Gateway by the Numbers: Inside IndyCar's 1.25-Mile Oval
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Track Preview, where we stick to data, records and stats. The 2026 season is over, so this is a between-races feature on one of the tracks waiting on the 2027 calendar.
The Short Version
World Wide Technology Raceway, still called Gateway by most people who go there, is a 1.25-mile oval in Madison, Illinois, right across the river from St. Louis. IndyCar runs 260 laps and 325 miles there under the lights, and the 2027 race is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on June 13, round nine of seventeen. Two things make it unlike anything else on the schedule. The two ends of the track are not the same shape, and there is no push to pass. Here is what the numbers say about why that matters.
A Track You Cannot Set the Car Up For
Most ovals are symmetrical. Turn 1 looks like Turn 3, so a crew chief picks a setup and the car behaves the same at both ends. Gateway does not work that way. The backstretch runs parallel to Illinois Route 203, and that road squeezes the geometry. Turns 1 and 2 ended up with a tighter radius and 11 degrees of banking. Turns 3 and 4 are wider and flatter at 9 degrees.
The usual comparison is that Turns 1 and 2 feel like New Hampshire while Turns 3 and 4 feel like Phoenix. That is one race car being asked to do two different jobs on the same lap. Teams cannot nail both. They pick an end to be good at and live with the other one, which is why you see cars catching each other in one corner and losing the ground back in the next.
No Push to Pass, and Only One Tire
This is the part most casual fans get wrong. Push to pass is the extra engine boost drivers get from a steering wheel button, and the 2026 INDYCAR rulebook lists it event by event. Twelve events are on that chart, and every single one is a road course or a street course. St. Petersburg, Detroit and Laguna Seca get 150 seconds. Barber, Mid-Ohio and Road America get 200. Gateway is not on the chart at all. Neither is any other oval. Drivers get zero seconds of push to pass here.
What they do have is the hybrid energy recovery system, and that does run on ovals. Drivers lift in the draft to regenerate, then dump the energy back in when they are lining up a pass. It is worth roughly 60 horsepower. That is the only boost button at Gateway, and it has to be earned a lap at a time instead of handed out in a fixed allotment.
The tires are just as restrictive. The rulebook gives each entrant 10 sets of primary Firestones at Gateway and no alternates. There is no red tire, no strategy call on compound, no undercut built on a softer rubber. The only extra is one set of upper and lower groove tires, which only three ovals on the 2026 calendar get. That set exists so a car can actually run the high line without chewing itself up, and running the high line is how most of the real passing gets done here.
One Driver Owns This Place
IndyCar came back to Gateway in 2017 after a 14-year gap. Eleven races have been run since. Josef Newgarden has won six of them. Team Penske as a whole has won seven. Nobody outside Newgarden has more than two, and the only other repeat winner is Scott Dixon.
The 2026 race was the usual Gateway script. Marcus Ericsson led 114 laps, more than anyone, and still lost. Newgarden led 53 and had the car at the end, beating Ericsson by under seven tenths of a second with Christian Rasmussen third. Weather brought out two red flags along the way. Álex Palou started from pole and did not win. That happens here a lot.
Kyle Kirkwood is the one driver who broke the pattern. His 2025 win was the first oval win of his career, and he did it from outside the Penske and Ganassi wall that has owned this race.
The Cars Are Getting Slower, Not Faster
Here is the stat that surprises people. The track qualifying record at Gateway still belongs to Will Power at 189.642 mph, a two-lap average he set on August 25, 2017. The race lap record is Newgarden's 24.6317 seconds from that same weekend, which works out to 182.69 mph. Neither has been touched in nine years.
Look at what pole has actually been worth since:
| Year | Pole sitter | Two-lap time | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Will Power | 49.2539 | 182.73 mph |
| 2023 | Scott McLaughlin | 49.1936 | 182.95 mph |
| 2024 | Scott McLaughlin | 50.0079 | 179.97 mph |
| 2025 | Will Power | 49.9088 | 180.33 mph |
| 2026 | Álex Palou | 51.6195 | 174.35 mph |
Part of that is weight. The hybrid system added roughly 100 pounds when it arrived in 2024, and the 2026 rulebook sets the short oval minimum at 1,770 pounds. Part of it is conditions, since the race moved from August to June and the air is different. Either way, a 2017 car on a hot August evening is still the fastest thing that has ever gone around this place in an IndyCar.
The Bottom Line
Gateway strips away the things drivers lean on everywhere else. No push to pass button. No tire compound to play with. A track that will not let the car be good at both ends. What is left is a driver finding the high groove in traffic and holding it, and that is exactly the skill Josef Newgarden has turned into six wins. When IndyCar comes back on June 13, 2027, the smart money starts with the guy who has figured out the hardest oval on the schedule.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long is the IndyCar track at Gateway?
World Wide Technology Raceway is a 1.25-mile oval with four turns, banked 11 degrees in Turns 1 and 2 and 9 degrees in Turns 3 and 4.
Does IndyCar use push to pass at Gateway?
No. The 2026 INDYCAR rulebook lists push to pass allotments for road and street courses only, so drivers get zero seconds on any oval, Gateway included.
Who has the most IndyCar wins at World Wide Technology Raceway?
Josef Newgarden, with six wins in the eleven races run since IndyCar returned to the track in 2017.
When is the 2027 IndyCar race at Gateway?
The Bommarito Automotive Group 500 is scheduled for June 13, 2027, round nine of the seventeen-race season.
Gear Up for the 2027 Season
The off-season is the right time to sort your race-day shirt out. Here is what is in stock right now:
- 109th Indianapolis 500 In Motion Blue Tee
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Logo Tee
- Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
- IndyCar Checkered Flag Sublimated Tee
- Colton Herta No. 26 Gainbridge 1:18 Diecast
Everything else is in the IndyCar collection. We do not stock Newgarden or Penske gear yet, so if that is what you are after, keep an eye on new arrivals.
