A year ago, NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers competed at The Thermal Club in Southern California in an exhibition event featuring smaller groups of cars over shorter runs, with some of them traveling at slower speeds. That won’t be the case this weekend.

In the track’s first full points-paying event, expect the Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix to be full throttle over a full race distance by a full field.

SEE: Event Details

Here are five things to watch:

No Holding Back This Year

Much will be different about this trip to the private motorsports club near Palm Springs. For starters, a standard three-day road course schedule will be used.

The first practice is at 6:30 p.m. ET Friday. Saturday’s lineup features the weekend’s second practice at 1 p.m. ET and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 5 p.m. ET, with all three sessions airing live on FS1.

Sunday, there’s the morning warmup at 11 a.m. ET (FS1) and the race at 3 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Sports App, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Last year’s $1 Million Challenge had a unique format, with a pair of 10-lap heat races followed by a 20-lap feature with an intermission at the halfway point. As a result, no one raced more than 10 laps at speed, and some of them didn’t even do that.

Some of the drivers who started in the back half of the 12-car main event strategized that it was better to conserve tires ahead of the mandatory stoppage so they would have an advantage in the final 10 laps. Andretti Global’s Colton Herta was the most successful in the execution of that, dropping about 90 seconds off the pace in the first 10 laps only to come charging back to finish fourth in the second half.

Managing Tires, Track’s Physicality

Not only will that strategy not work in Sunday’s 65-lap race, no one is sure what the winning strategy will be as there have never been more than 10 green-flag laps run in anger at this track.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou won last year’s sprint race by 5.7929 seconds over Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin. Palou also won one of the 10-lap heat races; Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist won the other. But again, none of the drivers had to deliver more than 10 consecutive laps at speed, and that makes the long runs they’ll need to make Sunday unpredictable.

The track is comprised of 17 turns over 3.067 miles. Due to the arid conditions at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains, the dusty surface will shorten the life of the Firestone Firehawk tires. In the race, drivers will prioritize new tires over additional fuel, and those who best manage that figure to have a decided advantage. Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, a six-time series champion, are considered the masters of that skill.

In anticipation of the expected high tire wear, Firestone has altered its primary compound to make it more durable. Additionally, the number of sets of tires given to teams will include an extra set of the primaries (now six) compared to only four sets of the alternates. Typically, teams receive five sets of each.

Finally, there’s the fact this track with its sweeping corners and relatively short straightaways has very few places for the driver to take a breath. Calling it a “physical” venue might be an understatement, especially as temperatures climb through the weekend, as expected.

Not Much Track Data to Draw From

It’s not a stretch to assume the competitors know less about this track than any other on this year’s 17-race calendar because track time has been minimal over the years.

There were a pair of two-day open tests in 2023 and 2024, plus last year’s race. So far this year, only six cars have been on track: three from Andretti Global, two from PREMA Racing and rookie Jacob Abel from Dale Coyne Racing. That session was Jan. 28.

Six drivers in this field have never raced an INDYCAR SERIES car at this track. Louis Foster did take his first test with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing here. The other two rookies – Abel and Robert Shwartzman of PREMA Racing – participated in the January test.

Conor Daly of Juncos Hollinger Racing, Devlin DeFrancesco of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and David Malukas of AJ Foyt Racing trace their only Thermal Club laps to the initial two-day open test in 2023.

Seven other drivers in this field competed here last year with different employers. Those drivers are: Marcus Armstrong (now with Meyer Shank Racing), Alexander Rossi (Ed Carpenter Racing), Christian Lundgaard (Arrow McLaren), Nolan Siegel (Arrow McLaren), Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Hollinger Racing), Rinus VeeKay (Dale Coyne Racing) and Callum Ilott (PREMA Racing).

PREMA is the sport’s newest team. This will be the first race site where it has previously tested.

Chalk Tops List of Expected Contenders

For all the event’s unknowns, the top contenders likely are the drivers at the top of the standings due to the results posted in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding on March 2. In this order, that’s Palou, Dixon, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and McLaughlin.

While Palou dominated last year’s Thermal Club event, Dixon didn’t experience how the track races. Approaching the first corner of the first heat race, Dixon ran into the back of Romain Grosjean’s car, sending Grosjean, VeeKay (then with Ed Carpenter Racing) and Team Penske’s Will Power sliding off track with damage. Dixon also never recovered, finishing 12th among the 14 drivers and therefore didn’t advance to the feature race.

Newgarden reached the 12-driver finals last year, but he finished eighth.

Who else should be good this weekend? Herta, Rosenqvist and Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson come to mind. Rosenqvist finished third in last year’s feature with Herta fourth. Ericsson had the fastest lap of the 2023 test, and he also was the quickest among the six drivers who tested Jan. 28.

Keep an Eye on These Drivers, Too 

Only 12 of last year’s 27 drivers earned a spot in the main event, and all three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers made the cut.

Lundgaard likely would have finished higher than ninth place if his crew had been allowed to repair the hole in his sidepod damaged in his heat race. Pietro Fittipaldi’s car was held out of the final 10 laps for a fueling error, and Graham Rahal couldn’t participate in the final sprint due to a throttle malfunction.

Armstrong, who finished fifth in last year’s Thermal Club feature, drove for Chip Ganassi’s team in 2024, but he remains connected to the organization through Meyer Shank Racing’s technical alliance. CGR had three cars finish in the top six, with Palou winning and Linus Lundqvist finishing sixth.

Rossi drove for Arrow McLaren last year, but it’s worth noting he ran well in his home-state event, reaching the finals and finishing seventh. Juncos Hollinger Racing also had a driver reach the finals with Agustin Canapino finishing a career-best 10th. Daly and Sting Ray Robb drive for JHR this season.