Inside The Garage: Did Pato O’Ward Wins, Milwaukee Podiums Indicate Who’s Next?

The Milwaukee Mile (Milwaukee, Wisc.) — Two simultaneous celebrations erupted on Sunday night. Was it a sign of things to come? Pato O’Ward stood in Victory Lane as the winner of two races in one day. It was a rare feat because rarely does INDYCAR stage two races in a weekend — let alone one day. Alex Palou stood in his pit stall, standing tall, wearing a hat that commemorated his fifth INDYCAR title. Who will stop Palou? Did Milwaukee offer any signs? Thanks to rain, a suspended Saturday race was completed Sunday and O’Ward swept both races for a glorious day in a season that has been anything but glorious for him. David Malukas — who still seeks his first win after three second-place finishes and a total of five podiums this year — again showed he is a threat. Christian Lundgaard, whose oval performance has been his weakest among the three disciplines (ovals, road courses, street courses) placed third and fifth in the two races to pass Kyle Kirkwood for second in the standings. Rinus VeeKay finished third in the finale. Scott McLaughlin, the only driver over age 27 in the bunch, posted a second and a fourth. Are these young drivers coming for Palou, who himself is only 29 years old? Or was Milwaukee just a tease because it was a weekend where Palou could play it safe? Especially considering the season finale this upcoming weekend at Laguna Seca would’ve wrapped up his fourth consecutive title and fifth in six years had it not happened in Milwaukee. “If I keep doing that every race, for sure he’s got no chance,” O’Ward said in his post-race news conference. “I’ll tell him, ‘Enjoy looking at my rear wing.’ But right now I’ve been looking at his.” To O’Ward, it’s apparent what Palou and his Chip Ganassi Racing team are doing. “They deliver and they execute,” the Arrow McLaren driver said. “He doesn’t have the best car everywhere. Like, the guy also does some pretty magical things in it. He’s obviously human. He will make mistakes just like we all do. “But the amount of times that he does make mistakes, he could always back it up with a win. Those are truly the times that give you the faults of having an issue or having a crash or whatever.” O’Ward was the one who challenged Palou late into the 2025 season. This season, he got three podium finishes (all wins) in the 17 races. “The whole year just been waiting, waiting, waiting,” O’Ward said. “It just never kind of came to us and just kept slipping here and there. … I’d love to end [the year strong] and kind of just pick it back up because the rest of the year, I felt a little bit of a lost puppy really.” A teammate of O’Ward has overshadowed him much of the season. Lundgaard has won two road course races and still won’t return to the team, which opted to hire six-time champ Scott Dixon and Indianapolis 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist. Lundgaard is expected to replace Dixon at Chip Ganassi Racing next year. “Christian also did a fantastic job,” said Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan, who made the choice to release Lundgaard at the end of the year. “That’s why we’ve been working with him for whole year. I think he broke through. Hopefully, that will be something he will carry on. That’s all he needed, to get some help, I guess. “People either will make fun of me or we’re going to go battle the next whole year.” Lundgaard has refused to say he is using his release as motivation on the ovals, that he’s fighting for second in the standings and that is his goal. He’s a competitor and wants to finish as high as he can. As he sat next to McLaughlin at a post-race news conference, McLaughlin turned to him and said: “Pretty decent oval driver.” McLaughlin is the driver many thought could be a potential challenger to Palou a few years ago. A three-time Australian Supercars champion, McLaughlin moved to INDYCAR and showed great promise. He has seven career victories but none since Milwaukee in 2024, which is a stretch of 35 races. “I just want to win,” he said. “I just want to drive hard.” Instead of the 33-year-old McLaughlin, it’s been his 24-year-old teammate David Malukas who has come the closest to winning this year, barely missing out on an Indianapolis 500 win. He had disappointment over an engine hiccup on a restart that allowed O’Ward to slip by him in what turned out to be the eventual winning move late in the Milwaukee finale. Malukas is a few years younger than the 27-year-olds of O’Ward and Kirkwood (the two drivers who have appeared closest to Palou in recent years), and all seem to have great potential. “David did a phenomenal job,” O’Ward said. “No one was going to catch him. He was doing such a great job through traffic. He was on fire. “I told him, ‘Man, this story is just about beginning’ for him. He’s in a fantastic team. He’s an amazing driver. He’s great on and off the track.” O’Ward and Malukas are the two drivers who arguably have embraced social media the most with their outgoing personalities and having grown up more with a phone in their hands, cultivating big social media followings. In his post-race news conference, O’Ward talked about an Instagram content dump he was planning. You can do that after a couple of wins. Maybe the Mexican driver found something this weekend that he can build on to eventually catch Palou. Or maybe it was just a blip on the screen and he’ll find himself in a position looking at Palou’s rear wing next year. “That 10 car [of Palou] as been unbelievable,” O’Ward said. “Must be nice. One day we’ll get there. One deal we’ll be there. It will be soon.” In The News — The Milwaukee Mile and INDYCAR have reached an agreement for a race (or a doubleheader) to be held at the track in each of the next five years. — Several O’Reilly Series teams announced drivers for next season: Carson Brown and Chandler Smith will drive the Richard Childres Racing cars; Daniel Dye will join Jordan Anderson Racing to drive the No. 32; Lee Pulliam will join Peterson Racing to drive the No. 87; Carson Kvapil will remain at JR Motorsports and drive the No. 8; and Brandon Jones is remaining at Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 20. Also, Sammy Smith announced he wouldn’t return to JRM next season. Perfect Paint Picture This Movie Time The “Days of Thunder” sequel was announced Saturday at Daytona, with actor Tom Cruise addressing the drivers during their pre-race meeting. Cruise and Anne Hathaway appeared in a video posted by NASCAR and Paramount Pictures. Clinched These drivers clinched spots at the Cup and O’Reilly regular-season finales at Daytona: Cup: Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece clinched spots in The Chase. O’Reilly: Parker Retzlaff, Sam Mayer, Taylor Gray and Rajah Caruth clinched spots in The Chase. They Said It “Whenever the other sequences started, the yellows started coming out, restarts, I was like, ‘Don’t forget about your two old pals in between your legs, let’s get this show on the road.'”— Pato O’Ward