by Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
The schedule for the Milwaukee Mile double-header took a very confusing turn after rain delayed the last 160 laps of Saturday’s Snap-On Makers and Fixers 250. Instead the second race of the weekend, the Milwaukee Mile 250 was moved to be ran first, with Saturday’s contest continuing on Sunday evening at 5 p.m.
Snap-On Milwaukee Mile 250
Pato O’Ward (photo above) entered Saturday in the lead of both races, by starting on pole Sunday afternoon, and managed win the Milwaukee Mile 250 on Sunday afternoon. O’Ward claimed his second win of the season and second on the famed 1.015-mile oval.
“First time I win a race and I’m leading another one at the same time. That’s a new one,” O’Ward said. “Today we fought really hard for that one. We were forwards, then backwards, then forwards. Good thing we stayed there. Yeah, just fighting hard, determined. I think that was a great showing of just the hunger that we have to turn these ovals around this year. That was the second-to-last opportunity. A little bit finish off the last one.”
The Mexican led the final 54 laps after cycling to the lead after the final pit-stop sequence, keeping Scott McLaughlin at bay, managing a 1.5-second gap. McLaughlin would close to just seven-tenths-of-a-second, but would ultimately settle for second.
The No.3 crew for Team Penske made changes overnight and those changes, along with some strategy from Tim Cindric to keep his driver out during the Lap 147 pit stops, helped McLaughlin get to the podium.
“I was wrecking loose to start,” McLaughlin said. “Nearly spun at Turn 3. The first lap is going to be a hell of an on-board. I look forward to watching that. Outside of that, the car was a lot better as the race went on, which is good, which bodes well for race one tonight.
“Right on the edge in terms of tire life. We chose track position and hoped I could hold those guys off as long as I could with the clear air. Once I got hold of some dirty air, that’s when the guys with the fresh tires were slightly better. I thought we held on really well. Our car came into its own in that stint. Excited to see what we have at the next run. Yeah, at the start of the race, though, I was battling pretty hard. Finally got it sorted, the yellow came out. We chose to stay out.”
Christian Lundgaard completed a Chevrolet sweep of the podium and his best oval result of the season. Historically, the Arrow McLaren car has been tough to drive on ovals for the Dane, but the No.7 came alive in the race after starting 11th.
“I think we all know the deg races, specifically you really got to struggle less than anybody else,” Lundgaard said. “I think we see our car come to life much more kind of mid end stint than most other teams and other cars. I wouldn’t really say we were anywhere up till qualifying, even then we were just mid pack. The cars come alive in the race. I think we’re good at taking care of the tires and making the car better for the second half of the stint.”
SEE: Snap-On Milwaukee Mile 250 Results
David Malukas and Alex Palou closed out the top five, in fourth and fifth, respectively. For Palou, who can clinch a fifth IndyCar championship on Sunday evening, he admitted that the No.10 DHL Honda will need adjustments before going racing again.
“I’m going to try and fix my driving a bit. Fix the car and get some food,” Palou said regarding his car and plans before racing on Sunday evening. “We’re going to try something. I’ll talk to the engineers and see if we can do something.”
Palou exited Sunday afternoon’s race with a 97 point gap to Kyle Kirkwood, who finished sixth.
With a compact schedule, the crews of the No.2 for Josef Newgarden and No.18 for Romain Grosjean, were busy repairing their cars after separate incidents in the middle of the race.
Grosjean spun on his own in Turn 2 on his own accord on Lap 35. Newgarden managed to get the No.2 Chevrolet loose on the exit of Turn 4, ending a day that could have resulted in a top 10.
Snap-On Makers and Fixers 250 (Sunday evening)
Pato O’Ward came into West Allis, Wisconsin looking for a good result on the last oval weekend of the 2026 IndyCar season. The Mexican driver left with two wins and a chance to fight for second place in the championship.
O’Ward had brought his No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to victory lane earlier in the afternoon, winning the Snap-On Milwaukee Mile 250, originally scheduled as the second race of the double-header weekend.
“We were determined today,” O’Ward said. “We were determined to keep ourselves in the fight, keep ourselves in the opportunity of anything that came our way that we could take advantage of. I’m super proud of everybody. Super proud of Team Chevy. It’s been a huge weekend for them. Obviously very proud that I was able to bring two dubs for them. For Arrow McLaren, like I said, it’s been such a challenging year at the ovals for me. This closes it out exactly how I had it in my mind coming into the weekend.”
O’Ward becomes just the sixth driver in IndyCar history to win two races in the same day, a feat last completed by Rick Mears in 1981 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
There is optimism for O’Ward and the Arrow McLaren team as they look to bounce back on the ovals in 2027, after a very “un-McLaren” like down year. The team will be bringing in Scott Dixon and 2026 Indianapolis 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist into the fold and O’Ward is ready to work with them on the ovals.
“I think these guys are going to embed perfectly. They’re professional,” O’Ward said. “Their knowledge is going to be an up-leveling to our program. They’re also good guys, good guys in and out of the track. That’s important for the chemistry. That’s important to build an atmosphere and a quality team that ultimately is going to raise everyone’s game.”
In the 160-lap continuation of the Snap-On Makers and Fixers 250, O’Ward started off the race in the lead, but once pit stops resumed on Lap 119, it was David Malukas who would be poised to steal the win away from the Arrow McLaren driver.
Malukas and the No.12 Verizon crew would go onto an alternate strategy, opting to run long and hold out to Lap 143 to make their “first” pit stop of the continued race.
Malukas’ last pit stop would come on Lap 195 and would enter the racetrack over a full straight ahead of O’Ward. That advantage for Malukas would be evaporated after a caution on Lap 200 for Will Power’s No.26 going into the outside wall in Turn 4.
Malukas would manage to put a gap to O’Ward on the Lap 210 restart. The gap would once again be erased due to a Caio Collet wreck on the front-straight. On the Lap 225 restart, Malukas would see the win vanish right before his eyes due to the engine overboosting, allowing the young driver to not get a jump on the restart.
O’Ward would drive off to a 1.7535 second gap, leaving Malukas to settle for second and his seventh podium of 2026.
“I’m just so frustrated,” Malukas told FOX Sports’ Georgia Henneberry after the race. “I mean, we had the car. We did everything right. I don’t know, we’re just cursed. I literally believe I have some sort of curse. Everything was in our favor there and I mean, just this weekend, both races, we were having issues with the engine on restarts, coming out of the pits, needing to lift and having these events where we just lost power. To have it happen in the first race and now the second race, that really let us down.”
Chevrolet once again completed a sweep of the podium, with Rinus Veekay bringing the No.76 Juncos Hollinger car home in third. It is a podium that is a long time coming for the JHR crew and driver. The Dutch driver has racked up four top fives in the last five races, with the podium giving a solid foundation for 2027.
“I think we can only be better next season,” Veekay said. “Looking at the first half of the season, we were kind of off. We had some bad races, missed the philosophy. We would miss on everything across weekends. I think after the Road America test and the test at Mid-Ohio, that’s when we really figured stuff out. Our oval car has been great all season, and now my first oval podium, which is really cool.”
Scott McLaughlin would bring the No.3 Chevrolet to a respectable fourth place. McLaughlin placed third in the race on Sunday afternoon. The Milwaukee weekend is a much needed rout of positivity for the “Thirsty 3’s”, as McLaughlin continues to close his 2026 campaign in good form.
“We obviously threw one away in D.C.,” he said. “I reckon it’d be three podiums in-a-row. So, yeah, it’s good. You just want more, you know. You want to come here and be competitive. I was sort of like managing the gap to David and the lap traffic and saw Scott [Dixon] was struggling. Frustrated to give a podium away there.”
Christian Rasmussen was the 2025 race winner at the Milwaukee Mile and now in the setting sun on Sunday evening, the young Dane put the No.21 Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing in fifth. Rasmussen also helped his case for making the Leader’s Circle, IndyCar’s group of points finishers above 23rd in points. If a team is from 23rd to 25th, they are not awarded additional money to take into next season.
“I think this was a huge help with that,” Rasmussen said. “We made a couple of changes to the car and it was a bit better tonight than it was earlier in the afternoon. I think we went in the right direction. I would have liked an extra set of tires, we were running on a qualifying set, but P5, that’s exactly what we needed to do this weekend.”
SEE: Snap-On Makers and Fixers 250 Results
Palou clinches fifth IndyCar title
Alex Palou (photo below) once again made history, clinching his fifth IndyCar championship and fourth overall. The Spaniard was able to seal the championship by leaving Sunday evening’s race in Milwaukee with a 100-point gap to second place Christian Lundgaard.
Palou and the rest of the No.10 crew at Chip Ganassi Racing are continuing to build on years of success, all stemming from one interaction between Chip Ganassi and Palou at the Indianapolis 500 in 2020. Palou, a free agent going into 2021, went up to Ganassi and introduced himself, just hoping he would make a good impression on the legendary team owner. That interaction paid off, with Palou being signed to drive the No.10 in 2021 and the rest became history, but for Ganassi, he could never have imagined the relationship blossoming into what it is now.
“You know, no, you couldn’t,” Ganassi said. “Sure, you dream about those kind of things, you think about it. You would, like I said, I said this many times, you wouldn’t dare tell someone you were thinking that. They would think, like our old pal Robin [Miller], he would think I’d be gloating or something if I were to say that.”
For Palou, it was hard to put into words what a fifth title means, but enjoys having fun with the group around him. “I can’t. It’s very tough,” Palou said. “It’s tough to put into words. Everything that I owe to this team, to these two mens sitting next to me, that they give me the opportunity to be not only a race winner, then a champion, now a five-time champion. It’s been incredible. I just feel like we just started yesterday. It just feels like we started yesterday. We’re just getting closer and closer. We’re having more fun and more fun each day. It’s been an absolute joy of a year. The last two years have been just magical for us.”