Every session time below is listed in Eastern Time, since Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course sits in Ohio and most of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES broadcast audience is based in the Eastern and Central time zones. If you’re watching from the West Coast, subtract three hours. From the UK, add five hours; from India, add nine and a half hours.

Note that qualifying ran later than its scheduled 2:30 p.m. ET start on Saturday after storms moved through Lexington, pushing the NTT P1 Award session into the evening. FOX’s Sunday broadcast begins at 12:30 p.m. ET with pre-race coverage, and the actual green flag typically drops around 12:52 p.m. ET once driver introductions and the pace laps are complete.

The 2026 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio airs live on FOX, continuing the network’s exclusive broadcast partnership with the NTT INDYCAR SERIES that began in 2025. Every practice session and qualifying segment airs on FS1 or FS2, and the entire weekend is also available to stream.

IndyCar TV Channel and Streaming Options

For fans without traditional cable, FOX One has become the primary streaming home for the series since the network’s rights deal began. It carries every session commercial-free during green-flag racing and includes in-app timing and scoring. Consequently, cord-cutters no longer need a separate over-the-air antenna setup to catch qualifying or practice.

Christian Lundgaard claimed the NTT P1 Award with a best lap of 1:04.839 in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, leading an all-Arrow McLaren front row alongside teammate Pato O’Ward. It’s Lundgaard’s latest strong result in a stretch that already includes wins at the Indianapolis road course and Road America. Meanwhile, Team Penske’s David Malukas qualified fourth in his debut season with the team, matching Will Power’s time to the thousandth of a second in the process.

Notably, championship leader Alex Palou qualified eighth, well off the pace that earned him the pole here in each of the past two seasons. He’ll need a strong strategic drive on Sunday to protect his advantage, especially with Lundgaard starting from the front row for a third straight weekend. For more on how this qualifying format works, our IndyCar vs. F1 explainer breaks down how the two series’ grid-setting sessions differ.

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course sits in Lexington, Ohio, roughly halfway between Columbus and Cleveland. It’s a natural-terrain road course, meaning the track follows the rolling hills of the property rather than a flat, purpose-built layout. That gives Mid-Ohio real elevation changes, blind crests, and a narrow 40-foot racing surface that punishes even small mistakes.

The current INDYCAR configuration bypasses the track’s chicane, producing the 13-turn, 2.258-mile layout used since a 1990 refurbishment. A separate 15-turn, 2.4-mile layout with the chicane still exists for club racing and motorcycle events, but IndyCar, IMSA and NASCAR all run the shorter version.

Key Corners at Mid-Ohio

Mid-Ohio’s qualifying lap record has stood since 2016, when Simon Pagenaud turned a 1:03.870 — a benchmark that has survived nearly a decade of aerodynamic and engine changes. Alex Palou holds the more recent mark, setting a 1:05.0215 pole lap in 2025 before backing it up with another pole in 2024. For context on how corners like these are actually navigated at speed, see our explainer on what downforce does for cornering grip.

Beyond the schedule and the grid, several threads make this particular Mid-Ohio weekend worth following closely. Here’s what’s actually shaping the Honda Indy 200 before Sunday’s green flag.

Mid-Ohio doesn’t reward the fastest car nearly as often as it rewards the smartest strategy call. Because the track is narrow and overtaking chances are limited to a handful of corners, track position tends to matter more here than at wider, faster circuits. As a result, pit stop timing and tire management often decide the race more than qualifying pace does.

This year’s practice sessions ran in scorching conditions, with soaring temperatures pushing tire degradation higher than usual for a Mid-Ohio weekend. Higher track temperatures typically shorten the usable life of Firestone’s alternate compound, which means teams starting on the softer tire may need to pit earlier than planned. Meanwhile, drivers who can stretch a stint on the primary compound could gain several positions purely through strategy, regardless of where they started.

Push-to-Pass and Tire Allocation

Every car in the field has access to 200 seconds of total push-to-pass time this weekend, capped at 20 seconds per activation. Teams also have five sets of primary tires and five sets of alternates available for the entire event. Consequently, how a team splits that allocation between practice, qualifying and the race often separates a top-five finish from a mid-pack result.

Given all of that, don’t be surprised if Sunday’s winner comes from outside the top five on the grid. Five of the last seven Mid-Ohio races have been decided by less than a second, and last year’s race — won by Scott Dixon over teammate Palou by 0.4201 seconds — is the clearest recent example of how strategy, fuel saving and late-race restarts can outweigh raw one-lap speed at this circuit.

Alex Palou arrives at Mid-Ohio with a commanding grip on the 2026 championship, but the gap to the chasing pack is closer than his four wins might suggest. Here’s the full picture entering Round 11.

With seven rounds remaining after Mid-Ohio, Palou doesn’t need to win every week — he needs to avoid disasters. Meanwhile, Malukas and Kirkwood are close enough that one bad Palou weekend could compress the title fight significantly. For the complete, continuously updated table, visit our IndyCar drivers and standings hub.

This year’s Honda Indy 200 is the 43rd IndyCar Series race held at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Johnny Rutherford won the very first race here in 1980, and the track has hosted the series almost every year since, becoming as associated with the Fourth of July as any venue in American motorsport.

All-Time Winningest Drivers at Mid-Ohio

• Scott Dixon — 7 wins (2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2025), the most of any driver at the track
• Emerson Fittipaldi — 3 wins (1992, 1993, plus an earlier victory)
• Michael Andretti, Helio Castroneves, Teo Fabi, Josef Newgarden, Bobby Rahal, Al Unser Jr., Alex Zanardi — 2 wins each

Team Records

Chip Ganassi Racing has won 13 times at Mid-Ohio overall, including 10 of the last 20 INDYCAR-sanctioned races there. Team Penske isn’t far behind with 12 total victories, spread across drivers from Emerson Fittipaldi in the early 1990s to Scott McLaughlin’s win in 2022. However, 2025 was a rough weekend for Penske specifically: all three of its cars finished among the bottom five, a stark departure from the team’s history at this circuit.

Last year’s race turned into one of the tightest finishes in recent Mid-Ohio history. Scott Dixon combined fuel-saving strategy with a rare mistake from teammate Palou to win by just 0.4201 seconds — the closest margin of the entire 2025 season — with Christian Lundgaard completing the podium in third. It capped a stretch in which only one Mid-Ohio race since 2021 has been decided by more than a single second, a pattern that makes this circuit a genuine strategic gamble every year rather than a simple track-position procession.