IndyCar at Barber Motorsports Park – facts, schedule, entry list

Event date: Friday, April 29 – Sunday, May 1

Track: 2.366-mile, 17-turn road course in Birmingham, AL.

Race distance: 90 laps (212.94 miles)

Firestone tire allotment: Six sets primary, four sets alternate, and one additional set of primaries available to rookies for use in first practice.

Push-to-pass parameters: 200 seconds of total time with a maximum single duration of 20 seconds.

IndyCar schedule (local/Central Time) and broadcast details

Friday, April 29
3.00-4.00pm – First practice – Peacock Premium

Saturday, April 30
9.00-10.00am – Second practice – Peacock Premium
12.00-1.15pm – Qualifying – Peacock Premium
4.20-4.50pm – Third practice - Peacock Premium

Sunday, May 01
12.00pm – Pre-race build-up – NBC
12.08pm – “Drivers, start your engines”
12.15pm – Green flag: Honda Indy GP of Alabama (90 laps / 212.94 miles) – NBC and Peacock Premium

Leigh Diffey is the announcer alongside analysts Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. All NTT IndyCar Series practice sessions and qualifying stream live on Peacock Premium, NBC’s direct-to-consumer livestreaming product, while Peacock Premium’s exclusive post-race show will be streamed following the race.

IndyCar Radio Network broadcasts: Mark Jaynes is the chief announcer alongside analyst Davey Hamilton. Nick Yeoman, Jake Query and Michael Young are the turn announcers, while Ryan Myrehn and Alex Wollf are pit reporters. All IndyCar races, practices and qualifying sessions air live on network affiliates, SiriusXM 160, racecontrol.indycar.com and the IndyCar app powered by NTT DATA.

Race Notes

2021 race winner: Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda).

2021 NTT P1 Award winner: Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet), 65.8479sec, 125.744mph. 

Qualifying lap record: Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet) 65.5019sec, 126.409mph, 2021 during Q2

This will be the 12^th Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama dating back to 2011. Josef Newgarden has won the event three times, Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Will Power has won it twice, while other event winners in this weekend’s edition include, Alex Palou, Takuma Sato, Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves.

In terms of teams Penske has won six of the 11 races at Barber, while the remaining five were clinched by Andretti Autosport (twice), Chip Ganassi Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Power has scored four pole positions here, Castroneves two, while Pato O’Ward, Sato, Newgarden and Pagenaud have each led the field to green once.

Ganassi’s six-time champion Scott Dixon has a bizarre stat in this event, having finished on the podium in nine of the 11 Grands Prix held at Barber but never winning. He will also be making his 292^nd consecutive start, the second longest streak in Indy car history.

As rookies, Tatiana Calderon, Devlin DeFrancesco, Callum Ilott, Kyle Kirkwood, Christian Lundgaard and David Malukas will all be making their first IndyCar starts at Barber Motorsports Park. However, Malukas, Kirkwood and DeFrancesco have all raced at the track in junior formulas. DeFrancesco took a pair of podium finishes here in Indy Lights, while Malukas took a podium in Indy Pro 2000 and a win in Lights.