Winners and Losers from IndyCar’s 2025 Mid Ohio 200 race

On a day when NASCAR and Formula 1 were racing against the rain, the NTT IndyCar Series managed to supply its own surprises on a beautiful day in Ohio.

The Honda Indy 200 was comparatively predictable, with passing a challenge and most on a similar strategy. But a couple cautions and a pair of surprising mistakes opened the door for a fuel-saving play and interesting storylines in Sunday’s race.

Here are the winners and losers from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Winner: Alex Palou does it again!

It was the usual story: Alex Palou started on pole, dominated and pulled away late for another w… Oh. Wait. What? He didn’t?

Loser: Alex Palou throws one away

What seemed like IndyCar’s usual script took a shocking late turn when Palou ran off-course with just six laps remaining. The rare mistake allowed Scott Dixon to slip through for the lead and, ultimately, the win.

Palou ended up settling for second, just behind his teammate’s rear wing. Sure, he added to his championship lead, notched another top-two run and will suffer no other consequence for this mistake.

But losing like that stings, no matter how well you’ve ran elsewhere.

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Lumen via Getty Images

There was a degree of luck, yes, to Dixon’s triumph with Palou’s error. But make no mistake: Dixon absolutely earned this win.

It was another masterclass performance from the six-time IndyCar champion. He missed the mark in qualifying, slotting in ninth. But Dixon pulled off another of his classic fuel-save efforts and used one less stop to make the win happen.

At 44 years old, Father Time is working against Dixon. So it’s impressive that the veteran continues to find ways to contend and win so late into his career. Sunday’s result was just the latest in a list of legendary runs that’ll cement Dixon as one of IndyCar’s all-time greats when he hangs up his helmet.

Loser: Team Penske’s woes roll on

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

What can you say at this point? Team Penske is a group known for dominance and title contention in IndyCar. We’ve almost come to expect the group’s supposed to win the Indy 500, claim another 4-6 races along the way and have at least one championship frontrunner among its trio of drivers.

Instead things keep going wrong – in a Looney Tunes, cartoon-anvil-falling-on-them type of way.

Will Power, Team Penske

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

In Mid-Ohio, the setback happened with a trio of awful qualifying performances followed by a shocking first corner crash for Josef Newgarden that ultimately eliminated Will Power and involved Scott McLaughlin, who finished 23rd.

And so the winless streak goes on and any hopes of title contention have gone out the window. At least Newgarden talked to TV this time. He’d come under scrutiny for riding off without chatting with FOX after qualifying.

Loser: Penske takes Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing out

Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images

Penske’s drivers weren’t the only victims of their early debacle in Ohio. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal and Devlin DeFrancesco were each caught up in the opening lap crash.

Rahal got the worst of the deal. The veteran was sent into the gravel after contact from the spinning Newgarden and lost a lap waiting for help to get back on track, taking him out of contention in 24th. DeFrancesco stayed on the lead lap, but had to pit with a broken wing and rose only to 20th by race’s end.

Louis Foster qualified well, but wound up 14th at race’s end. It was a bummer of a weekend all around for the Rahal team.

Winner: Young guns show some pace

Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow McLaren have had four star drivers in the past two years. None of them have been Kyffin Simpson or Nolan Siegel.

But for one weekend, the two teams’ youngest drivers threw themselves into the mix. Simpson and Siegel slotted right behind their race-contending teammates, Alex Palou (CGR) and Christian Lundgaard (Arrow McLaren), in Saturday’s qualifying session, filling the second row.

Nolan Siegel, Arrow McLaren

Photo by: Gavin Baker / Lumen via Getty Images

They followed that up with solid runs on Sunday, though each driver lost ground for different reasons. Simpson suffered a pit road stall and got a drive-through penalty for his release (we’ll get to that in a moment), but still took 10th. Siegel lost ground when the two-stop strategy elevated some ahead of him, but came home a respectable 11th. Something to build on.

Loser: Nico Don’s pit lane pedicure

Ouch.

The stall that cost Simpson time on a similar strategy to Dixon also meant he was still waiting to get on pit road when Rinus Veekay pitted just ahead of him. When Simpson finally got rolling, he kicked his rear tires out and just caught the toes of Veekay’s right-rear tire changer.

Thankfully, the contact wasn’t worse. Don gave the FOX team a thumbs up afterward.

Winner: O’Ward, Rosenqvist and Veekay find a way forward

Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

At a track where passing is a real challenge, Pato O’Ward and Arrow McLaren had to get creative to find a way into contention at Mid-Ohio. O’Ward was the lone disappointment on Saturday, the only Arrow McLaren driver out of the Fast Six in 14th. So his No. 5 team needed to differentiate itself to challenge the frontrunners.

The Mexican didn’t have the two-stop strategy that lifted Dixon to a win, but his team elected to bring O’Ward to pit road after just 11 laps to put him off-sequence from the other three-stop contenders. That move paid off, allowing O’Ward to surge forward over the ensuing runs and ultimately take fifth.

Patricio O’ward, Arrow McLaren

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images

While O’Ward didn’t go for the two-stopper, two others did. Felix Rosenqvist and Rinus VeeKay each pulled off the feat, helping them salvage difficult weekends. Rosenqvist rallied from 15th to take sixth, while Veekay managed an improbable rise from 26th to ninth.

Christian Rasmussen, Ed Carpenter Racing

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images

Well, there wasn’t much Rasmussen could have done about this. A mistake from Ed Carpenter Racing led to Rasmussen running out of gas and coming to a stop on-track. Worse yet, IndyCar officials elected not to tow Rasmussen’s stalled car to pit lane in the immediate aftermath of the stoppage.

So without any obvious mechanical issues, Rasmussen was left with a 25th-place finish and an early trip home. Rough.

Sometimes you just need to have a little fun.

It’s been a difficult year for Robert Shwartzman and Prema Racing. Save for their shock pole run in the Indianapolis 500, both the driver and team have gone through the expected trails of a first year in IndyCar. Shwartzman is 22nd in the series standings and has only one finish higher than 16th: a 10th-place run at World Wide Technology Raceway.

Robert Shwartzman, Prema Racing

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images

A year like that can make IndyCar’s busy summer stretch a real grind. Having moments of levity amid the chaos can be key. So kudos to Shwartzman for this fun recreation of a popular video on the internet.

Not that it helped with the on-track result. Shwartzman wound up 21st at race’s end. But at least the No. 83 team did something to catch eyeballs in a positive way.

Photos from Mid-Ohio – Race