With Katherine Legge‘s upcoming entry with AJ Foyt Racing and HMD Motorsports into the 2026 Indianapolis 500, the entry list has grown to 33 cars. Unless a completely random entry comes out of left field, the entry list for the 2026 Indianapolis 500 will be a total of 33, much like it was in 2022.
Let’s look over the entrants for the 110th Indianapolis 500 on May 24th.
The first 25 entrants are the 25 full-time competitors who have raced in every NTT IndyCar Series race so far in 2026. Penske, Ganassi, Andretti Global, Arrow McLaren, and so on down the line have their full-season drivers entered for the race. No surprises there.
There are also eight one-off drivers entered for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. First, Dreyer and Reinbold Racing have two cars entered for Conor Daly (No. 23) and Jack Harvey (No. 24). Both drivers have driven for the Indy-only team before, with Daly finishing 10th in 2024 and Harvey finishing 19th in 2025.
Arrow McLaren is bringing Ryan Hunter-Reay into their program to drive their fourth car (No. 31). Hunter-Reay very possibly could have won the 2025 race with the strategy he was on; however, he ran out of fuel on the way to the pits for his final pit stop, and the team had difficulties restarting his engine. McLaren is also bringing a NASCAR presence to the 500, with Legacy Motor Club partnering with the Papaya team.
LMC is providing race engineer Brian Campe, who won the 2015 Indy 500 with Juan Pablo Montoya and Team Penske, and was also present at the 2024 race as Kyle Larson‘s strategist. The deal emerged from the relationship between LMC owner Jimmie Johson and Arrow McLaren Team Principal Tony Kanaan, who were teammates at Chip Ganassi Racing during the 2021 IndyCar season.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, meanwhile, is bringing back 2017 and 2020 Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato for another shot after the Japanese racer qualified second in 2025. Sato will be in the No. 75 entry.
Meyer Shank Racing has a third entry for four-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves in the No. 06 Honda. Castroneves scored MSR’s only IndyCar win at the 2021 Indianapolis 500.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s eponymous team owner, Ed Carpenter, will be back behind the wheel of the No. 33 Chevrolet for his own team. Carpenter is a multi-time pole winner at Indianapolis and finished second in 2018.
After not making the 2025 field, Jacob Abel is back in 2026 with his family-owned team, Abel Motorsports, in the No. 51 Chevrolet. Indy will mark the 2025 rookie’s first start of the season.
Legge’s entry with HMD Motorsports and Foyt brings the entry list to 33 cars.
Additional information about the teams competing in the Indianapolis 500 and the 2026 IndyCar season at large can be found at the link below:
The annual Indianapolis 500 open test will be Tuesday and Wednesday, April 28 and 29 and will be livestreamed on IndyCar’s YouTube channel.
Qualifying for the Indy 500 runs Saturday and Sunday, May 16-17, while the Indy 500 race begins Sunday, May 24 at 12:30 p.m. ET and airs on FOX.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
Anyone else think they need to reduce the number of starting spots for the Indy 500 to make Bump Day mean something? With only 25 teams/drivers running all races for the season, does the Indy 500 number need to be 24 (8 rows of 3) ensuring the nail-biting drama that at least one full time team will be sitting out? Or maybe it’s better if the number is 27 (9 rows of 3). 30? Regardless, it feels anticlimactic for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” if everyone who shows up automatically gets in.
Agree I miss bump day mattering, but forced to choose, I’d rather have a full field. Not a hill I’d die on though.
I don’t understand why Indycar didn’t figure out a way to give Prema two charters. That probably would have resulted in 35 entries. They had a new team wanting to become full time, and basically just said, “nah, we’re good”.
The Prema situation definitely does not make sense to me either.
I’ll still enjoy the 500, but Bump Day was a big event in the schedule of activities leading up to the 500. It helped generate some excitement and story lines prior to the race. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but hopefully they’ll find a way to bring it back in the future.
Yep, we can sing it together. Bump day often brought more excitement than the actual race, watching the lap times, watching the strategy to line up for runs, and watching the clock to see whether a late run may happen to bump into the field, or would someone on the bubble screw up and lose a fast enough time by trying to improve.
I just don’t want to see less cars make the race. That seems like something NASCAR would do, and in fact they already have, reducing their fields from 43 to 40. Modern era, if you run an auto racing series, watch what NASCAR does, then do the exact opposite. Pretty safe strategy for success.
“We need bump day ” . Yes, it is always great to see a few never going to make the show cars, try one last attempt and junk the car in turn one, usually on the first lap. Or an old fool bring out a 40 year old car and putt around waiving at the crowd. Sorry, but I watch the actual race. Just get rid of the ridiculous rounds and give each car three attempts. It worked for many years and Sam Posey isn’t around any more to try and cheat the system to exceed three attempts.
You must not have been around in the 80’s -90’s Bumping was just as exciting as the race! The drama was incredible. Very brave men and women who would push the limits of man and machine.
Many great drivers over the years didn’t get in because of those “old fools” and brave souls. Graham Rahal most recently and once the Entire Penske team didn’t make the race.
That’s just Alex being Alex. No matter what happens, or did happen, he hates it. Sometimes, he hates things that didn’t happen, and creates straw man arguments about things which were never said by broadcasters.
I agree bumping was once on par with the race itself, and would love to see this come back. Seems unlikely with the new charter rules quickly closing any door for new teams to walk through.