A United States appeals court on Thursday vacated a preliminary injunction that allowed Michael Jordan's 23XI Racing and another NASCAR team to be treated as chartered teams, putting the teams' futures in NASCAR in question.

• 23XI Racing -- whose owners include Jordan and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin -- and Front Row Motorsports refused to sign a take-it-or-leave-it charter agreement NASCAR presented in September, while the other 13 organizations in the Cup Series proceeded to sign.

  The two holdouts filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR the following month. In December, U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell granted the teams' request for a preliminary injunction to be recognized as chartered teams while their lawsuit was active.

  NASCAR slammed that decision and brought an appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. On Thursday, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled in NASCAR's favor and vacated the preliminary injunction.

  "In short, because we have found no support for the proposition that a business entity or person violates the antitrust laws by requiring a prospective participant to give a release for past conduct as a condition for doing business, we cannot conclude that the plaintiffs made a clear showing that they were likely to succeed on the merits of that theory," the decision read in part. "And without satisfaction of the likelihood-of-success element, the plaintiffs were not entitled to a preliminary injunction. ... We therefore conclude that the district court abused its discretion in entering the preliminary injunction that it did."

  23XI Racing and Front Row are still allowed to compete in the Cup Series, but having charter status guarantees them automatic spots in races and they would earn more money with a charter than as "open" teams. An open team must qualify their way into each race.

  They can also file for a petition for rehearing.

  --Field Level Media

At his current pace, Alex Palou might turn the season finale in Nashville into a championship celebration by clinching his fourth title in five years prior to the Music City Grand Prix in Tennessee on Labor Day Weekend.

• Sponsors and Indy Car officials understand the reality of the circumstance, with Palou potentially wrapping up a championship in Portland.

  "I think we need to celebrate what Alex is doing," said Scott Borchetta, founder of the race's title sponsor Big Machine and Borchetta Bourbon. "This is Michael Schumacher time. This is (Ayrton) Senna time. This is Jeff Gordon time. So if he has to clinch in Portland, which is possible, we've got to make sure people come and see one of the greatest of all time. This guy is on the precipice of four championships in five years. You just put the biggest crown jewel in that crown, and you don't want to miss this guy. He's just a little bit better than everybody else.

  "... Yeah, he probably will clinch, so we're already prepared for that. You don't want to miss it. It's still going to be a showdown. It's still the battle of Music City. You've still got to see this race."

  President of the Music City Grand Prix Anne Fischgrund said Borchetta turned over management of the September race to Penske Entertainment with future plans for the race to return downtown from the oval at Nashville Superspeedway as soon as 2027.

  "I can tell you there's a lot of interest in the race returning downtown. The mayor is absolutely in favor of it," Fischgrund said. "There's a lot of development going on, not just the stadium but we refer to that part of Nashville as the East Bank, and there's a huge development happening all across that area in the East Bank.

  "So what we're trying to do is have conversations to build it into the infrastructure. If we do this right -- the vision has always been, let's be the Monaco of the south. So we've got a lot of work to do, but the conversations are ongoing, and that's my hope."

  --Field Level Media

Max Verstappen admitted Monday that his controversial collision with George Russell in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix was "not right and shouldn't have happened."

• Verstappen, the four-time defending Formula 1 champion, stopped short of apologizing for the incident that earned him a 10-second penalty and dropped him to 10th place in Barcelona.

  Late in the race, Verstappen initially objected to his Red Bull Racing team's order to allow Mercedes' Russell to swap positions after a tire change. After allowing Russell to pass, Verstappen accelerated heading into a turn and caused a collision.

  Race stewards deemed Verstappen was entirely at fault, penalized him 10 seconds and also added three penalty points to his super license. The 27-year-old Dutch driver now has 11 points, one short of the maximum allowed in a 12-month period before warranting an automatic one-race suspension.

  Russell agreed with the stewards' decision, calling Verstappen's move was "very deliberate."

  "It's something that I've seen numerous times in sim racing and on iRacing. Never have I seen it in a Formula 1 race," Russell told reporters post-race.

  Verstappen, who crossed the finish line fifth prior to receiving the penalty, issued his comments on Monday on Instagram.

  "Some moves after the safety car restart fueled my frustration, leading to a move that was not right and shouldn't have happened," he wrote. "I always give everything out there for the team and emotions can run high. You win some together, you lose some together. See you in Montreal (the next race)."

  Oscar Piastri won Sunday's race with McLaren teammate Lando Norris finishing second and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc third.

  --Field Level Media

Max Verstappen had plenty to be upset about by the time the Spanish Grand Prix was in the books Sunday, but the long-term implications of the outcome could be particularly problematic for the 65-time Grand Prix winner.

• The Red Bull racer experienced poor luck when his team's decision to go for a third pit stop was interrupted by a caution situation, allowing his competitors to make an unscheduled stop of their own.

  Verstappen was passed by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc on the restart, and the Dutch racer then battled with Mercedes' George Russell, with the pair colliding twice.

  Verstappen was penalized 10 seconds, plummeting him to 10th place. The McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris managed to parlay that situation into a 1-2 finish.

  But the situation could have longer lasting consequences, as Verstappen was assessed three penalty points in the wake of the race, putting him at 11 points over the last 12 months.

  A race ban is instituted if a racer collects 12 points over a year-long period.

  Verstappen, who captured the checkered flag at the 2025 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on May 18, did not want to address the penalty situation after the race.

  "Does it matter?" he asked. "Yeah, okay, that's great. I prefer to speak about the race, not just one single moment."

  Being assessed a penalty point at the next race in Canada on June 15 would kickstart the ban, which would keep Verstappen from racing June 29 at the Austrian Grand Prix.

  Two of his penalty points, from last year's Austria race, are set to expire on June 30.

  Russell called into question Verstappen's maneuvers following the outcome Sunday.

  "It's down to the stewards to decide if it was deliberate or not, Max is such an amazing driver, so many people look up to him, it seems completely unnecessary," Russell said. "I don't know what's going through his mind, it felt deliberate in the moment, it felt surprising."

  Verstappen currently sits in third place in the F1 standings with 137 points, 49 points behind leader Piastri. Norris (176) is in second place.

  --Field Level Media

Last week's Coca-Cola 600 race winner Ross Chastain arrived for his Nashville Superspeedway press conference Saturday still wearing a smile -- and his winner's ring -- from last Sunday's victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

• The 32-year-old Floridian turned in one of the most dramatic wins in recent history in the sport's longest race, rallying from last place on the grid (40th) to Victory Lane. Chastain beamed acknowledging the ring on his finger, and said it was purposeful -- providing continued motivation in a season that he hopes kicks into gear now at the official midpoint of the regular-season calendar and at a track where he's won before (2023).

  "We have a ‘first win' ring that we had made at Trackhouse from COTA," Chastain said of his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at the Austin, Texas, road course.

  "(Former team owner) Matt Kaulig had win rings made from Daytona in the Xfinity series and now this one. It's a pretty cool collection. I'm not a big ring guy. I'm not a jewelry guy. But these just have so much meaning in it. It says ‘Champion' and it says, ‘Coca-Cola 600 2025.'

  "Definitely going to take it off now for practice," he continued. "But it has been motivation this week because this week was a grind. And sometimes I just had to touch the ring and be like -- OK, smile, go to the next thing, make the next flight, get home, like all the stuff."

  With the victory, Chastain has now earned his entry into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. It marked only the third top-five showing of the season for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet team, but the second in three races after Chastain's runner-up effort in Texas. The win moves Chastain up to eighth place in the championship standings, one of eight drivers with a victory through the first 13 races.

  --Ranked fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, Chase Elliott has certainly established himself best among those drivers without a win. But for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, that is not enough.

  Two of his Hendrick teammates, William Byron and Kyle Larson, are leading the rankings. Consistency has certainly been key to Elliott's season with seven top-10 and three top-five finishes through the opening 13 races. His best effort has been fourth place -- at both COTA and Martinsville.

  He has been particularly good at this week's Nashville concrete 1.33-miler winning the race in 2022 and scoring a fourth-place finish there in 2023. Looking ahead to next week at Michigan, Elliott has an impressive 10 top-10 finishes -- including three runner-up efforts -- in 14 starts.

  "I thought we had a really good car last week at Charlotte," Elliott said. "I think it's a product of a lot of hard work and just a collective effort of trying to make some improvement. That's always the goal, just keep chipping away. I think the team is in a really good spot."

  Elliott knows he's in a good place points standings-wise, but the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion and perennial Most Popular Driver isn't satisfied with "pointing" his way into a title run. His last victory came a year ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

  "Certainly better to be in that position than on the other side of the fence, no doubt," Elliott said of his points position. "But I'd be lying if I said that was my top focus. It's just not. I think that if you're worried about barely getting into the playoffs, I think you have some work to do.

  "It really is kind of the best way I can think about that. And just to talk about my thought process, I want to be better than that. I want to be in the group of people of how many playoff points do you have, not just barely getting in. Our expectations and goals are above that, and we hope that we can achieve all of our goals."

  --Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing owner and driver Brad Keselowski is fresh off his best finish of the year in the No. 6 Ford Mustang -- a fifth place run at Charlotte, where his five laps out front marked the first laps he's led this season.

  Amazingly, the effort was the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion's best work since an 11th-place showing at Las Vegas in March. While he didn't celebrate in victory lane, he got a lot closer and that is something he hopes his team can build off.

  "Just trying not to do too much, we're hitting our stride as an organization particularly with the six-team," said Keselowski, who is ranked 32nd in the championship standings and hoping to earn a Playoff berth with a victory. His last win came last spring at Darlington, S.C.

  "The cars are developing more speed. Our execution's getting better. It's an exciting time for us outside of looking where we are in the points standings. We need to build off of that and incrementally inch our way toward being able to win and I think we're really close to that right now.

  "Last week was a really positive moment for us. The last run of the race we passed at least a half dozen cars and ran the fastest laps and did all the things that make you feel like you can go win."

  Keselowski has never scored a top 10 at Nashville in four NASCAR Cup Series starts at the track. He heads next week to his home state, Michigan, where he has 15 top-10 finishes in 27 starts, including three runner-up finishes. He has finished top-10 in three of the last four races there.

  "Last year, I don't think we had as much pace but were getting good finishes," he added. "We have more potential now but didn't have the execution we had last year. I'm just eager to get the execution to match the potential."

  --Ty Dillon's grandfather Richard Childress was a longtime dear friend and championship car owner for the late, NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Sr. When asked if Dillon had watched any of the well-received and recently released Amazon Prime documentary "Earnhardt," he conceded he hasn't had a chance yet, but smiled recalling some fond memories he shared with the great champion.

  "I was very young at that time, but I just knew Dale (Earnhardt Sr.) from my perspective as a guy that when we were little and we were at the racetrack, he would come and bug my brother (Austin) and I, whether it was pinching us behind the neck or grabbing us as hard as he could to get our attention," Dillon said.

  "And we didn't really like that. We were kind of scared of him. But man, we grew up every weekend, and where Dale finished determined our week. We got pizza if Dale won, so that was a celebration in our house."

  Dillon, driver of the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, is making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Nashville since 2023 when he led four laps but finished 32nd. He is ranked 31st in the championship standings.

  "Just knowing that kind of perspective after being in sport as a driver myself was crazy," Dillon said of the Earnhardt docuseries. "But the impact (Earnhardt) had on my grandfather, my family, and everybody at RCR, and what that has become because of him and my grandfather's relationship, obviously means so much to myself and our family and everybody in sport.

  "He was a giant in our sport and a legend. It's just awesome that we continue to talk about him, and the documentary continues to bring his name to the light because he has done so much for what the sport is."

  --Ryan Truex will be trackside this weekend for Joe Gibbs Racing, ready to serve as a relief driver for Denny Hamlin should Hamlin's fiance, Jordan, go into labor with their third child.

  --By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.

Chase Briscoe claimed the Busch Light Pole Award for the second consecutive week and third time of the season Saturday, besting his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, by only 0.049 seconds in qualifying to earn the top starting position for Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Amazon Prime, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

• Briscoe was among the very last to take to the 1.33-mile concrete oval turning in a track-record lap of 164.395 mph in the No. 19 JGR Toyota. He and his teammate Hamlin -- a two-time Nashville pole winner -- will lead the field to green.

  Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron, the current NASCAR Cup Series championship leader in the No. 24 Chevrolet, and 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick in the No. 45 Toyota are one row behind.

  "I guess I just pushed my head farther forward as I was coming to the line," Briscoe joked of the tight margin between the teammates to decide pole position.

  "Honestly, I thought I ran a decent lap," Briscoe said. "Just a smooth lap, and sometimes that's what it takes. Obviously, a good Saturday for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota and, obviously, two weeks in a row we've been able to do that now, which is nice. Just need to put a Sunday together now.

  "Track position is going to be really, really big here tomorrow and that's the name of the game most every place we go, certainly at this place. So, hopefully, we can maintain track position and keep it up front all day long."

  Hamlin agreed about the significance of a good starting position.

  "Certainly going to be a track position-type race, and with very minimum (tire) falloff, even in practice I kept having to back up from the guys that I was catching." said Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 JGR Toyota. "Obviously, great job for our Progressive Toyota team to get us a good starting spot and pit stall.

  "I would have loved to have number one, but Chase just ruined that," he added smiling. "Really happy for the whole Joe Gibbs Racing team to get the whole front row there. I definitely think we can race from that spot."

  Reddick held the number one position on the speed chart for much of qualifying, only to be bested later by his team co-owner Hamlin, Briscoe, and Byron late in the session. Last year's regular-season champion, Reddick was fastest in practice in both single-lap speed and 10-lap average speed.

  Last week's Charlotte race winner Ross Chastain -- the 2023 Nashville winner -- was fifth-fastest in the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, followed by RFK Racing owner and driver Brad Keselowski, who set the fastest time among the Fords.

  Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell, Spire Motorsports' Michael McDowell, Team Penske's Joey Logano and RFK's Christopher Buescher rounded out the top 10 in qualifying.

  Former race winner Kyle Larson (2021) will start 28th and his Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott, the 2022 Nashville winner, will roll off 11th.

  --By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris captured the 1-2 spots in qualifying on Saturday for the Formula One 2025 Spanish Grand Prix, giving McLaren dominance in the front row.

• Piastri edged his teammate at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya by two-tenths of a second, the largest margin of the season, for the Sunday race.

  Max Verstappen of Red Bull qualified third, followed by George Russell of Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari and Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes.

  For Piastri, a four-time winner this season, this is his fourth pole.

  "It's going to be an interesting one tomorrow and I'm pretty glad I'm starting from pole," the 24-year-old Australian said. "It's obviously a long run to Turn 1, so [I've] got to make sure I try and get a good start tomorrow."

  "But I'm very proud of the work done today and I'm starting in the best spot, so I can't thank the team enough and hopefully we can have some fun tomorrow."

  Norris, of England, said his own errors led to his No. 2 position.

  "Oscar drove very well. I think the pace is definitely there, just a couple of little mistakes," Norris, 25, said.

  "I didn't do it, and Oscar, like I said, was driving well all weekend so a good result for the team, a nice 1-2 and an interesting start for tomorrow."

  Piastri leads the driver standings with 161 points, followed by Norris (158) and Verstappen (136).

  On the team side, McLaren has a huge advantage over Mercedes, 319 to 147 points.

  Norris will be looking for his second victory in a row, having won last week in Monte Carlo.

  --Field Level Media

As the NASCAR Cup Series moves to Tennessee for Sunday night's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, former series champion Brad Keselowski still was thinking about the just-completed visit to Charlotte.

• After battling late into last Sunday night in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the RFK Racing driver said he could have used more laps to score his first win of 2025.

  In Keselowski's estimation, 100 more miles would have helped to improve on a fifth-place finish that gave him his first top-10 result of 2025.

  "We got mixed up in some of the different stuff in the midpoint of the race and just clawed our way out," said Keselowski, who led five laps. "I feel like if we could have got to the lead, we could have won the race.

  "I wish it was a 700-mile race."

  The night got better for Keselowski as the race went longer, which is pretty much how the season has played out for the Rochester Hills, Mich., native.

  The first third of the season is far from what was expected from the No. 6 Ford.

  After the dust had settled in Kansas on May 11 and Kyle Larson had pulled into a tie with Christopher Bell for the series lead with three wins, Keselowski found himself in a wretched locale in the standings -- 33rd out of 36 drivers.

  He is currently in 32nd, just ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, Riley Herbst and Cole Custer. The trio slotting in front of Keselowski are Ty Dillon, Daniel Suarez and Justin Haley. It is far from the glory days for Keselowski, who won five races during his 2012 title year and six two years later.

  Since his four-victory showing during the shortened 2020 COVID season, he has won just twice in 157 races: Talladega in 2021, Darlington last May.

  In four career starts at Nashville, Keselowski has posted a best finish of 11th two seasons ago and was 25th last year, although he has won in support races.

  RFK Racing received good news this week when a portion of the penalty on the No. 17 Ford driven by Chris Buescher was rescinded.

  While crew chief Scott Graves has already served the two-race suspension for the front bumper cover infraction discovered at Kansas, the National Motorsports Appeals Panel reduced Buescher's 60-point penalty in half Wednesday, allowing the Texas driver to advance from 23rd to 16th in the standings.

  Toyota driver Chase Briscoe continued his hot qualifying by claiming the Busch Light Pole on Saturday, touring the 1.33-mile concrete oval with a track-record lap of 164.395 mph.

  That time was good enough by 0.049 seconds to beat Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, whose wife is expecting a baby boy on Sunday.

  It was Briscoe's second consecutive time qualifying in the No. 1 spot and third this season.

  William Byron, Tyler Reddick and last week's winner Ross Chastain rounded out the top five qualifiers.

  Last Sunday, Chastain ran down Byron over the final 37 laps to capture the longest race of the season and become the ninth different winner in the past nine races at Charlotte.

  After fending off a battle with Hamlin, Byron withstood a charge from Chastain until six laps remained. Chastain picked up his first win of the season by a mere 0.673 seconds and did it in a backup car while starting 40th and last in the field.

  While Chastain led just eight laps in Charlotte, Joey Logano led just nine laps while winning at Nashville last year in a fifth overtime. Logano held off Zane Smith and Reddick while running the last 110 laps on a single tank of fuel.

  Byron leads the current points standings with one win and six top-5 finishes, while Larson trails by 29 points after three wins and eight top 5s. Larson leads in playoff points with 23.

  --Field Level Media

While Christian Horner admitted to being "flattered" by the reported interest of Ferrari, the Red Bull Racing team principal declared that he's content staying right where he is.

• Per a report from German publication Bild earlier this week, Ferrari chairman John Elkann was entertaining thoughts of replacing Fred Vasseur as the team principal with his good friend Horner.

  Horner, however, opted to nip the rumor in the bud.

  "Of course, it's always flattering to be associated with other teams, but my commitment 100 percent is with Red Bull," Horner said ahead of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. "It always has been and certainly will be for the long-term.

  "There's a bunch of speculation always in this business. People coming here, going there or whatever. I think people within the team know exactly what the situation is."

  Horner, 51, has been at the helm of Red Bull since its inception in 2005. The Englishman's current contract runs through 2026.

  --Field Level Media

The Monaco Grand Prix delivered the third-largest Formula 1 audience in history in the United States despite heavy criticism of the iconic track after Sunday's race.

• The race started at 9 a.m. ET and drew 2.3 million viewers on ABC, the most ever for the Monaco Grand Prix. The only F1 races to draw more viewers were the Miami Grand Prix in 2024 (3.1 million) and 2022 (2.6 million), per Front Office Sports. This year's Monaco race did bring in more U.S. viewers than Miami (2.1 million) earlier this month.

  Through seven races in 2025, F1 is averaging 1.3 million viewers. Each of the past two seasons averaged 1.1 million, although the first half of the year does include the popular Miami and Monaco events.

  F1 signed an extension with Monaco last year that runs through 2031. However, despite F1's experiment to require teams to make at least two pit stops, Sunday's race featured a largely unchanged top-10.

  McLaren's Lando Norris won the event from the pole, although he did overtake Max Verstappen on the second-to-last lap when the Red Bull star was forced to take his second required pit stop on the penultimate lap. That drew widespread criticism from drivers and fans, but F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali defended rule change.

  "We know that the width of the street is (limited) and the cars are quite big, so the attempt is to create attention to that," Domenicali told Sky Sports F1.

  "It was great to see that the day before everyone was thinking that everyone has to (do a pit) stop on the first lap, and a lot of discussion, so no one understood exactly anything. I think it was the right attempt and the attention was definitely there."

  A decision on whether the two-stop rule will return for 2026 has not been made, but Domenicali pushed back against critics of the race.

  "The Monaco event has been amazing," he said. "We never had so many people, so many boats, so much attention. That means that the event itself is what Formula 1 wants, and that is really great."

  --Field Level Media

The debut of the Indianapolis 500 on Fox Sports certainly paid dividends as the Greatest Spectacle in Racing drew an average audience of more than 7 million, according to Nielsen's fast national ratings -- making it the most-watched Indy 500 since 2008.

• The Fox broadcast peaked at 8.4 million viewers between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m. ET, per Nielsen, just as Alex Palou was logging the closing laps of his first Indy 500 win.

  The 7.05 million average audience was up 40 percent year over year, as the NBC airing of the 2024 race averaged 5.024 million viewers.

  Palou claimed the 2025 edition for Chip Ganassi Racing, which also produced the Indy 500 winner in 2008 (Scott Dixon), when the race averaged 7.245 million viewers.

  --Field Level Media

IndyCar announced penalties for three drivers and their teams Monday following post-race inspections at Sunday's Indianapolis 500, which included runner-up Marcus Ericsson dropping to 31st place.

• Ericsson's Andretti Global teammate Kyle Kirkwood, who finished in sixth, was penalized down to 32nd, and British driver Callum Ilott of Prema Racing was dropped from 12th to 33rd and last place in the field.

  IndyCar said in a statement that the No. 27 and 28 cars of Ericsson and Kirkwood were found to have illegal modifications made to their Energy Management System covers. In Ilott's case, his No. 90 car did not meet the minimum endplate height and location specification.

  Ericsson, a Swede who won the 2022 Indianapolis 500, held the lead late in Sunday's race before Alex Palou of Spain passed him on his way to winning his first Indy 500 by 0.6822 seconds.

  The penalties mean that David Malukas of A.J. Foyt Racing is now credited with a second-place finish. Mexico's Pato O'Ward (Arrow McLaren) finished third, Sweden's Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank Racing) was fourth and Santino Ferrucci (A.J. Foyt) moved into fifth.

  The penalized drivers must forfeit their prize money and championship points from their original finishes. They are allowed to appeal the penalties.

  --Field Level Media

Kyle Larson's dream of completing auto racing's classic double on Sunday ended early after he crashed on lap 91 of the Indianapolis 500. His long day got worse when he also crashed out of NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday night.

• In his second attempt at "The Double" for a combined 1,100 possible miles of racing, Larson finished in 27th place at the IndyCar race and 37th after completing 245 of 400 laps at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. After the NASCAR race, he told NBC Sports that he didn't know if he would make a third try at the marathon day of racing. In 2024, he didn't get the chance as rain brought the Coca-Cola 600 to an early end, before Larson was able to turn a lap there.

  "It's so fresh right now I don't really have a good answer for you," Larson said Sunday night. "The Double is just a tough undertaking. The window of time is too tight. Even if I didn't wreck (at Indy), I don't think I would have made It here on time and probably would have had to end that race short anyways. So I don't really think it's worth it.

  "But I would love to run the Indy 500 again," continued Larson, who drove for Arrow McLaren's IndyCar team. "Just doing the double I think is just logistically too tough."

  Larson was heading into Turn 2 after the IndyCar race had just returned to green. He lost control as he went low into the turn and downshifted. That led to a spin out and crash into Sting Ray Robb's car.

  Larson got out of the car on his own. Earlier in the race, which had a rain-delayed start, Larson's car stalled during a pit stop, costing him time and positions.

  "I got loose and just kind of got all over the place," Larson said of his crash on the Fox broadcast from Indianapolis. "... I got a little too eager there on the restart and caused that crash. I hate it for everybody that got caught up in it.

  "Bummed out. (Will) try to get over this quickly and get on with Charlotte. Try to forget about it and win the next one."

  Larson left the Indy 500 grounds a short time later via helicopter to start the journey to Charlotte.

  The Hendrick Motorsports driver began on the front row, in the second starting position. He passed pole-sitter Chase Briscoe on Lap 9 and would lead for 34 laps.

  However, Larson fought with his car and tagged the wall hard, spun by himself off Turn 4 on lap 42 and was forced to pit road for a long stop. After making repairs, Larson tried to work his way back among the contenders.

  Then he would be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Briscoe and Ryan Blaney made contact in Turn 4, with Briscoe then hitting the back of Daniel Suarez's car, which spun into Blaney and into the way. Suarez's car slid down the track and caught Larson's car in the right rear.

  Larson's car was too damaged to continue, and his bid for completing the Charlotte race was over.

  He is one of five drivers ever to race in both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. The others are John Andretti (1994), Tony Stewart (1999, 2001), Robby Gordon (2002-04) and Kurt Busch (2014). Only Stewart completed both races, placing sixth at Indianapolis and third at Charlotte in 2001.

  --Field Level Media

Lando Norris won his second Formula One race of the season on Sunday, riding his pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix to victory.

• Norris took over the lead on the second-to-last lap after race leader and defending circuit champion Max Verstappen of the Netherlands was forced to take his second required pit stop on the penultimate lap. The Red Bull driver's strategy to delay the stop didn't pay off as he finished a distant fourth.

  In second was Monaco native and defending champion Charles Leclerc of Ferrari (+3.131 seconds back), with Oscar Piastri of McLaren (+3.658), the season's points leader, in third.

  "It feels amazing. It's a long race, a long, grueling race," said Norris, a 25-year-old from England. "We could push for the whole race, and we won in Monaco. An amazing weekend with pole, with today. This is what we dream of, this is what I did dream of as a kid."

  With his victory, Norris is now just three points behind Piastri in the driver standings, with Verstappen 25 points back.

  Norris had Verstappen in front of him and Leclerc pushing from behind at the end, and Norris felt the pressure. Still, Leclerc could not overtake Norris.

  Leclerc finished just a tenth of a second behind Norris in qualifying on Saturday, and the 27-year-old said that made all the difference in the race.

  "At the end of the day, we lost the race yesterday. We should have done a better job, Lando did a better job and he deserves the win," Leclerc said. "It is above our expectations here, I thought we would struggle to be in the top 10 so it has been a good weekend. But I wish I'd won.

  "Being born here, seeing all the Monegasque behind me is very special. It warms my heart to be at home and have so much support."

  It was the second podium finish this season for Leclerc, whose best finish had been third in Saudi Arabia last month.

  Piastri, a 24-year-old Australian, entered Sunday with four season victories.

  "Obviously the win would have been better, but it has been a tricky weekend," he said. "Practice was messy all the way through. I got into qualifying with not a lot of confidence. I got close but not close enough, and you run around here where you started. A podium in Monaco -- it's not all bad.

  "The margins are so fine, if this is a bad weekend, then it is not going too badly at all."

  Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton finished fifth.

  --Field Level Media

Michael Schumacher's Ferrari Formula One car that won the 2001 Monaco and Hungarian grand prix races was sold for $18.17 million, according to RM Sotheby's.

• Selling ahead of qualifying in Monaco on Saturday, the F2001 car that the legendary German driver used en route to that year's world title became the most expensive F1 vehicle driven by Schumacher to be sold at auction.

  The $18.17 million price tag topped the $13.2 million a bidder paid for Schumacher's 2003 Ferrari F2003 in 2022. It also became the fourth-most expensive F1 car ever sold. The world record sits at $52.52 million, which occurred earlier this year for a Mercedes W196 streamliner that was driven by Formula One legends Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss in the 1950s.

  Schumacher, now 56, drove the F2001 Ferrari in his fifth and final Monaco Grand Prix win, which he followed up with a victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The latter win clinched Schumacher's fourth F1 world title.

  --Field Level Media

Kyle Busch had his option picked up by Richard Childress Racing on Saturday, keeping the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion with the organization through the 2026 season.

• Busch, 40, has won 63 Cup Series races since joining the circuit in 2003. However, his last victory came in St. Louis on June 4, 2023.

  "This has extended our contract out another year, and we're really excited," team owner Richard Childress said. "You know, Kyle has been great to work with. Everybody had questions going in. I love a driver that (doesn't) like to lose, and we've worked hard. We've got some exciting things coming up.

  "He and I are both alike in one area that we don't like to lose; we want to win races. I still think that Kyle will win him a championship, and we want it to happen at RCR and that's our plans. We got a lot of new things coming. This car is a lot different. It's so engineer-driven that we're stepping our engineering up more, and I'm excited about the future."

  Although mired in a 69-race winless streak, Busch feels there are plenty of good times ahead.

  "I give a lot of credit to Richard and him believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be able to come over here and have a chance to drive his car," Busch said. "So for me, rewarding him with that and having the success on the race track is paramount. Being able to continue on when I first joined, I feel like there were some things that we were doing within the rules at that time that got us some extra speed, and then, there was definitely some things that came down that they didn't like us doing.

  "So that's sort of where we've lost a little bit if people are wondering, why have we not been able to win like we did in the first 16 races. It's just a matter of being able to continue to work with the people that are there. It's a great culture. I enjoy working there. I fit in well there. They enjoy having me there."

  Busch won Cup Series championships in 2015 and 2019.

  --Field Level Media

CONCORD, N.C. -- This time, Corey Heim didn't just slam the door on his NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series competition -- he nailed it shut.

• Heim's three previous 2025 wins notwithstanding, the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota has had difficulty closing out races with a dominant truck this season.

  That was emphatically not the case on Friday night, when Heim led 98 of 134 laps and beat runner-up Ross Chastain to the finish line by 6.229 seconds in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

  Heim's first victory at Charlotte and his fourth of the season was the 15th of his career, tying him with Matt Crafton for 10th on the career list. At age 22, he is the youngest to reach the 15-win milestone.

  It was a perfect night. Heim swept the first two stages of the race and set the fastest lap, scoring a maximum 61 points to widen his series lead to a massive 100 points over second-place Chandler Smith. His margin of victory was the largest ever in the series at Charlotte.

  "I felt like we've had the speed the last couple years here, but circumstances haven't let us get it done," said Heim, who has won five of the last nine Truck Series races on intermediate speedways.

  "Obviously, it was such a good truck. I had to execute on my part. The pit crew did a great job. Just a really nice clean day. ... It feels great. It feels like we've had a lot of opportunities to do that this year, really. Just can't say enough about these guys. My team gave me a great Tundra, and we just really checked all of the boxes tonight. It feels great."

  Chastain was the best of three Neice Motorsports Chevrolet drivers in the top seven. Kaden Honeycutt ran third, and Matt Mills was seventh. But none of the Niece trucks could mount a challenge to the race winner, particularly on longer runs.

  "Best in class," Chastain said of his own effort. "The 11 (Heim) is the best in the field right now, and none of us had anything for him. The 7 (Kyle Busch), the 38 (Smith), the 34 (Layne Riggs)-it was a heck of a race (for second) back there between us, but we've got to make it last longer."

  Riggs and Busch came home fourth and fifth, respectively, followed by Grant Enfinger, Mills, Daniel Hemric, Rajah Caruth and Brandon Jones.

  Smith fell victim to a Lap 71 wreck involving pole winner Gio Ruggiero, reigning series champion Ty Majeski and Connor Mosack. The winner last week at North Wilkesboro, Smith was the first driver eliminated from the race and finished 34th.

  There were three cautions for 20 laps, two of the yellows for stage breaks.

  The only negative for Heim is that there are no more 1.5-mile intermediate speedways remaining on this season's Truck Series schedule.

  Next up for the trucks is the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway at 8 p.m. on May 30.

  NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Race -- North Carolina Education Lottery 200

  Charlotte Motor Speedway

  Concord, North Carolina

  Friday, May 23, 2025

  1. (3) Corey Heim, Toyota, 134.

  2. (4) Ross Chastain(i), Chevrolet, 134.

  3. (5) Kaden Honeycutt, Chevrolet, 134.

  4. (7) Layne Riggs, Ford, 134.

  5. (12) Kyle Busch(i), Chevrolet, 134.

  6. (18) Grant Enfinger, Chevrolet, 134.

  7. (16) Matt Mills, Chevrolet, 134.

  8. (6) Daniel Hemric, Chevrolet, 134.

  9. (8) Rajah Caruth, Chevrolet, 134.

  10. (13) Brandon Jones(i), Toyota, 134.

  11. (10) Jake Garcia, Ford, 134.

  12. (23) Tyler Ankrum, Chevrolet, 134.

  13. (32) Stewart Friesen, Toyota, 133.

  14. (24) Parker Kligerman, Chevrolet, 133.

  15. (19) BJ McLeod, Chevrolet, 133.

  16. (14) Andes Perez De Lara #, Chevrolet, 133.

  17. (21) Ben Rhodes, Ford, 133.

  18. (33) Luke Fenhaus, Ford, 133.

  19. (27) Timmy Hill, Toyota, 133.

  20. (26) Matt Crafton, Ford, 132.

  21. (1) Giovanni Ruggiero #, Toyota, 132.

  22. (20) Stefan Parsons, Chevrolet, 132.

  23. (15) Connor Mosack #, Chevrolet, 132.

  24. (28) Spencer Boyd, Chevrolet, 132.

  25. (22) Jack Wood, Chevrolet, 132.

  26. (2) Tanner Gray, Toyota, 130.

  27. (31) Frankie Muniz #, Ford, 126.

  28. (34) Mason Maggio(i), Ford, 123.

  29. (29) Cody Dennison, Ford, 121.

  30. (25) Toni Breidinger #, Toyota, 121.

  31. (17) Dawson Sutton #, Chevrolet, Driveshaft, 104.

  32. (11) Ty Majeski, Ford, 103.

  33. (30) Justin Carroll, Toyota, Suspension, 75.

  34. (9) Chandler Smith, Ford, Accident, 70.

  Average Speed of Race Winner: 128.8 mph.

  Time of Race: 1 Hrs, 33 Mins, 38 Secs. Margin of Victory: 6.229 Seconds.

  Caution Flags: 3 for 20 laps.

  Lead Changes: 14 among 8 drivers.

  Lap Leaders: G. Ruggiero # 1-2;C. Heim 3-4;R. Chastain(i) 5-15;C. Heim 16-34;K. Honeycutt 35-39;C. Heim 40-43;K. Honeycutt 44;C. Heim 45-64;K. Honeycutt 65-68;C. Heim 69-103;M. Mills 104;R. Caruth 105-114;S. Friesen 115;T. Hill 116;C. Heim 117-134.

  Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Corey Heim 6 times for 98 laps; Ross Chastain(i) 1 time for 11 laps; Kaden Honeycutt 3 times for 10 laps; Rajah Caruth 1 time for 10 laps; Giovanni Ruggiero # 1 time for 2 laps; Matt Mills 1 time for 1 lap; Stewart Friesen 1 time for 1 lap; Timmy Hill 1 time for 1 lap.

  Stage #1 Top Ten: 11,44,34,45,7,17,19,38,98,42

  Stage #2 Top Ten: 11,45,7,34,44,19,98,17,38,9

  --By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.

On Carburetion Day, better known as Carb Day, at the Indianapolis 500 on Friday, the fastest car perhaps fittingly belonged to the two-time defending champion.

• Josef Newgarden led the final practice before the fabled race with a top lap of 225.687 mph.

  "Good final run here," Newgarden told reporters at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "Excited to check the car off again and work with the team. I'm really excited for Sunday. The main show. Everything we work for."

  The American is trying to become the first driver in the sport's history to win three straight Indianapolis 500s. Setting Newgarden back, Team Penske was penalized during qualifying when Newgarden and teammate Will Power had illegal modified attenuators on their cars.

  Newgarden will start No. 32 out of 33 cars in the field Sunday. No driver has ever started farther back than 28th in an Indy 500 field and went on to win.

  --Ryan Hunter-Reay's No. 23 Chevrolet caught fire during practice, and his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing team will have to rebuild his car in time for Sunday.

  Hunter-Reay said on the Fox broadcast that he felt a cold liquid on his left side and his engine began to smoke as he exited pit lane. He wiggled out through the window just in time.

  "I looked like Ace Ventura trying to get out of the rhino," Hunter-Reay quipped.

  Graham Rahal also encountered some smoke, as a mechanical failure forced him to pull over during practice. His car will need a new engine for Sunday.

  --Kyle Larson got in one last day of prep work at IMS as he readies himself to attempt "the Double" -- completing the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte in the same day.

  "I think (IndyCar is) a little different than NASCAR with the drafting and not knowing what people's objectives really were, but it doesn't hurt (to be fast in multi-lap runs)," Larson said Friday, per NASCAR Wire Service. "I feel good about my balance, so yeah, I feel like we're pretty decent. There are a couple guys that are really good also, but I feel like things feel good."

  Larson set out to achieve the Double last year, but rain affected both races and he wound up unable to complete a lap at the Coca-Cola 600.

  Larson will drive the No. 17 McLaren Arrow Chevrolet in Indianapolis and will start on the seventh row of the grid.

  "I would prefer to start further forward, but I think you've just got to be smartly aggressive and patient all at the same time back when you start beyond the first few rows," Larson said. "I think our car handles good in the pack so just got to be smart about it. You can't be too aggressive because if you try to push too much and get tightness and have to lift then you're going to give up a spot potentially. Just got to watch out when you make your moves."

  --Casey Irsay Foyt, daughter of the late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, was named the honorary starter for the Indianapolis 500.

  Jim Irsay died Wednesday at 65 years old. He had been the primary owner of the Colts since 1997, when his father Robert Irsay passed away.

  Now Irsay Foyt represents the third generation of her family to control the team. She is married to former IndyCar driver A.J. Foyt IV.

  "As Indianapolis prepares for a special weekend that showcases our city's unmatched ability to successfully host massive global sporting events, it's incredibly appropriate and especially meaningful to celebrate Jim's contributions to our city and state," Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles said in a statement. "Put simply, the Indianapolis we know and love would not be remotely possible without Jim."

  --Field Level Media

Two-time Daytona 500 champion William Byron signed a four-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports on Friday.

• The deal keeps Byron, 27, behind the wheel of the No. 24 Chevrolet through the 2029 NASCAR Cup Series season.

  "We've built something special with the No. 24 team," Byron said in a team news release. "I'm thankful for the opportunity to continue working with amazing people at Hendrick Motorsports who believe in me, especially Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick. We've accomplished some great things that we're really proud of, but we have even bigger goals ahead. I'm excited to go after them with this team and this organization."

  Byron, whose current contract expires at the end of this season, ranks second in the Cup Series standings through 13 races this season, 35 points behind Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson.

  Byron initially signed with Hendrick in 2016 at age 18 and was the Cup Series Rookie of the Year in 2018. His 14 wins at NASCAR's top level include back-to-back Daytona 500 victories in 2024 and 2025.

  "William is the real deal," owner Rick Hendrick said. "What makes him so special is that he combines natural ability with an unrivaled work ethic.

  "You see it in the great ones -- the drivers who could get by on talent alone but choose to outwork everyone anyway. That's William. On top of it all, he's a person of high character and embraces his role as a leader. We're proud to have him in our lineup and look forward to many more wins together."

  Byron's new contract extends farther than his Hendrick teammates Larson (signed through 2026), Alex Bowman (2026) and Chase Elliott (2027).

  Byron is doing double-duty this weekend in Charlotte, N.C., competing in Saturday's Xfinity Series race as well as Sunday's Coca-Cola 600.

  --Field Level Media

IndyCar president Doug Boles said Wednesday that "absolutely it's a miss" that Team Penske raced with modified attenuators for at least a year before an IndyCar tech team member finally caught the infraction Sunday prior to qualifying for the Indianapolis 500.

• An attenuator is placed in the rear of each Indy Car solely for safety reasons, to absorb energy when a car crashes into a wall backward. For this reason, per Boles, attenuators are not allowed to be tampered with.

  While there is visual and anecdotal evidence that Team Penske drivers have been racing with smoothed rear attentuators for at least a year - including on the car driven by Josef Newgarden when he won last year's Indy 500 winner - they did not get caught until Sunday.

  According to Boles, rear attentuators have zero effect on how fast a car goes. And with a limited time to inspect each car, IndyCar's tech teams focus on the car parts that might give a driver an unfair advantage during a race.

  "On Sunday, when the 12 cars that were in the Fast 12 were presented in the tech line, we had a 30-minute window to get 12 cars through tech," Boles said Wednesday.

  "On parts that are specifically designed for safety, our team and tech does not, on a regular basis, look at those, and this is one of those parts that was not looked at until it was seen on Sunday. Is that a miss? Absolutely it's a miss. Is it a part that everybody should be exposed to at every event, (and) if they've changed it, they're outside of the rules? One hundred percent."

  On Sunday, Team Penske was caught because, according to Boles, IndyCar technical director Kevin "Rocket" Blanch noticed during inspection that the attenuator on Team Penske driver Will Power's No. 12 car had been smoothed over. Then he checked the attenuator on Newgarden's No. 2 car and discovered the same illegality.

  Their penalty for the illegal modifications included being sent to the back of the official starting grid for Sunday's Indy 500. Newgarden and Power will be in the 11th and final row when the 33 drivers hit the track.

  Earlier Wednesday, Roger Penske - who owns Team Penske, IndyCar, the Indy 500 and Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- fired Team Penske director Tim Cindric, IndyCar managing director Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar general manager Kyle Moyer for "organizational failures."

  According to an Associated Press report, some competitors accused Team Penske of cheating with their adjusted attenuators. They believed the smoothed part allowed Penske's drivers to have an edge while qualifying.

  "This is not an investigation as far as I'm concerned, but ... we are going to continue to understand how the process failed and how we can make it better," Boles said. "And the most important thing we have to do is make sure that, A, our drivers stay safe, but B, that the levelness of the playing field can't be called into question, and when a team or a driver is on track and they get beaten by somebody or they beat somebody, that neither one of those teams can say they did it because they got an advantage because tech missed something."

  --Field Level Media

Team Penske parted ways with IndyCar Series team president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer on Wednesday amid the discovery of a violation of IndyCar rules by the team.

• "Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams," team founder and chairman Roger Penske said. "We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down."

  Team Penske said in a statement that it will have further announcements in regard to personnel later this week.

  The news comes in the wake of the discovery that the cars driven by two-time defending Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden and teammate Will Power had modified attenuators during the second day of qualifying on Sunday. IndyCar announced Monday that Newgarden's No. 2 and Power's No. 15 will start 32nd and 33rd, respectively.

  Last April, it was discovered that Penske drivers were allowed access to the push-to-pass system when they should not have been.

  The team strategists also were suspended for the race for both cars, which will also forfeit Indy 500 qualification points and each pay a $100,000 fine.

  "The integrity of the Indianapolis 500 is paramount, and this violation of the INDYCAR rule against modification to this part and using it ‘as supplied' is clear," IndyCar president J. Douglas Boles said Monday. "The penalty should be more than simply starting where the cars might have qualified anyway, if given the opportunity. The cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33; however, starting on the tail of the field is the appropriate penalty in this instance."

  Cindric, 57, joined Penske in 1999 and watched one of its drivers win the Indianapolis 500 on 10 occasions, including Newgarden in 2023 and 2024.

  On Jan. 31, Cindric elected to take a step back as the overall day-to-day leader of Team Penske's racing programs.

  Cindric's son, Austin, is a NASCAR Cup Series driver for Team Penske. He won the 2022 Daytona 500.

  --Field Level Media

The NASCAR Hall of Fame will induct Kurt Busch, Harry Gant and Ray Hendrick in the Class of 2026, the hall announced Tuesday.

• Busch and Gant were selected from the Modern Era Ballot, each garnering 61 percent of the vote. Jeff Burton, Harry Hyde and Randy Dorton were the next-highest finishers who didn't make the cut.

  Hendrick was voted in on the Pioneer Ballot with 31 percent of the votes. Bob Welborn finished second.

  Busch, 46, made the Hall in his first year on the ballot. He was the Cup Series champion in 2004 and won 34 times in the Cup Series, including two crown jewel races: the 2010 Coca-Cola 600 and the 2017 Daytona 500.

  Gant, 85, followed 21 victories in what's now called the Xfinity Series with 18 wins in the Cup Series, including the Southern 500 in 1984 and 1991. Already a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, Gant was in his seventh year on the NASCAR Hall's ballot.

  Gant also holds the record for the oldest driver to win a Cup Series race (52 years, eight months) when he prevailed at Michigan International Speedway in 1992.

  Hendrick, who died in 1990, enjoyed a 36-year motorsports career and was known throughout the South as "Mr. Modified" for his successes in modified stock car racing. He is credited with more than 700 victories in modified racing and the Late Model Sportsman Series.

  Busch, Gant and Hendrick were all named to the NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers list for the league's 75th anniversary in 2023.

  NASCAR also recognized H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, former president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, with the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR.

  The Class of 2026 will be inducted on Jan. 23 in Charlotte.

  --Field Level Media

For the second year in a row, Kyle Larson will attempt one of the rarest feats in all of sports: racing in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same day.

• Two of the most prestigious races in the world. Six hundred total laps, 1,100 miles.

  This Sunday, Larson will attempt to become just the second driver of the five who have attempted the Double to finish all 1,100 miles on a single day. If he does so, he'll join Tony Stewart, who in 2021 finished sixth in the Indianapolis 500 and third in the Coca-Cola 600.

  After Larson qualified 21st for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500, there is reason to believe he is better situated to pull off the Double than a year ago.

  For one, Mother Nature may cooperate this time around. In 2024, the Indy 500 was weather-delayed, forcing Larson to make the choice to race at Indy and miss the start of the Coca-Cola 600. When Larson eventually made it to Charlotte Motor Speedway, the race was in a rain delay and eventually was called before Larson had the chance to turn a single lap.

  Larson has made it clear that the Cup Series is his priority should weather make the logistics an issue again. If he has to leave Indianapolis early, it'll be 2013 Indy 500 winner and 2004 IndyCar champion Tony Kanaan filling Larson's seat while Larson jets to Charlotte.

  Kanaan, 50, completed the required refresher course at Indianapolis on May 15. While he's rarely behind the wheel himself anymore, the team principal of Arrow McLaren had high praise for Larson as the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion readies for his second crack at the Indy 500.

  "Kyle's a true racer," Kanaan said. "I don't think I need to sit here and talk about his qualities because I think the results show it. Kyle's biggest advantage is he adapts pretty quickly because he races everything.

  "I truly admire him as a racer," Kanaan continued. "To me, (he's) one of the biggest talents we've ever seen around the world."

  The respect those in the IndyCar industry have for Larson is indicative of his renown as a versatile driver. Whether it be a Cup Series car on Sunday, a Chevrolet Silverado in a NASCAR Truck Series race or a sprint car, Larson's versatility has put his name into the conversation as one of the world's best all-around race drivers.

  This year, the preparations are just as time-consuming as they were in 2024. A full week of practice at Indianapolis was followed by Indy 500 qualifying on the same weekend as the NASCAR All-Star Race. While Larson qualified at Indianapolis, defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier turned laps in Larson's No. 5 at North Wilkesboro.

  After appearing in the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday, Larson's focus turns back to Indy, where he has two more practice sessions in order to dial in his No. 17 Chevrolet for the Indianapolis 500.

  Larson admitted that reacclimating to an IndyCar is a difficult task after a year away from the cockpit. But his practice results -- 24th on May 13, 13th on May 14 and 17th on May 15 -- indicate a driver that is getting back into the IndyCar saddle with confidence and poise.

  2024 saw Larson finish the Indianapolis 500 in 18th after a pit road speeding penalty. With a year of Indy 500 experience under his belt, however, don't be surprised if Larson finishes inside the top 15. His No. 17 clearly has some speed, and as Kanaan said, Larson's adaptability makes him a threat to win no matter the vehicle he's in.

  That said, even the world's best drivers aren't immune to mistakes. Larson crashed in both the open test in April and in practice on May 15. Another crash in the Indy 500 itself would dash the hope of Larson completing all 1,100 miles.

  Even if the Indianapolis 500 doesn't go Larson's way, the Coca-Cola 600 should bear much more fruit for the 32-year-old driver. Larson won the event in 2021, and along with being arguably the best driver in the Cup Series, he's already won thrice in 2025, including the last Cup Series points race at Kansas. If Larson can make it to the end of the Coke 600, he'll likely be in the mix for the win.

  Provided that Mother Nature plays nice and affords Larson the opportunity to compete in both races, one of the biggest talents in racing may finally give Tony Stewart some company.

  --Samuel Stubbs, Field Level Media

Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Will Power will start Sunday's Indianapolis 500 at the back of the grid following technical violations.

• IndyCar announced Monday that Newgarden's No. 2 and Power's No. 15 will start 32nd and 33rd, respectively, after the discovery of modified attenuators.

  "The integrity of the Indianapolis 500 is paramount, and this violation of the INDYCAR rule against modification to this part and using it 'as supplied' is clear," IndyCar President J. Douglas Boles said. "The penalty should be more than simply starting where the cars might have qualified anyway, if given the opportunity. The cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33; however, starting on the tail of the field is the appropriate penalty in this instance."

  The team strategists were also suspended for the race for both cars, which will also forfeit Indy 500 qualification points and each pay a $100,000 fine.

  In addition, the Team Penske teammates will forfeit their pit positions and will select their pit boxes after the rest of the field has an opportunity to adjust accordingly.

  "The positive momentum around the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500 has been on a steep crescendo over the last several months, and we want it to be clear that our intent is to maintain that momentum and discourage teams from putting IndyCar in positions where it calls into the integrity of our officiating and the levelness of the playing field," Boles said. "As we look to the remainder of the week and the race this weekend, we will do everything we can to make it clear that this is not only the best racing on the planet but racing where the best win under completely fair conditions."

  Team Penske's No. 3 car, driven by Scott McLaughlin, will start in the 10th spot after inspectors determined it had a legal and unmodified attenuator.

  The Nos. 2 and 15 cars violated IndyCar Rule 14.7.8.16. Attenuators are part of the vehicle's crash structure that helps it absorb the impact from a collision.

  Rookie driver Robert Schwartzman earned the pole position for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

  --Field Level Media

The buildup to the Indianapolis 500 took an unexpected twist Sunday when rookie Robert Shwartzman won the pole for the fabled race.

• In five IndyCar Series races, Shwartzman has finished no better than 18th. Yet the 25-year-old is the first rookie to qualify on the Indy 500 pole since Teo Fabi in 1983.

  That didn't matter Sunday, when his four-lap average of 232.790 mph officially made his No. 83 Chevrolet the fastest car in qualifying.

  Making the achievement even more surprising is that Shwartzman's team, Prema Racing, is new to the IndyCar scene as well. The Italian team has competed in the Formula 2 series in Europe before debuting in the North American circuit this year.

  "Honestly, it feels like I'm dreaming. I just had it in my dreams when I was going how would it feel to do such a good job in quali," said Shwartzman, a dual citizen of Russia and Israel. "It's the Indy 500. It's the main race of the year. Honestly, it feels unbelievable."

  Takuma Sato of Japan, the 2017 and 2020 Indianapolis 500 champion, landed in the second spot after Shwartzman outpaced his speed.

  Team Penske had a day to forget, with the cars of Josef Newgarden and Will Power failing technical inspection for illegal modifications on the rear attenuator. Newgarden is the two-time defending champion.

  Scott McLaughlin, meanwhile, had a major crash, slamming into the wall off Turn 2. Newgarden, Power and McLaughlin will settle for 10th, 11th and 12th positions on the starting grid.

  "I'm OK. I'm just really, really, really, really, really sorry for everyone at Team Penske," the New Zealander told reporters after being released from the medical center. "It was talking to me and I sort of felt it, and I probably should have backed out, but you're trying to complete a run to see what it feels like, and was it worth the risk? Probably wasn't. I'm incredibly sad."

  Marco Andretti, the grandson of racing icon Mario Andretti and son of team owner Michael Andretti, was among three drivers to make the field via last-chance qualifying. It will be his 20th consecutive start at the Indy 500.

  Marcus Armstrong and Rinus VeeKay grabbed the other two remaining spots in the 33-car field, making Jacob Abel the one driver on the outside looking in.

  The 109th running of the Indy 500 is scheduled for May 25.

  --Field Level Media