Rest up, friends. The NTT INDYCAR SERIES is about to engage high gear.

Beginning with this weekend’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst at Barber Motorsports Park, cars will be on track 14 of the next 18 weekends as teams chase race wins and the prestigious Astor Challenge Cup. Fourteen races will be contested in that span, plus Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge qualifying.

SEE: Event Details

This month is particularly busy, with track activity on 16 of the 30 days. After this weekend’s race in Birmingham, Alabama, the action heats up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the Sonsio Grand Prix on Saturday, May 10 and the 109th Running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on Sunday, May 25. Capping the month is practice and qualifying for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear, a 100-lap street race Sunday, June 1.

This weekend’s event opens with Friday’s practice at 3:30 p.m. ET (FS2, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). Saturday’s schedule has the weekend’s second practice at 11:30 a.m. (FS1, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network) and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 2:30 p.m. ET (FS1, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix airs at 1:30 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network).

McLaughlin: Barber’s Latest King

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES has staged races at Barber Motorsports Park since 2010, and a common thread is the two-year occupancy drivers have had in victory lane.

Initially, it was Will Power with command, winning the 2011 and 2012 races. Then Ryan Hunter-Reay won two in succession (2013, 2014). Josef Newgarden conquered the events in 2017 and 2018. Scott McLaughlin is the latest double winner.

McLaughlin’s win last year was particularly impressive. He led 58 of the 90 laps, controlling the first 27 laps as the pole winner. A late caution brought Power and his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet closer to the front, but McLaughlin held him off by 1.3194 seconds for the first of his three wins during the season.

A return to Barber Motorsports Park could be what juices McLaughlin’s season. Since winning the pole for the year’s first race, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding, the driver of the No. 3 Good Ranchers Team Penske Chevrolet has finished races in the fourth, 27th and sixth positions. He is eighth in the standings and can’t afford to have series leader Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing get too far ahead of him. McLaughlin is 73 points in arrears.

Power Powerful at Barber

Power’s success at this 17-turn, 2.3-mile road course runs deeper than his two race wins. He also leads all drivers with four poles.

Power is one of three drivers to have competed in all 14 races at the track – Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon (No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal (No. 15 Hendrickson International Honda) are the others – and he has consistently strong. He has amassed 216 laps led at the track, pacing the field in nine different races. He has completed every lap in all but one race (he went off course midway through the 2018 event).

As for finishes, no driver can match Power’s productivity. He has 11 top-five finishes, including last year’s second-place effort. He finished second in 2021 and third in 2023.

Like McLaughlin, Power needs to start finishing ahead of Palou to have any chance at winning the season title. Power, who is bidding for his third series championship, is ninth in the standings, 79 points out of the lead.

Can Palou Remain at the Front?

Palou, whose No. 10 Honda features HRC sponsorship and a different, colorful livery this weekend, has started the season with race finishes of first, first and second to build a 34-point lead over his nearest championship contender, Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27 PreFab Honda). Those chasing the winner of the past two titles – and three of the past four – might not want to be reminded that many of Palou’s best tracks are coming up.

Of the next 11 venues on the schedule, Palou has won series races at seven of them, including two each on the IMS road course, Road America, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Portland International Raceway. He is also a former race winner at Barber Motorsports Park (2021), on the downtown street circuit in Detroit and at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and he was second in one of last year’s races at Iowa Speedway. He also seems overdue to win the Indianapolis 500 given his performances over the past four years (119 total laps led, average finish of 5.0).

Palou has been consistently strong in the races at Barber Motorsports Park, posting top-five results in each of the past four races. In succession, he has finished first, second and fifth twice, leading 72 laps in those starts.

Picking Pole Winner

There have been three races this season and three different drivers earning the top starting position. There are 15 drivers in this weekend’s 27-car field who have been No. 1 in qualifying at some point in their career in the series. Last year, eight drivers won a pole in this series.

Competition in qualifying never has been better on display than at Barber Motorsports Park, where the past nine races have seen poles from nine different drivers. Beginning with Helio Castroneves’ pole there in 2015, the top qualifier has been Simon Pagenaud, Power, Newgarden, Takuma Sato, Pato O’Ward, Rinus VeeKay, Romain Grosjean and McLaughlin. Will another driver make it 10 new faces clutching the NTT P1 Award?

Kirkwood, who won the pole (and the race) at Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, is a strong possibility. So is Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who has qualified in the top four in three of his past four starts in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda. Another one to watch is Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard, who qualified second in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet in the most recent race on a permanent road course, in March at The Thermal Club. Lundgaard and Rosenqvist are third and fourth in the standings, respectively.

Rosenqvist Joining the No. 100 Club

This is scheduled to be the 100th career start for Rosenqvist, whose first NTT INDYCAR SERIES race was the 2019 event at St. Petersburg, Florida. He finished fourth in that race.

Rosenqvist will become the eighth driver in this weekend’s 27-driver field to reach 100 starts. Dixon leads the way at 405 starts, and he can break Mario Andretti’s all-time record as early as the “500.” Power has made 305 starts.

Rahal has 295 starts and can achieve 300 in next month’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline at World Wide Technology Raceway. Newgarden has made 218 starts, Alexander Rossi (No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet) stands at 150 starts and Conor Daly (No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet) is at 118 starts. Colton Herta of Andretti Global w/Curb-Agajanian has made 102 starts after earning No. 100 in this year’s season-opening race.