David Malukas “learned a lot” with tire strategy to take fourth at Barber

The Team Penske driver narrowly missed out on the podium in the fourth round of the IndyCar season

David Malukas wanted more, but left Barber Motorsports Park satisfied with a fourth-place finish.

After starting second on the 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural terrain road course, the Chicago native attempted to keep pace with pole-sitter - and eventual race winner Alex Palou. The impact of starting on a set of softer alternate (red sidewall) tires opposite of Palou’s harder primaries (black sidewall), left him sliding backwards after 15 of 90 laps.

Despite the brief slide, Malukas never dropped below fourth on strategy. In the closing laps, he began to make a late charge and pressure Graham Rahal for the final spot on the podium, but was left settling for fourth at the finish.

The result continues a strong start to the 2026 IndyCar season for Malukas, who joined Team Penske over the offseason to take over the #12 Chevrolet. After finishing 13th in the season-opener at St. Petersburg, he’s now grabbed three consecutive top six finishes, including two top fives; already matching his career best in a season.

Still, Malukas can’t help but wonder if there was more in it at the Alabama circuit if he opted to start Sunday’s race on the primary compound.

“It all comes down to the beginning, on choosing to start on the reds, that was not the right strategy,” said Malukas, 24. “But on that strategy though, we were the number one car. The car #7 (Christian Lundgaard), they were by far the fastest car out there, but we were just right behind them.

“I think the best that we probably could have done is maybe a P3, if I set up Rahal a little bit better at the end there, maybe we could have gotten a podium.”

Malukas now sits fourth in the championship standings, 40 points behind leader Kyle Kirkwood (156-116).

“Overall, it's still a good points day for us and Team Penske,” Malukas said.

“We learned a lot. And yeah, now we know we got to stay ahead of the game when it comes to choosing these tires. If we started primaries, who knows, we would have been right up there and had a different battle. But either way, thank you to Team Penske, Verizon, and Chevrolet.”