When IndyCar initially published the championship standings following the 2026 season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, there was a notable error at the top.
This error stemmed from the fact that IndyCar had copied the race results as the qualifying results, meaning that Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou was awarded the point for pole position that should have gone to Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin, simply because Palou won the race.
Palou started the 100-lap Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg around the 14-turn, 1.8-mile (2.897-kilometer) temporary street circuit in fourth place.
Palou scored three other bonus points, one for leading at least one lap and two more for leading the most laps with 59, while McLaughlin scored one extra for leading at least one lap; he led 34.
McLaughlin took pole. IndyCar incorrectly states that Palou was P1 in qualifying.
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) March 2, 2026
The real standings are Palou-53 McLaughlin-42.
Unless I missed a fundamental scoring change at some point during the offseason. https://t.co/pye96Xs79n
The calculation gave Palou a 54-41 lead, and even after publishing the incorrect lap report and the points calculation report seen above, IndyCar published a graphic showing this 54-41 lead as well.
53-42* https://t.co/2JP3YgKif6
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) March 2, 2026
However, IndyCar later deleted the graphic and corrected the error. Their official website now correctly shows Palou with 53 points and McLaughlin with 42.
IndyCar corrects Palou-McLaughlin standings error
Mistakes obviously happen, and because it was corrected, it's really not that big of a deal in the long run, although the incorrect version did circulate across a number of media outlets before the correction was made.
But in a series that has seen championships won on tiebreakers before, hopefully this results in a tightened post-race points calculation process moving forward, especially since further standings updates won't simply be based on the results of a single race.
The 2026 season is set to be the series' first 18-race season since 2014.
And of course, you know for sure that McLaughlin and the No. 3 team don't want to see Palou effectively gain two free points, much less at their expense. Fortunately for them, the 13-point deficit was correctly changed to an 11-point deficit upon further review.
Ironically, had it not been for Team Penske's push-to-pass scandal in 2024, McLaughlin actually would have won the championship over Palou – and he would have won it on a tiebreaker. So again, every point matters.
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