Another IndyCar season is in the books, and yet another title has been added to Alex Palou’s trophy cabinet.
This year’s ascent to championship glory may have seemed like a foregone conclusion for much of the season, but four titles in five years is a phenomenal achievement that underlines the Spaniard as one of motorsport’s preeminent talents.
Such is the fervour around his performances that rumours of a move to Red Bull in Formula One quickly gathered momentum before the season finale in Nashville, but these were promptly debunked by team boss Chip Ganassi.
As far as seasons go, this year has been particularly groundbreaking for Palou: eight wins, 13 podiums, and just two finishes outside the top ten. Even then, one of these subpar performances boiled down to being rear-ended into the wall on the streets of Detroit.
What matters more is that Palou finally filled the one glaring hole on his glittering resume by winning his first Indianapolis 500. Inexplicably, just one race shy of 100 starts in IndyCar, he has already cemented his position as one of the all-time greats in the history of the open-wheel series.
Most IndyCar fans would stop short of calling him the greatest of all time though. The consensus is that that honour belongs to his teammate Scott Dixon, the man with the highest average finishing position among drivers with at least 100 race starts in IndyCar history.
That statistic is made all the more impressive when you consider Dixon has 419 races under his belt in IndyCar, the most of any driver ever.
But, when the chequered flag falls at next year’s season opening race in St Petersburg, Palou will complete his own century of IndyCar races and break Dixon’s record. Perhaps Palou’s claim to be the ‘goat’ is stronger than most realise.
Promising viewership trends give hope for future growth
While purists will wax lyrical about Palou’s performances for decades to come, an all-conquering driver is not the best narrative to entice new fans to IndyCar.
New broadcast partner Fox likely hoped for a more enthralling title battle, but the media giant has seen plenty of positives regardless of the lack of jeopardy. After all, Fox decided to invest a reported US$125 million to acquire a one-third stake in the championship during the course of the season.
In terms of topline figures, IndyCar averaged 1.2 million viewers for its first season exclusively on an over-the-air (OTA) network, a 28 per cent increase on its final year with NBC, which aired races across its flagship network, the USA pay-TV channel, and its Peacock streaming service. This represents IndyCar’s best year for TV viewership since 2012, emphasising how much of a step in the right direction this season has been.
IndyCar races have always struggled to consistently breach the one million viewer barrier, but a notable metric of success this year has been the lack of truly disastrous ratings. Poor marketing and inconsistent broadcast schedules have previously contributed to a handful of races generating meagre audiences but not a single race registered below 500,000 viewers in 2025.
The obvious highlight of the year was the 7.01 million viewers that tuned in for the Indianapolis 500, the largest audience for the iconic race in 17 years. The issue – as always for IndyCar – is translating this result into larger audiences throughout the season.
Improvements will come through better marketing, something that should be helped by Fox’s increased involvement and its ability to cross promote the series across other properties. Look at the 1.42 million viewers that tuned in for the season-opening race in St Petersburg – the most-watched non-Indy 500 race since 2011 – after Fox aired three advertisements during the Super Bowl.
But, moving forward, IndyCar and Fox need to work together to create a broadcast schedule that minimises competition. There was an effort this year to avoid Nascar clashes, but it came at the halfway stage of the season with Gateway switched to a primetime slot.
Crucially, discounting this year’s remarkable audience return at the Indy 500, IndyCar’s viewership figures look a little less impressive. An average of just over 811,000 viewers watched the other 16 races, which falls below the 837,000 viewers reached in 2023.
Rising attendances are the good news story of 2025
IndyCar’s broadcast growth provides a solid foundation for the future, as will increased attendance at the track.
The headline was the 350,000 fans that attended the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) for Indy 500 race day, underlining its position as the largest spectator sports event in the world. This was the iconic event’s first sellout since 2016, resulting in a rare lifting of the local TV blackout.
However, there were encouraging signs across the country. The season opener in St Petersburg attracted an estimated 165,000 fans across the three days, producing an estimated economic value of US$60 million to the local area.
There were record three-day crowds at Long Beach (200,000 attendees) and Barber (90,000 attendees). Mid-Ohio also reportedly hit a record crowd, although an official figure was never released for the event.
Detroit enjoyed a four per cent year-over-year (YoY) increase as approximately 156,000 fans attended the three-day weekend. The following race in Gateway welcomed around 30,000 fans on race day, but full weekend figures were not immediately available.
There was no official confirmation for Laguna Seca, but IndyCar president J. Douglas Boles told Racer that “merch sales were up…which is an indicator, obviously, that the attendance is up”.
A figure for IndyCar’s visit to Milwaukee was also not forthcoming, but it is estimated that crowds were higher than the 42,000 that attended the 2024 event. According to Indy Star, all grandstands were open this year ‘whereas sections were covered with tarps in 2024’.
There has been no public indication of attendances for the road course event at IMS, Road America, or Toronto.
The two circuits that struggled for attendees this year – Thermal and Iowa – look likely to be dropped from next year’s schedule entirely. As a members-only motorsport venue, Thermal’s potential for growth is extremely limited and frankly is not the type of circuit IndyCar should be racing at. Iowa, meanwhile, recorded just 12,000 fans across both its races – a mixture of last year’s dire racing and the loss of Hy-Vee as title sponsor likely contributed to poor fan attendance.
The grandstands at Iowa Speedway were noticeably sparse this year, and a return to the short track for next season is unlikely (Image credit: Getty Images)
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Off-track politics remain an unnecessary distraction
Despite a season filled with positives, IndyCar’s ability to shoot itself in the foot remains an unwelcome habit.
An organisational restructure initiated just three weeks before the start of the season did not provide evidence of a championship committed to stable governance. There had been rumours of Jay Frye being replaced as president for some time, but the timing of his departure raised eyebrows. IndyCar is understandably reticent to confirm the circumstances surrounding Frye’s departure, who is now leading operations at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Now, the hope is that Fyre’s successor J. Douglas Boles can transfer the successful strategy he has implemented to revitalise IMS, where he has overseen more than US$150 million in strategic investment and two full-capacity crowds since 2016.
An unexpected part of Boles’s remit will be to provide a stabilising hand in the wake of the Team Penske controversy. As the eponymous team of IndyCar owner Roger Penske, the outfit is naturally subject to intense scrutiny from fans due to the potential conflict of interest, but this level of disproportionate attention existed long before ‘the Captain’ moved into owning the series thanks to the team’s previous successes.
Will Power’s victory at Portland narrowly ensured the team narrowly avoided their first winless campaign since 1999 and all focus will be on the fallout of the season’s major controversy. Fan outrage caused by Team Penske’s illegal circumvention of the push-to-pass overtaking system, which allowed their drivers unrestricted use during last season’s opening race in St Petersburg, turned to fury after an illegally modified part was found on the cars of Josef Newgarden and Will Power at this year’s Indy 500.
Ultimately, this transgression cost the jobs of team president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski, and general manager Kyle Moyer.
The incidents had plausible explanations, but they exposed an organisation lacking in transparency and organisation. It is not publicity which Roger Penske will welcome and nor will stakeholders – it’s perhaps notable that IndyCar only announced one commercial partnership this year.
The potential of the series to grow is undoubtable, IndyCar just needs to establish the operational framework to give it the best chance – Fox, it’s your move.
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