The entry list for this coming May's 110th running of the Indy 500 is slowly but surely coming together, with Arrow McLaren recently announcing 2014 race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay as the replacement for Kyle Larson in their fourth entry after Valentino Rossi turned down Zak Brown's offer.
Three part-time/one-off entries have been confirmed for this 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval thus far, in addition to the 27 full-time cars, even as one of those 27 cars remains without a confirmed driver for the 17-race season.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which recently confirmed that Mick Schumacher is set to replace Devlin DeFrancesco alongside Graham Rahal and Louis Foster in their full-time lineup, are not among the teams that have confirmed a one-off Indy 500 entry, despite having fielded an extra car consistently in recent years.
That hasn't stopped DraftKings Sportsbook from listing Takuma Sato as one of the favorites to win the 2026 Indy 500, and that in itself might well be an indication that Sato is on his way to being confirmed as the team's fourth driver for the third year in a row.
Takuma Sato back to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing?
Sato is listed at +1200, which places him in a fifth place tie behind Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward (+550), Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou (+550), Team Penske's Josef Newgarden (+600), and Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon (+850).
He is tied with Team Penske teammates Scott McLaughlin and David Malukas, as well as Andretti Global's Marcus Ericsson.
Sato, who won the Indy 500 for the team in 2020, qualified in a career-best second and led a career-best 51 laps, more than any other driver, in the 2025 race, silencing the narrative that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing are actually slow at Indy, even though their other drivers have consistently struggled to find speed over the past four years.
The 48-year-old Japanese driver also won the race in 2017 for Andretti Autosport. In 2024 and 2025, his Indy 500 efforts with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing marked his only two series appearances.
Sato led 17 laps en route to his 2017 victory and 27 en route to his 2020 victory. In 2012, which was his first and only Indy 500 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing prior to his 2018 return, he led 31 laps and crashed while attempting to pass eventual race winner Dario Franchitti for the lead on the final lap.
Aside from his two wins, his top 10 finishes at Indy include a third place finish in 2019, a seventh place finish in 2023 (for Chip Ganassi Racing), and a ninth place finish this past May.
With Schumacher set to use the No. 47 rather than the No. 30 that DeFrancesco used as his full-time car number, the No. 30 is technically freed up for Sato, who has used the No. 75 in each of the past two years but won the race in the No. 30 Honda five years ago.
Full Indy 500 odds can be found here and are always subject to change.
Fox is set to provide live coverage of the 110th running of the Indy 500 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 24, 2026.