We are closer to the scheduled start of the 2026 IndyCar season than we are to the end of the 2025 season, with only about two and a half months remaining in the offseason schedule.
The NTT IndyCar Series is set for its earliest start date since 2022, and unlike in several recent years, there are no huge gaps between any two early-season races. The season is once again set to begin on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, which has been the traditional site of the season opener for nearly two decades.
While the 2026 schedule is set to feature 17 races, marking the fifth year in a row of exactly 17 events and the eighth time overall since the series most recently ran 18 races back in 2014, the calendar has seen some notable shifts when compared to 2025, and that starts with the loss of three venues.
3 tracks no longer on the IndyCar schedule
Thermal Club hosted a non-points exhibition race in 2024 before it was given a regular championship points races in 2025. Both experiments were short-lived, as the series is instead set to debut a new street race in Arlington, Texas on a course that winds around Globe Life Field, home of MLB's Texas Rangers, and AT&T Stadium, home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.
Iowa Speedway returned to the schedule in 2022 and has hosted doubleheaders every year since, following its 2021 absence, which was its lone absence since debuting on the IndyCar schedule in 2007. But consistently poor attendance, a loss of promotion from Hy-Vee, and a clear prioritization of NASCAR has led to the short oval being dropped from the calendar for 2026.
Instead, the series is set to visit Phoenix Raceway for the first time since 2018, and not in the middle of summer, either. Phoenix is set to host a Saturday race the week after the season opener in St. Petersburg. That race, coupled with the following weekend's race in Arlington, has given the series three straight race weekends to open the year for the first time since 2021.
With Iowa losing two races instead of one, IndyCar has also given another race to the Milwaukee Mile. The historic track returned to the schedule in 2024 and hosted a doubleheader before hosting just one race in 2025.
The other track removed from the schedule is the Exhibition Place street course in Toronto, Ontario. Its history dates all the way back to the 1986 CART season, but in 2026, IndyCar is set to run on a new street course in downtown Markham, Ontario. It's a new 12-turn, 2.19-mile (3.524-kilometer) course that features a double-sided pit lane, similar to the Detroit street course that debuted in 2023.
A few other schedule changes were made, with the most notable being that WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is set to host the season finale for the first time since 2023. Nashville Superspeedway, which hosted it in 2024 and 2025, has been moved up to mid-July.
The 2026 IndyCar season is scheduled to begin on Sunday, March 1 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. All 17 races on the 2026 schedule are set to be shown live on Fox.