Indycar season finale preview

17 races and a multitude of storylines all come down to one weekend.

The quest for the 2024 NTT Indycar Series title concludes this Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.

The final race was originally supposed to be held on the reconfigured Nashville Street Course, but construction plans on nearby Nissan Stadium scrapped the plan entirely.

Three drivers enter with a shot at the Astor Cup. Fifty points separate the top three with 54 points up for grabs this weekend.

New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin sits third in points, 50 behind the leader. The Team Penske driver has three wins on the season, including one at the last round at the Milwaukee Mile, but his season was hindered by a disqualification at the first race in St. Petersburg.

McLaughlin’s teammate, Will Power, is second in the standings, 33 points out of first place. The Australian is one of three drivers to have previously raced on Nashville Superspeedway before. He joins Scott Dixon and Graham Rahal as the only active drivers to compete on the Lebanon, Tenn. track when Indycar last raced there in 2008.

The points leader is Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou. The Spanish driver seeks to clinch back-to-back Indycar titles and his third in four years. Palou has been in control of the championship for most of the summer, once again flashing his incredible consistency that has put him in championship contention year after year.

The driver of the No. 10 had a scare in the second Milwaukee race, where a battery failure relegated him to a 19th-place finish. However, a spin from Will Power and a strategy call that put him a lap down helped cushion the blow from the poor result.

In terms of the Rookie of the Year battle, Chip Ganassi’s Linus Lundqvist. The highlights of the Swedish driver’s first full-time season include a podium at Barber Motorsports Park and a pole position start at Road America.

For this weekend’s finale, Nashville looks to offer an unpredictable race to crown a champion. Indycar made the decision to allocate alternate tires for the event and the short oval package will be used on the 1.3 mile circuit.

The 2024 Indycar season has seen plenty of action throughout. Six different drivers and four different teams took victory this year. The Indianapolis 500 came down to a last-lap pass, where Josef Newgarden became the first driver in 22 years to win the 500 in consecutive seasons.

Nashville will also be the final race with their respective teams for several high-profile drivers such as Christian Lundgaard, Alexander Rossi and David Malukas.

The 206-lap dash for the Astor Cup is on Sunday, Sep. 15 at 3 p.m. EST on NBC.

Jack Rachinsky is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jjr6682@psu.edu.