The Foyle-Pensky Technical Alliance is a partnership between companies that helps improve technology and performance in racing. It means they work together to make the cars better.
IndyCar is a type of car racing that takes place in North America. It includes fast cars that race on different tracks, some of which are circular and others that have turns.
Soft tires are a type of racing tire that helps cars go faster because they grip the road better. However, they wear out quickly and need to be replaced more often.
Hard tires are another type of racing tire that lasts longer than soft tires but doesn't grip the road as well. They are used when teams want to avoid changing tires too often.
A tire stint is the time a car uses a certain set of tires during a race before switching to a different set. Teams plan these changes to help their cars perform better.
Tire durability is how long a tire can be used before it wears out. In racing, teams need to think about how quickly their tires will wear down while trying to go fast.
The Panoz DP-01 is a type of race car used in a series of professional races in the U.S. It's designed to be very fast and is made for experienced drivers.
This is a powerful engine used in race cars. It has two turbochargers that help it produce a lot of speed and power.
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Hi everyone, I'm IndyCar Dad and this is IndyCar News in five minutes for February 19th,
2026. Here's what happened in IndyCar this week, all presented in five minutes time.
First, just after I released last week's five minute IndyCar news,
Romain Grojan was announced as the driver for Dale Coyne this year. We kind of all knew it was
going to happen, but it's now firmly in place. Second big thing that happened this week is the
team spent two days testing at Phoenix. This is a series wide test, so all the cars will be there,
25 cars total, and Firestone was testing out a new tire. So testing went well, there were only two
minor crashes. Kyle Collette looped his car on cold tires, and Marcus Erickson may have had
something break on his car and he ended up in the wall, but there were zero injuries. There were
three long sessions. Each a half day long teams ran a lot of laps up to 200 or more laps per car.
So I'll have some analysis at the end. A lot of people say you can't win testing. I don't believe
that's true. I really like to analyze the data and we're going to do that right at the end of this.
Third thing that happened this week is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced that
they're on track to sell out the grandstands for the 500 again this year. That's really great for
the series. If you've never been to the 500, it's really something. So it's exciting that other
people are going to join us this year. A general admission tickets still stay on sale, even if
they sell out the grandstands and there's plenty of room in the infield. So lots of ticket sales
this year. Fourth thing, the Foyle-Pensky Technical Alliance, which originally was set to end at the
end of last year, is going to continue through this season and 2027. A lot of people thought that
was just tied to David Malukas' development, but I think it really is better for the series if
teams like Pensky can help teams like Foyle along and there are some talented people at Foyle that
can probably help the Pensky team out as well. So the fifth thing I want to talk about is a big
deal if you really get into the technical and strategic part of IndyCar. There's been a change
this year to how tires must be run. In the past, you were required to run both sets of tires,
the soft tires and the hard tires during the race, and you only had to run one stint of each. But
this year, you're going to be required to run two stints of the soft tire at all street and
road course races. So this is interesting because there were some tracks last year that teams were
really fast to get off of the soft tires because they weren't durable and they weren't actually
that quick after a lap or two. So this year, teams will have to get onto those soft tires two times.
Another interesting thing about it is the teams get a limited amount of tires for the weekend
and a lot of teams burn up almost all or all of their soft tires trying to get pole position.
Remember, qualifying happens in three stages. So if you're eliminated in the first stage,
you're probably only used one brand new set of soft tires. That would leave you with two left
for the race. If you make it to the second stage of qualifying and you're trying to advance to the
third stage, the final stage, you will burn another set of sticker new soft tires. That will leave
you with only one set of brand new tires for the race. And if you try to go for pole in that third
stage and you burn another set of sticker tires, that means you will have used up all three soft
sets. And when the race comes, you might be starting from pole, but you might have two sets
of slightly worn soft tires, whereas someone a few row or two back might have an extra set
of new soft tires and someone at the back of the field or the back half of the field might have
two sets of brand new soft tires. So interesting strategy behind all of that. I can't wait to
see how it plays out. So something to look for even for the semi-casual fan. Watch for tire
strategy this season because a lot of teams aren't going to know what to do and you'll want to know
what the teams did in qualifying before the race starts. Next thing that happened this week,
Will Power and Alex Palo saw the release of their Fox commercials. I liked them both. I hope you get
to see them soon. They're on YouTube and then you'll see them during the broadcast too, but
they're cute. Okay, seventh thing that happened is teams are limited at how much testing they can
do during the season, during the year. And a lot of that prevents the drivers from driving
like a representative car and they kind of get out of practice. And rookies and young drivers
don't get enough seat time, they think. Well, there's an enterprising company out there that went
and bought up some of the last year, the Champ Car World Series cars that are these Panos DP-01s.
And supposedly they're like the height of open-wheel cars in the United States and they run on this
Cosworth Twin Turbo V8 engine. They are fast. Drivers like Will Power and Scott Dixon drove them in
their prime. Graham Ray Hall did too. And those guys say that this was the best race car some of them
have ever driven. Well, you can go and teams can go and rent one of these cars to do like an
unofficial test day. So it's a really interesting thing. I'm going to find out how much it costs
too. Not that I got that kind of scratch, but it'd be fun to drive a Panos DP-01. I'll tell you that
much. All right, let's look at the test data and analyze who's fast. So the way I analyze this is if
you finish first in session one, second in session two, and third in session three, you would have
one plus two plus three points. And that would be six points. If you finish 20th, 25th, and 20th,
you'd have 65 points. The person obviously with the lowest number of points is fastest. The person
with the highest number of points, not fastest. It's not, it's scientific, but it's not the end
all be all. So who do we think scored the lowest points for the sessions, for the three sessions
at Phoenix? I'll give you one guess. Alex Palau. Alex Palau came out with the lowest number of
points of anybody else. Wild. The guy is seemingly unstoppable. Second place is interesting, Alexander
Rossi, who was actually first in the first session, first in the last session, and 10th in the middle
session. So there's definitely some speed over at ECR. Also, Christian Rasmussen was fifth fastest.
So third and fourth were Will Power. Love to see it. Love to see him. His redemption arc over at
Andretti and David Malukas was fourth. Other people were quick there too. One outlier,
Graham Rahal was 10th fastest. He typically Rahal RLL was not so quick on the oval. So it's nice to
see Graham up there with a nice consistent testing performance. Other outliers, not a good test
session again for McLaren. They didn't have a good test session in Sebring, and they're not
looking that great here. Palau was 12th, Siegel was 17th, and Lungar was 20th out of 25. So it's,
I mean, it's testing. You don't have to take it with too much seriousness. But boy, you'd like to see
some of the McLaren's a little higher than that. As far as rookie goes, rookies go. Dennis Hauger
was fastest rookie at 18th position. Kyle Collette was 21st position. And Mick Schumacher was 23rd
position. I think he's still learning the cars. Other outliers is Kiffin Simpson, who I've been
talking about going to have a great year this year, was 24th fastest. And it wasn't like just on one
bad session. He was 20th, 21st, and 22nd throughout the sessions. Turned a lot of laps, so there might
be some testing thing going on there. But not a good luck to be that far down in a field that,
you know, she has some not so fast cars in there. And then 25th fastest was Santino for Rucci,
although Santino got faster as the days went on. He was 25th, then 22nd, and then 16th quick. So
that's where we sit. That's the IndyCar news in five minutes for February 19th. I'm IndyCar dad.
You can find me on all of the socials. Next week, I'll be going to St. Pete. I'll have IndyCar news
in five minutes from St. Pete, and I'll have a lot more content over the weekend. So follow me
on all the socials. I'm on Instagram. My podcast is on the podcast networks, and I'm on YouTube as
well. Thanks for watching.
About this episode
Romain Grojan's signing with Dale Coyne Racing was confirmed, and teams participated in a two-day testing session at Phoenix, where Firestone tested new tires. Despite minor crashes, testing yielded valuable data, with Alex Palau emerging as the fastest driver. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is on track for another sellout for the 500, and a new tire strategy will challenge teams this season. Notable commercials featuring Will Power and Alex Palo were released, and an interesting option for unofficial testing with Champ Car World Series cars was discussed.
The IndyCar News in 5 minutes for February 19th, 2026 covers the latest updates in the IndyCar world, including testing at Phoenix, ticket sales at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Floyd-Penske Technical Alliance, changes to tire regulations, and test data analysis.
