IndyCar at Laguna Seca This Sunday: Scott Dixon's Last Ganassi Race, a Corner With a New Name, and Four Points for Second
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Race Preview - the storylines and the human stuff behind Sunday's race, in plain English.
The Short Version
The 2026 IndyCar season ends Sunday with the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, 95 laps around a 2.238-mile, 11-turn road course in the California hills. Green flag coverage starts at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX. Alex Palou already has the title locked up, so the drama is everywhere else: three drivers are covered by four points in the fight for second, Scott Dixon makes his final start for Chip Ganassi Racing after 25 years, and the most famous corner in American racing just got renamed for Alex Zanardi.
Storyline 1: The Corkscrew Now Carries a Name
On Friday morning, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca officially dedicated its blind downhill left-right as the Zanardi Corkscrew. Chip Ganassi and Max Papis stood at the corner for the ceremony, 30 years after Alex Zanardi dove down the inside of Bryan Herta on the last lap of the 1996 season finale, put two wheels in the dirt, and came out the other side with the win. Fans have called that move "The Pass" ever since. Zanardi died on May 1 of this year at 59, and Ganassi summed up the day about as well as anyone could: "He stole my heart, and he stole a lot of people's hearts that day."
The tribute does not stop at the sign. Palou's No. 10 Honda runs the throwback DHL lightning bolt livery this weekend, the scheme Zanardi made famous during Ganassi's four straight titles from 1996 through 1999. The anniversary of The Pass and Palou's fifth championship land on the same afternoon, at the same corner, in the same colors.
To this day, I can't fathom how Alex Zanardi pulled off this pass. Years later, I had the opportunity to ride around Laguna Seca in a track marshal's truck. Even at a slow speed, the world drops out from under you like you're driving off a cliff. Godspeed, champion.
— Brock Beard (@LASTCARonBROCK) May 2, 2026
Big Porsche crash at Zanardi Corkscrew before Indycar FP2. Driver ok. FP2 delayed.
— Cytrus (@cytrusf1) September 5, 2026
Storyline 2: Scott Dixon's Last Day in the No. 9
Sunday is start number 415 for Scott Dixon with Chip Ganassi Racing, and the last one. Twenty-five seasons together produced 58 wins and six IndyCar championships. He is leaving for Arrow McLaren in 2027 at 46 years old.
There is one more thing riding on it. Dixon won at least one race in 21 straight seasons with Ganassi, a streak nobody else in the sport has come within three years of. He has not won in 2026. If he does not win Sunday, the streak closes at 21 instead of 22, on his way out the door. He qualified 17th, which makes it a long shot, but Dixon has built a career on long shots and fuel numbers nobody else believed in. "It's been one of those years where anything can slightly miss, we do," he said this week.
Storyline 3: Three Drivers, Four Points, One Runner-Up Spot
Palou clinched the title at Milwaukee, so second place is the last real prize on the table. Christian Lundgaard sits on 507 points, Kyle Kirkwood on 505, and Pato O'Ward on 503. David Malukas is 23 back at 484 and needs a very strange afternoon to get there.
What makes it good television is that the three of them start nowhere near each other. Lundgaard qualified fifth, Kirkwood seventh, and O'Ward all the way down in 13th after getting knocked out in the first round of qualifying. O'Ward is the one with momentum. He swept both Milwaukee races last weekend, becoming the first IndyCar driver since Rick Mears in 1981 to win twice in a single day, and turned a 63-point hole into a four-point gap.
Lundgaard has the most to prove. Arrow McLaren did not re-sign him for 2027, choosing instead to build a three-car lineup around Indy 500 pedigree with Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist joining O'Ward. Beating O'Ward in the standings on his last day with the team would not get his seat back, but it would say something. He has earned the right to try: through the season's first five natural-terrain road courses, Lundgaard actually leads Palou in road-course points, 207 to 201.
Storyline 4: Everybody Is Saying Goodbye at Once
Late Sunday afternoon in the paddock is going to be a lot of long hugs. It is Dixon's last race for Ganassi, Rosenqvist's last for Meyer Shank after winning this year's Indy 500 for them, Lundgaard's and Nolan Siegel's last for Arrow McLaren, Mick Schumacher's last for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, Sting Ray Robb's last for Juncos Hollinger, and Caio Collet's last for AJ Foyt Racing. Rosenqvist rolls off third, which gives at least one of those farewells a real shot at victory lane.
What to Watch on Sunday
The weather is not going to save anybody. Monterey should be dry and cool, around 64 degrees at the green with no rain and a breeze up to about 13 mph off the coast. Cool track temperatures here usually mean the softer tire holds on longer than teams expect, which pushes strategists toward off-sequence gambles.
The place to watch is still the Corkscrew. There is one line through it, drivers arrive blind over the crest, and the car in front decides where the car behind goes. That is why Zanardi's move mattered and why passing there almost never happens cleanly. Expect the real overtakes to be set up under braking at Turn 2 and finished at Turn 11 onto the front straight.
Two smaller things worth tracking: David Malukas is still chasing his first career win with six runner-up finishes on his record, and he starts sixth in a fast Penske car. Will Power has been stuck on 45 career victories since last August, after a pit road speeding penalty took Milwaukee away from him.
The Fan Debate
Here is the argument that will be all over racing social media by Sunday night: did Arrow McLaren get this right? The team let go of the driver currently second in the championship and leading the series in road-course points, to sign a 46-year-old and a 34-year-old with Indy 500 wins on their resumes. If Lundgaard beats O'Ward on Sunday and walks away as McLaren's top finisher of 2026, that call looks very different than it did in July.
The Bottom Line
The championship is settled, but almost nothing else is. A corner gets a name, a 25-year partnership ends, four points decide second, and seven drivers climb out of a car for the last time with that team. Laguna Seca has always been a place where the last lap means something. Sunday it means it for about six different reasons at once.
Shop the Story
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