IndyCar recently finalized the entire 2026 schedule, with a number of significant changes having been enacted to shake things up from how they looked in 2025.
Thermal Club, which hosted an exhibition race in 2024 and its first points race in 2025, will not return to the schedule, and Iowa Speedway is also out. The Ontario race has also been moved from its longtime spot at Exhibition Place in Toronto to Markham Centre.
Unfortunately, after the "Pato Who?" rallying cry appeared to have worked, IndyCar will not actually make a trip south of the border to run at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico.
Specifically, for Pato O'Ward's sake, we certainly hope it goes better than NASCAR's trip if it ever does happen, as that one was a justifiable one-off. This year's omission continues a long-time trend of the series supposedly being "close" to a Mexico race, only for it not to happen.
One week short of 10 years ago. https://t.co/URpXjmzabZ
— Nathan Brown (@By_NathanBrown) September 13, 2025
IndyCar is also set to go back to Texas, but on a new street circuit in Arlington. The course is situated around AT&T Stadium, home of the only NFC team not to go to a conference championship game since 1996, and Globe Life Field, the home of the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers.
That brings us to the short ovals. With Iowa out, two races are lost, rather than one. To keep the loss at one race rather than two, IndyCar is set to run a single race at Phoenix Raceway as a part of a doubleheader NASCAR weekend in early March. IndyCar is scheduled to run on Saturday, March 7.
And to keep the schedule at 17 races rather than reduce it to 16, the Milwaukee Mile is set to host a doubleheader again, just like it did in 2024.
But above all, what the Phoenix race does, coupled with the Arlington race on Sunday, March 15, is alleviate an issue that fans have long complained about: the wait after the season opener for race number two.
There were four-week breaks between race one and race two in 2018, 2020, 2023, and 2024. In 2024, it was actually a six-week break between actual championship races, though if we're splitting hairs, we'd be wise to give the series the benefit of the doubt regarding 2020, given the pandemic restriction-related schedule changes which allowed the season to be run at all.
In 2025, that issue was slightly reduced, as there were just three weeks between the first three races, but after Fox's stellar offseason promotion ahead of their first year as the exclusive broadcast partner of the series, all kinds of momentum was lost after the St. Petersburg opener was the most watched non-Indy 500 race since 2011.
In 2026, IndyCar is planning to get started and keep rolling.
St. Petersburg is scheduled to host the opener again on Sunday, March 1, kicking off a stretch of three consecutive race weekends. There is set to be an off weekend between Arlington and the annual trip to Barber Motorsports Park, which is set to be as early as it's ever been in late March.
Even with three-week breaks between Barber and Long Beach, and then between Long Beach and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the 110th running of the Indy 500 is still on track to be the seventh race of the year (eighth race weekend, if you count the major event that is Indy 500 qualifying the week prior).
It's a far more balanced schedule for a series that once again plans to wrap things up on Labor Day weekend early September, albeit at Laguna Seca after the Nashville Superspeedway race was moved to mid-July.
All races are set to once again be shown live on Fox in 2026.