Road America IndyCar test nuggets from Schumacher, Siegel, Power, Rasmussen
· Yahoo Sports
ELKHART LAKE – More than half the field for the Father’s Day XPEL Grand Prix at Road America got a relatively rare head start for IndyCar’s next event during a test June 9.
Visit palladian.co.za for more information.
That meant one more stop before a break for crews after a grueling stretch in which they’ve had five straight weekends of competition. But it also gave newcomers such as Nick Schumacher nine days to sort out what they’d seen before attacking the undulating 4.014-mile course for real.
Andretti Global, Arrow McLaren and Rahal Letterman Lanigan worked with three cars and drivers apiece while A.J. Foyt Racing and Ed Carpenter fielded two apiece in preparation for the June 19-21 race weekend.
Over the lunch break, Andretti’s Will Power (a two-time winner), Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel, RLL’s Schumacher, and ECR’s Christian Rasmussen (first-time Indy NXT winner at the track in 2022) spoke with reporters.
Here are a few nuggets.
Mick Schumacher struck by Road America’s uniqueness
Given Schumacher’s background in Formula One and sports cars, Road America may be the closest thing to a familiar track he will see in his rookie season. But where some drivers coming into Indy cars from that career path have put Road America up alongside classic European tracks such as Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, Schumacher hesitated.
“It’s a very unique track,” he said. “I think it would be unfair to take too much comparison to other tracks because every track is unique and very special. So is this one. It’s great to experience it.”
Schmacher came to the test with no real preconceptions of Road America.
He did get some insight into the track and town from teammates Graham Rahal, who’s been coming to Road America for decades, and Louis Foster, who won the pole in 2025 as a rookie. Then his first few laps were about learning the circuit and appreciating what it offered.
“Obviously, the stint here is very short here compared to some of the tracks we’ve been to so far this year,” Schumacher said. “We have to make the most out of every lap.”
What did he notice most?
“I guess the undulation, like, how much goes up and down,” Schumacher said. “It’s beautiful driving through the woods, down on the back straight, going to Canada Corner. It’s a very nice scenery to race here.
“The track’s getting better, and it’ll be good to to have this afternoon to hopefully have something representable of what the race might be.”
Nolan Siegel feels for IndyCar crews
“They got to sleep for two hours, three hours before they left St. Louis to come here [Monday] so I’m very appreciative of all the men and women that are here,” said Siegel, who crashed out at World Wide Technology Raceway. “It’s not easy, but we all love doing it, and we love being at the racetrack. It’s where we want to be.”
Siegel was the top finisher (eighth) among the McLaren drivers at Road America in 2025 with Pato O’Ward 17th and Christian Lundgaard 24th. Their three teams all had slightly different assignments in preparing to come back.
“We do not really get to test [much] in IndyCar, so these days are super important, very, very valuable for us,” Siegel said.
“Definitely each car has its own set of test items that we’re working through, and I think that’s been quite smooth so far for all three cars. … So it’s a very organized, laid out test plan, and if we can get through all the items on each list for each car, then that’s a huge amount of data to look at before the race.”
Will Power got to test what’s beyond the track’s edge
Power had a meltdown at Road America in 2023 after he got off the edge of the track in the Carousel in practice and crashed.
The past two offseasons, the track has installed Grasscrete, a perforated concrete through which grass can grow, in many areas where drivers run wide. The idea of the product is it prevents dirt from getting pulled onto the track and holes from being dug while still being a deterrent because it looks like grass, not asphalt, and doesn’t provide as much grip.
Power checked out the Grasscrete in Turn 14 and gave it a double thumbs up.
“It’s how much it drops down is the problem, whether you use it or not,” Power said. “If it’s, like, raised up a bit you’d probably use it more. But it’s better than dropping into the dirt.”
Christian Rasmussen is trying to build momentum
Rasmussen was barely a day and a half removed from a third-place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway, his third podium in his third season in the series and his best result since winning last August at the Milwaukee Mile.
“It was good to get back in a race car and feel like you can make it do something, you know?” said Rasmussen, who also got a multiyear contract extension last week. “It was obviously a good way to turn the year round and a good momentum builder for going into the rest of the year.”
But Road America’s about as different from a short oval as tracks get. Carryover is nil. When the teams broke for lunch, Rasmussen’s team was to some degree still figuring out where it might be able to make the biggest gains at a track where it finished 13th (Alexander Rossi) and 18th (Rasmussen) a year ago.
the first half of the day was about figuring out where they might be able to make the biggest gains in the second half.
“That’s what days like today is all about,” he said. “Road America is a place that we really struggled last year, which is like why we chose this test day to come to and try and improve our package. We’ll just keep working away and then hopefully end up with something pretty good here later.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Road America IndyCar test nuggets from 4 drivers ahead of June 21 race