We are eight races into the 17-race 2025 IndyCar season, and while we have nothing bad to say about Fox Sports announcers Will Buxton, Townsend Bell, or James Hinchcliffe, and we can simply not say enough about Fox's promotion of the open-wheel racing series in year number one, the fact is that Fox's presentation, specifically the scoring pylon, can still use some work.
And that's putting it nicely.
We were willing to let it go after the season opener in St. Petersburg. Yes, it was noteworthy enough to raise the concern, but we were one race into the season, their first season as the exclusive media rights partner of the series.
But after the Indy 500, race number six, saw a plethora of errors, names jumping all over the screen, and multiple instances of the entire leaderboard (and, in some cases, all but the top five) being removed, there were alarm bells that should have been sounding.
Those alarm bells are still sounding, just shy of the season's halfway mark.
And Sunday night's race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, things turned so bad that, while inexcusable, we actually couldn't help but laugh about it.
Unfortunately for Team Penske's Josef Newgarden, he found himself upside down while leading the race thanks to IndyCar race control falling asleep at the wheel (again) and waiting six seconds to throw the yellow flag when Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing rookie Louis Foster hit the wall and spun well in front of him.
Foster's car was out of control and spun to the inside, and while Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou took evasive action and got around him to the outside, Newgarden went low and made contact with him.
IndyCar finally decided it was time to throw the yellow, but that's a topic for a separate article (and boy, is it ever...).
Many laps later, when teammate Scott McLaughlin completed the trifecta of Team Penske DNFs on a day that many thought could produce a team podium sweep, he was being interviewed by the Fox Sports team.
As that interview transpired, the graphic showing the three Team Penske drivers and their respective results suddenly shot Newgarden back up to P1.
On the actual scoring pylon, Newgarden was again shown as the race leader.
Meanwhile, actual race leader Scott Dixon was inexplicably dropped to 26th place. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver hadn't even come into the pits at that point, so he hadn't even dropped to second, yet according to Fox Sports, he was now in second-to-last.
Generational drive from Newgarden to be leading the race after that accident https://t.co/BN5nuIQgZG pic.twitter.com/IJAADO7fkx
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) June 16, 2025
Buxton admitted earlier on in the race that there had been some scoring issues, but these are not isolated incidents at this point. This is happening every race, and it's happening not only at an embarrassing rate, but it's happening in ways that are literally comical.
Of course, there was nothing comical about the Newgarden accident, and we're all happy to see him walk away from it, because that was probably the scariest accident IndyCar has seen so far this year (aside from some of the Indy 500 practice/qualifying crashes).
But as grateful as we all are for that, no, he did not randomly end up leading the race almost 100 laps later.
Come on, Fox.
The next race on the IndyCar schedule is the XPEL Grand Prix, which is set to be shown live on Fox from Road America beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 22. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action!