IndyCar Milwaukee Race 2 Preview: 5 Storylines for Sunday
The Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Race Preview. Every week we look past the numbers at the storylines that decide the race.
The Short Version
The Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250 goes green Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET on FOX, 250 laps around the flat 1.015-mile oval in West Allis, Wisconsin. Alex Palou starts from the pole and can lock up his fifth IndyCar title with a race still left on the calendar. Rain turned Saturday into a mess at a track with no lights, which means Sunday could carry more than one race worth of drama. If you only watch one IndyCar race the rest of this month, watch this one.
1. Palou can clinch a fifth title on Sunday
Palou came into the Milwaukee weekend 553 points to Kyle Kirkwood's 462, a 91-point cushion that IndyCar says is the third-largest margin at this stage since 2008. He has six wins in 15 races. He is chasing his fifth series championship and a fourth in a row, which would tie Sebastien Bourdais and his 2004 through 2007 run.
The math is not complicated. IndyCar says Palou clinches if he leaves Milwaukee with a 53-point lead, and only 48 if he takes the green at the Laguna Seca finale, because every entrant banks five points just for starting. He owns the tiebreaker on wins. What makes Sunday worth watching is that he refuses to drive like a man protecting a lead.
"We got here by trying to win races, not by just trying to score points," Palou said at Milwaukee. He also knows how fast this can go sideways: "I know that a bad race suddenly kills like 40, 50 points."
2. Saturday turned into a weather fight
Rain moved over the Milwaukee Mile right after the national anthem on Saturday and never really left. IndyCar dried the track and got the Snap-on Makers and Fixers 250 going, then threw a red flag after 91 of 250 laps with Pato O'Ward out front. The race needed 125 laps to go official, and this track has no lights, so the clock was as much of an opponent as the weather. As of Saturday evening the series had not posted a Race 1 result.
That matters for Sunday. Teams that expected two clean 250-lap runs may be working on short sleep and short parts inventory, and anyone who was saving equipment Saturday no longer has that luxury.
3. Palou starts from pole, and it took 0.0003 seconds
Qualifying at Milwaukee was one session doing two jobs. All 25 drivers ran two laps, the first setting Saturday's grid and the second setting Sunday's. Palou went out last and put down a 164.658 mph second lap to take the Race 2 pole by three ten-thousandths of a second over O'Ward at 164.655 mph. It is Palou's eighth pole of the season and the 20th of his career.
Here is the wrinkle. Palou, Scott McLaughlin, and David Malukas all took nine-spot grid penalties for unapproved engine changes after Washington, and every one of those penalties applied to Saturday only. Nothing carried into Sunday. So the three drivers who were shoved to the back of Saturday's grid line up exactly where they earned it for Race 2, and the championship leader gets the clean air.
Behind them, Sunday's top ten reads Josef Newgarden, Mick Schumacher, Will Power, Louis Foster, Felix Rosenqvist, McLaughlin, Marcus Armstrong, and Scott Dixon. Schumacher starting fourth on an oval as a rookie is not a typo. He had never turned a lap on an oval before this year and has delivered Rahal Letterman Lanigan's best result in three of the four oval races so far.
4. The real fight is for second
Five drivers are still mathematically alive for the championship, but Malukas said the quiet part out loud this weekend: "It's the battle for second now." Behind Kirkwood on 462 sit Christian Lundgaard on 443, Malukas on 411, and O'Ward on 399. That is 63 points covering three drivers with three races to run, and second place in this series is a career-defining line on a resume.
Malukas is the one to watch here. He has scored more points on ovals than anyone in the field this year, with a 4.0 average oval finish built on third at Phoenix, second in the Indianapolis 500, and seventh at World Wide Technology Raceway. He is in his first season at Team Penske. He has never won an IndyCar race. A flat one-mile oval is about the best place he is going to find.
Andretti Global has its own streak going. Marcus Ericsson won in Ontario, Kirkwood won in Washington, and three in a row for the organization would be the first since Ryan Hunter-Reay strung them together in 2012.
5. The Milwaukee Mile does not forgive
Sunday is the 118th IndyCar race at this place. It is flat, it is a mile, and traffic arrives fast. Scott Dixon has 15 starts here, more than anyone else entered. Will Power has led 306 laps at Milwaukee, more than any other active driver, with Palou next on 199.
Watch three things. Tire fall-off, because passing here happens when someone's rear grip goes away in traffic rather than on a straightaway. Restart lane choice, because the low line goes cold and the high line takes a lap to come in. And pit sequencing, because a 250-lap race with a couple of well-timed cautions can hand the win to a car that never led a lap all day.
Christian Rasmussen knows exactly how that works. He turned last year's Milwaukee race into his first career IndyCar win.
Christian Rasmussen earns his first career INDYCAR win by capturing the race at Milwaukee. @IndyCarOnFOX
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) August 24, 2025
The fan debate
Should a driver be able to clinch a championship with two races left, or does that mean the points system needs a shakeup? One side says dominance should be rewarded and Palou has earned it with six wins. The other says a season that ends in August is a hard sell to a casual fan flipping channels in September.
The Bottom Line
Palou starts on pole, needs a solid afternoon to end the championship, and has already said he has no interest in riding around for points. Everyone behind him is racing for second place, a first career win, or a 2027 seat. That is a full field with nothing to lose chasing one car that has everything to protect.
Gear up for Sunday
Pulling for a good one Sunday. If you want to watch it in something better than the shirt you slept in, here is what is on the shelf right now:
- IndyCar Checkered Flag Sublimated Race T-Shirt
- Indianapolis 500 In Motion Blue Tee
- Colton Herta No. 26 Andretti IndyCar 1:18 Diecast
- Indy 500 Champions T-Shirt
- Indianapolis 500 Race Logo Long Sleeve Tee
More in the IndyCar collection.
