Honda showed up to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with both championships already in the trophy case. What’s left to sort out Sunday is everything beneath the top line, and that list is longer than a typical season-closer.
Alex Palou locked up his fifth IndyCar title in six years at Milwaukee two weeks ago, his fourth in a row. At 29 years old, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver sits third on the all-time champions list. Honda took the manufacturers’ crown with him, its 12th overall, arriving 30 years after the company’s first in 1996. The season behind those titles is not a narrow one: 10 wins, 13 pole positions across 17 races, with Palou personally responsible for six of those victories.
None of that settled the battle for second place in the drivers’ standings. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood enters Laguna Seca third in points, sitting just two behind the driver ahead of him. Kirkwood won twice in 2026, at the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington and the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC, two of the three inaugural races on the calendar this year. He has also posted 14 top-10 finishes in 17 starts. A strong result Sunday could deliver him the best championship finish of his IndyCar career.
Then there is the street circuit story, which deserves its own mention. Honda swept all six street circuit events in 2026, claimed 15 of 18 possible podium positions on those tracks, and led more than 90 percent of street circuit laps. All five Honda-powered teams led laps and earned at least one podium on the streets this year. That kind of blanket dominance on a single track type is unusual even for a championship-winning season.
Laguna Seca adds a different wrinkle. Honda has won every NTT IndyCar Series race at WeatherTech Raceway since the series returned to the circuit in 2019. Palou owns three of those wins (2022, 2024, 2025), Colton Herta took two (2019, 2021), and Scott Dixon won there in 2023. A seventh consecutive Honda victory Sunday would extend a streak that already covers the entire modern era of IndyCar at this track.
The Rookie of the Year fight is the third thread running into Sunday. Dale Coyne Racing’s Dennis Hauger leads Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Mick Schumacher 223 to 205 points, with a third driver also still eligible for the honor. Honda-powered rookies have won 12 of the 14 Rookie of the Year titles since multi-manufacturer competition returned in 2012. Both Hauger and Schumacher are chasing what would be Honda’s fifth consecutive rookie title.
The weekend carries a ceremonial layer as well. Palou will run a tribute livery honoring Alex Zanardi, the Italian driver who won the 1997 and 1998 IndyCar championships with Chip Ganassi Racing and Honda and scored the brand’s first victory at Laguna Seca in 1996 with the move that became simply known as The Pass. Zanardi’s teammate Jimmy Vasser won at Laguna in 1997, and Helio Castroneves led a Honda 1-2-3 sweep there in 2000. The track and the brand have history that predates the current win streak by decades.
Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing rounds out the season’s signature moments for Honda, having scored the brand’s 17th Indianapolis 500 victory in May. That win, plus the street circuit sweep, plus back-to-back manufacturers’ and drivers’ titles, gives Honda a 2026 résumé that will be difficult to argue with regardless of what happens in the final 85 laps Sunday.
Coverage starts at 11:30 AM PT on Fox. The streak, the second-place fight, and Hauger versus Schumacher all get resolved in the same afternoon.
Source: Honda. Images courtesy of Honda.
