2026 Good Ranchers 250

Live television coverage of the race in the United States began at 1:00 PM Mountain Time (UTC−07:00) and was aired on Fox. Play-by-play commentary was provided by Will Buxton, with analysis from former IndyCar Series drivers Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe and NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano.^[16][31] As other cars drove off pit road to commence their warm-up laps, Grosjean's car was pushed to its pit box with a clutch issue, forcing him to retire without completing any laps.^[32][33] Malukas maintained his pole position advantage at the start, while Palou made his way to fourth place and Schumacher dropped to 11th by the fourth lap.^[32] Malukas held a lead of almost two seconds over Newgarden when on the tenth lap, Hauger, who had improved to 16th, spun backwards on the back stretch and barely avoiding hitting the inside wall, prompting the first caution flag of the race.^[33][34]

Most of the drivers in the latter half of the field made pit stops under the caution period.^[32] Rasmussen, Simpson, Ferrucci, and Rosenqvist were sent to the rear of the field by IndyCar officials for improperly entering their pit stalls.^[35] Malukas led the field back to speed at the lap-20 restart, followed by Newgarden, Rossi, Palou, and VeeKay.^[32] Palou was overtaken by Rahal in the third turn, but as VeeKay attempted to make a pass, Palou's car drifted up the track and collided with VeeKay, sending them both into the outside wall on the front stretch;^[36] the second caution flag was flown on lap 21 as a result.^[35] Palou sustained enough suspension damage for him to step out of his car and exit the race.^[37] After green-flag racing resumed on the 30th lap, Malukas pulled away from the rest of the field, gaining a 0.9-second advantage over Newgarden by lap 55. Meanwhile, Rasmussen used the outside line to pass numerous drivers during the green-flag stint, advancing as high as fifth place by the 62nd lap.^[32]

The first cycle of green-flag pit stops began with O'Ward on lap 68. After Rasmussen passed Rahal for fourth, the top three drivers conceded their positions to make stops, allowing Rasmussen to assume the lead on lap 73.^[32] Malukas' right-rear tire made slight contact with McLaughlin's left-front tire as the former merged back onto the circuit.^[31] Four laps later, Rasmussen gave up the lead to Armstrong, who himself pitted on the 85th lap and handed the first position to Dixon for eleven laps.^[35] Hauger was among the last to make a stop during the cycle, giving up the lead to O'Ward on lap 98. Rasmussen charged by Malukas on the inside line in the first turn to take third place that same lap, and made a similar maneuver to pass McLaughlin for the second position two laps later. O'Ward's lead of three seconds was quickly diminished by Rasmussen, who drove to the right-hand side of O'Ward to take the lead on lap 108.^[31][32][34]

Rasmussen's ECR teammate Rossi kicked off the second round of green-flag stops on the 113th lap. Rasmussen pitted 13 laps later, and Newgarden and Malukas both led one lap each before their stops. After rejoining the track, Rasmussen overtook O'Ward for sixth place on the 132nd lap and reclaimed the lead four laps later as all of the top five drivers, including leader Lundgaard, pitted for tires and fuel.^[32][35] On lap 142, Foster's car understeered and brushed the wall on the front stretch, bringing out the race's third caution flag.^[38] Dixon won the race off of pit road and resultantly gained the third position, behind Andretti Global teammates Kirkwood and Power, both of whom did not pit. Rasmussen was dropped to fourth at the lap-155 restart, but quickly made a move on the inside to try to pass Dixon which failed. He finally got by Dixon on the 173rd lap and overtook Power for the second position seven laps later.^[32] On lap 187, Rossi was the first to pit once again for the third round of green-flag pit stops.^[31] Rasmussen took the lead from Kirkwood on the 191st lap and maintained it for the next two laps until he made his final stop.^[32]

After Hauger led two laps and dove into pit road on lap 195,^[35] Ericsson was given the lead until Power passed him in turn two on the 197th lap.^[31] By lap 201, Rasmussen had overtaken Kirkwood and O'Ward and set his sights on retaking the lead.^[32] Power successfully fended off Rasmussen's attempts to pass him until lap 207,^[35] when Rasmussen drove up the track with enough momentum to pass Power in the second corner. Power, however, squeezed Rasmussen into the wall, which ricocheted Rasmussen into Power and caused the former's front wing to cut down the latter's right-rear tire.^[34][39] Although Rasmussen suspected his car was damaged to some extent, he elected not to pit—unlike O'Ward, Newgarden, McLaughlin, and other drivers—and led at the restart on lap 218, with Kirkwood, Malukas, Dixon, and Armstrong rounding out the top-five.^[32]

O'Ward and Newgarden's fresh tires gave them an advantage over the drivers ahead of them, as they both improved from ninth and tenth to fourth and fifth, respectively, by lap 225.^[31][34] Fourteen laps later, Newgarden got by O'Ward for fourth place.^[32] Meanwhile, the battle for the lead between Rasmussen and Kirkwood ended on lap 242,^[35] when Rasmussen's ill-handling car slid into the wall at the exit of turn two, allowing Kirkwood to slip by for the lead. As Rasmussen gradually fell in the running order, Newgarden took second place and got around Kirkwood for the lead on the 244th lap.^[32] He then led the final seven laps and earned his first win of the season and 33rd career victory, 1.7937 seconds ahead of Kirkwood.^[40] Malukas, O'Ward, Armstrong, Rossi, Dixon, McLaughlin, Rahal, and Simpson rounded out the top ten; the remaining classified finishers were Ferrucci, Rosenqvist, Lundgaard, Rasmussen, Hauger, Power, Ericsson, Schumacher, Collet, Siegel, Ray Robb, and VeeKay.^[35] Nine different drivers exchanged the lead 18 times during the course of the race. Malukas led two times for 73 total laps, the most of any driver, while winner Newgarden only led eight laps.^[41]

Newgarden appeared on the podium with Kirkwood and Malukas to celebrate their respective finishes.^[31] Newgarden was pleased and admitted he initially did not believe that he had winning pace, stating: "I’m just very surprised. I mean, look, we, it’s only been a race since we haven’t won, so it’s not like it’s been a while, but I just, in the middle of the race, I don’t know that I was fully believing that we had the capability to win. and we just we kept working through it and I’m like, look, if we get another opportunity, we’re going be on the aggressive side, we’re going to be on the offense." He thanked his pit crew for supplying him with new tires.^[42] Kirkwood revealed that he and his team were debating on whether to pit or not during the last caution, but ultimately decided that staying on-track was "the right thing to do at the time.”^[40] He was still happy with the result and hoped to carry his momentum for the rest of the season.^[43] Malukas congratulated Newgarden on his win and felt that he was "fighting" his car all day, as it only handled well when the tires were worn out.^[44]

Rasmussen was left chagrined with his 14th-place finish and blamed Power for taking him out of contention for the win during his interview on the Fox broadcast: "You can’t just run people into the wall, which is what happened. He ran me straight into the wall, (and) after that I had damage. [...] “So frustrating because we should have won the race today and obviously didn't."^[39][45] Power was later seen apologizing to Rasmussen and ECR team owner Ed Carpenter, but Rasmussen maintained his stance and told Power that "he knows what he can expect if he’s on my outside."^[46] Palou said of his lap-21 accident: "(I) need to see if there was really that space or not, but yeah, unfortunate that we ended up in the wall so early and not even trying, but it's racing."^[36] Through radio communications with his team, VeeKay opined that Palou "drove up on me."^[36] After the race, he expressed disappointment with his finish, but looked forward to the forthcoming Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.^[47]

The race featured 565 passes, 323 of which were completed on-track, 145 were for the top ten positions, and 60 were for drivers within the top-five, all of which were record-highs for the IndyCar Series at Phoenix.^[48] The race and the doubleheader weekend with NASCAR was lauded by many journalists. Archie O'Reilly of DiveBomb believed that the multi-lane racing, numerous strategies, and the compound of Firestone's tires is what attributed to the excitement of the event.^[49] Racer's Marshall Pruett wrote: "It felt so refreshing to see a bold experiment like this work and exceed all expectations. It needs to continue."^[50] The race's Fox broadcast earned an average of 1,247,000 viewers, a 77% increase from the second round of the 2025 season, the Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix, and a 391% increase from the last IndyCar Series race at Phoenix in 2018, which aired on NBCSN.^[51]

The final result gave Newgarden the Drivers' Championship lead with 78 points; Kirkwood advanced to second, five points behind Newgarden, while McLaughlin's 66 points dropped him to third. O'Ward, on 63 points, and Palou, on 59, were fourth and fifth, respectively, with 16 races remaining in the season.^[41] This was the first time since the 2024 XPEL Grand Prix at Road America, 29 races ago, that Palou did not lead the championship.^[52]

Final race results

Pos.	No.	Driver	Team	Engine	Laps	Time/Retired	Pit Stops	Grid	Laps Led	Points1
1	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250	1:51:14.4657	5	2	8	51
2	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global	Honda	250	1:51:16.2594	3	11	47	41
3	12	David Malukas	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250	1:51:17.3069	4	1	73	39
4	5	Pato O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	250	1:51:18.3975	5	7	10	33
5	66	Marcus Armstrong	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	250	1:51:20.9472	3	13	8	31
6	20	Alexander Rossi	ECR	Chevrolet	250	1:51:21.7568	6	6	–	28
7	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	250	1:51:22.6304	4	15	12	27
8	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250	1:51:24.3443	5	5	–	24
9	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	250	1:51:24.9347	5	3	–	22
10	8	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	250	1:51:26.5963	5	19	–	20
11	14	Santino Ferrucci	A. J. Foyt Racing	Chevrolet	250	1:51:31.3017	5	21	–	19
12	60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	250	1:51:31.6796	4	24	–	18
13	7	Christian Lundgaard	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	250	1:51:32.1241	5	17	8	18
14	21	Christian Rasmussen	ECR	Chevrolet	250	1:51:32.7519	5	18	69	17
15	19	Dennis Hauger	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	250	1:51:33.4397	4	22	3	16
16	26	Will Power	Andretti Global	Honda	249	1:51:33.1071	4	25	10	15
17	28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	Honda	249	1:51:34.0977	4	14	2	14
18	47	Mick Schumacher	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	248	1:51:34.9878	3	4	–	12
19	4	Caio Collet	A. J. Foyt Racing	Chevrolet	248	1:51:36.1321	3	23	–	11
20	6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	247	1:51:35.3306	5	9	–	10
21	77	Sting Ray Robb	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Chevrolet	246	1:51:36.8855	4	12	–	9
22	76	Rinus VeeKay	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Chevrolet	245	1:51:32.6567	4	8	–	8
23	45	Louis Foster	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	140	Contact	2	16	–	7
24	10	Álex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	21	Contact	0	10	–	6
25	18	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	0	Mechanical	–	20	–	5
Fastest lap: Will Power (Andretti Global) – 21.8686 (Lap 192)
Sources:[35][41]

Notes

• ^1 – Includes one bonus point for leading a lap, one bonus point for qualifying on the pole position, and two bonus points for leading the most laps.^[23]

Drivers' Championship standings Pos. Driver Points 6 1 Josef Newgarden 78 2 2 Kyle Kirkwood 73 1 3 Scott McLaughlin 66 1 4 Pato O'Ward 63 4 5 Álex Palou 59 Sources:[35][41]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included.