Motorsports Park on April 4 is the first natural-terrain road course of the year, then Long Beach on April 18, a race that drew more than 200,000 people in 2026. May brings the Indianapolis road course on Saturday the 15th and the 111th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on Sunday the 30th. Detroit on June 6 closes the announced portion, and all eight are on FOX.

The eight confirmed 2027 IndyCar schedule dates announced in Phase One. Graphic: Happy Hour Racing.

Phase Two Is the Part Everybody Is Waiting On

Eight races is not a season. IndyCar said Phase Two would land "in the coming weeks" with the rest of the dates, the television start times, and the Indy NXT schedule. As of now it still has not been published, which means the entire second half of 2027 is a blank.

That blank is where the real questions live. Which ovals come back. Whether the one-off street races IndyCar tried in 2026 get a repeat. Where the finale lands. Until Phase Two shows up, people are piecing it together from whatever else gets announced, the way FOX Sports reporter Bob Pockrass did a week early by cross-referencing the IMSA dates.

For INDYCAR, these are the dates for 2027 that have been announced or correspond with IMSA dates announced:

March 7-St Pete
March 14-Phoenix
March 21-Arlington
April 18-Long Beach
May 30-Indy 500
June 6-Detroit https://t.co/QFvyz3gM9K
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) August 5, 2026

He was close. The official release moved Phoenix up a day to Saturday, March 13, for a night race. That is how thin the information is right now. Two test dates are locked in, though, and both are worth circling: the Unser INDYCAR Open Test on February 23 and 24 at Phoenix, and the Indy 500 Open Test on May 4 and 5 at the Speedway.

The 2028 Car Just Ran Its First Oval Laps

Indianapolis Motor Speedway pagoda and main straight, home of the 111th Indianapolis 500 on the 2027 IndyCar schedule and the site of the IR-28 oval test — The pagoda and the main straight at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the IR-28 turned its first oval laps on September 9 and 10. (Photo: Zach Catanzareti Photo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The car that replaces the current one does not race until 2028, but it is already running. IndyCar took the new Dallara IR-28 to the Indianapolis oval on September 9 and 10 for its second validation test, after a first run on the IMS road course in August. Alexander Rossi drove Wednesday in low-90s heat, Alex Palou on Thursday.

Rossi was the first person to run the superspeedway configuration of the new car, and his read was refreshingly boring. "It does everything that INDYCAR SERIES machinery should do around here," he said. "There was no surprise. It was really pretty standard." Palou's day went well enough that he parked it 15 minutes early with the whole checklist done. "We actually got quite a lot of speed," he said. "We improved over 2 miles an hour throughout the day, and we didn't really work too much to get it." For a brand new chassis on the most demanding oval in the sport, two quiet days is the best possible result.

This isn't a refresh. It's a reset.

Meet the IR-28. pic.twitter.com/2hXCTj5NAR
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 28, 2026

The thing to keep in the back of your head all next season: 2027 is the last year for the Dallara DW12 and the 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 that has powered it. The new chassis and a 2.4-liter V6 formula take over in 2028. Every race next year is the last of its kind.

IndyCar Rewrote Who Gets to Drive One

The other change that will shape the next few seasons is a licensing rewrite for 2027. IndyCar published criteria that spell out in public what a driver has to do to qualify for a road and street license, instead of leaving it to a case-by-case judgment call.

The Indy NXT route now takes a minimum of 12 starts. Past that, winning the NXT title, finishing top three in points, or taking two wins inside 24 months makes a driver Competitively Qualified. One win gets a driver Evaluation Eligible, which means an official IndyCar test where the series grades pace, car control, racecraft and how well the driver talks to engineers. Everything else goes to a resume review, and both statuses last 24 months. The NXT drivers who already clear the bar are Nikita Johnson, Enzo Fittipaldi, Alessandro de Tullio, Myles Rowe, Lochie Hughes and Matteo Nannini. There are defined doors in from Formula 1, Formula 2, Formula E, Super Formula, IMSA GTP, NASCAR Cup and WEC Hypercar as well. Oval rules did not change: an approved oval test is still required, and Indy 500 rookie orientation stays where it is.

A Lot of Seats Are Still Empty

The top of the grid is settled. Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist at Arrow McLaren. Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and David Malukas at Penske. Will Power, Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson at Andretti. Palou and Kyffin Simpson at Ganassi. Dreyer and Reinbold Racing is back to full-time competition with Honda for the first time since 2012.

Below that it is wide open. A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Dale Coyne Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing all still show unannounced entries for 2027, and the new licensing standards hand those teams a published list of NXT drivers already cleared to go. Put those two things next to each other and the winter gets interesting.

The Bottom Line

The 2027 IndyCar schedule opens March 7 at St. Petersburg with a three-week sprint that shapes the early championship, and its biggest date is the 111th Indianapolis 500 on May 30. Everything after Detroit is still unwritten, the car everybody races next year is the last of its line, and a big chunk of the grid has no name on it yet. Circle February 23 at Phoenix. That is when this actually starts again.