The Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway was a fitting finale to the 2025 IndyCar Series season. The race featured thrilling battles, more overtakes than last year, plenty of drama and spectacle, and with Josef Newgarden as perhaps a somewhat unexpected winner. What stood out in the season finale? We analyze the race weekend based on a series of numbers.

429 - Thanks to solid results from Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman, Prema is no longer the full-time team that scored the fewest points. Prema ultimately collected 429 points, edging out Dale Coyne Racing by just one point. Dale Coyne Racing is now the team that scored the fewest points with its two cars.

284 - During the race, 284 on-track passes for position were recorded. That’s significantly more than last year, when there were 237.

184 - Who else but champion Alex Palou set the fastest lap of the race, in lap 184: 24.1369 seconds / 198.368 mph. Eight laps later, he also set the fastest lap by a race leader.

156.342 - The average speed of the race was 156.342 miles per hour (251.554 km/h). That’s 2.856 mph (4.610 km/h) slower than last year, the result of more laps behind the pace car.

90 - After an hour of racing, things looked good for Arrow McLaren with Pato O'Ward in the lead and Christian Lundgaard in tenth. Within 90 seconds, everything changed: first Lundgaard came into the pits and retired with a mechanical problem, then O'Ward crashed from the lead with a puncture. In the end, Nolan Siegel was the only McLaren driver to finish, but from 17th place he couldn’t make much of an impression.

32 - Josef Newgarden’s victory was the 32nd of his IndyCar career. With it, he moves up the all-time IndyCar winners list from 11th place (tied with Dario Franchitti, Helio Castroneves, and Paul Tracy) to 10th place outright. Next year, he’ll set his sights on Al Unser Jr.’s 34 wins, which currently hold 9th place.

21 - Josef Newgarden’s previous victory came last year at WWT Raceway – 21 races ago!

20.475 - The fastest pit stop of the race surprisingly went to Sting Ray Robb’s pit crew. In lap 210, Robb went from pit entry to pit exit in just 20.475 seconds. It should be noted that he only took on fresh tires during this stop, but the same was true for drivers like Scott Dixon and Colton Herta.

20 - The race saw 20 lead changes in total. That’s far more than last year, when there were only eight.

19 - Conor Daly picked up the award for most positions gained: he started 24th and finished 5th – a gain of 19 spots!

14 - Despite a drive-through penalty for blocking Santino Ferrucci, Robert Shwartzman was the highest-finishing rookie. He won’t have been happy, though, as he came up two points short of the Rookie of the Year title.

12 - No fewer than twelve different drivers led at least one lap during the race at Nashville Superspeedway: Pato O'Ward (116 laps), Josef Newgarden (60 laps), Alexander Rossi (16 laps), Alex Palou (11 laps), Scott McLaughlin (7 laps), Will Power (5 laps), Colton Herta (3 laps), Conor Daly (2 laps), Rinus VeeKay (2 laps), Scott Dixon (1 lap), Marcus Armstrong (1 lap), and David Malukas (1 lap).

11 - Thanks to his Nashville win, Josef Newgarden kept his streak of seasons with at least one victory alive. This marks his 11th consecutive season with a win.

11 - Will Power lost more positions than any other finisher: he started 10th and finished 21st – a loss of 11 places!

7 - Race control was unusually busy during the Nashville event, handing out no fewer than seven penalties:

Felix Rosenqvist had to drop to the back of the field for a false start.

Santino Ferrucci had to drop to the back of the field for taking the wrong pit entry.

Louis Foster, Marcus Armstrong, and Robert Shwartzman all received drive-through penalties for blocking other drivers.

Colton Herta had to drop to the back of the field for an unsafe release after a pit stop.

Will Power was given a drive-through penalty for hitting his own equipment in the pits.

5.9621 - Alex Palou had incredible luck when he suffered a right-front puncture in lap 51 but managed to reach the pits without further issues. Remarkably, the incident cost him just one position – after others pitted as well, he fell from second to third. How much time did he lose? Comparing his in- and outlaps (Palou was already past the start/finish line in pit entry, meaning he drove part of his outlap on the flat tire) with his only other green-flag pit stop, he lost just 5.9621 seconds! On top of that, he was on fresher tires earlier than his rivals, giving him about a one-second-per-lap advantage. In the end, the puncture barely cost him any time.

5.3113 - Alex Palou’s race wasn’t as dominant as we’ve come to expect – he seemed headed for sixth place before the final round of green-flag pit stops. But after that round, he was leading. How did he manage it?

On ovals, fresh tires can make a huge difference. They also make overtaking easier, while it becomes harder to defend on worn tires. So if you want to gain track position, you need to pit earlier than your rivals. The risk is that a caution right after your stop can trap you a lap down.

Palou took a gamble by making his final stop six laps earlier than race leader Newgarden. Looking at laps 180 to 187 – including in- and outlaps for both drivers – Palou gained 5.3113 seconds on Newgarden. Just 0.3 of that came from a quicker pit stop. Newgarden ultimately managed to pass Palou again, but thanks to this clever strategy, Palou climbed from sixth on lap 179 to second at the finish.

5 - Thanks to Conor Daly’s fifth place, Juncos Hollinger Racing ended the season with its best result of the year!

4 - With his victory, Josef Newgarden improved his final championship position by four spots: from 16th to 12th.

2 - David Malukas narrowly missed out on his first-ever IndyCar pole position for the third time this year – he qualified second for the third time this season.