The 2026 championship is already settled, but the IndyCar Leaders Circle cut-off is not. For the teams sitting just outside it, this weekend’s season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is the last opportunity to bank one of the series’ $1.7m contracts for next season, as reported by RACER.
Why the IndyCar Leaders Circle matters
The Leaders Circle programme rewards the highest-placed full-season entries with a guaranteed payment, worth $1.7m apiece next year. Miss the cut-off and a team spends its winter selling that shortfall to sponsors instead of spending it on the car. For smaller operations, the gap between one side of the line and the other is the difference between a comfortable off-season and an anxious one.
Palou’s title is settled, the money is not
Alex Palou wrapped up his fifth IndyCar crown — and a fourth in succession — at The Milwaukee Mile, where Pato O’Ward swept the rain-scrambled doubleheader to become the first driver since Rick Mears in 1981 to win two IndyCar races on the same day, according to Motorsport.com. We covered how Palou rewrote the record books at the time.
What Milwaukee also did was shuffle the entrants’ order underneath him. Rinus VeeKay’s charge from 24th to third handed Juncos Hollinger Racing only its second podium and lifted the Dutchman back into the championship top 10, a swing we examined in our look at the team’s best season yet. Laguna Seca now decides who keeps hold of those positions.
Track action begins on Friday, with the finale closing a weekend that also takes in Formula 1 at Monza.
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