The Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix is an IndyCar Series race held at Barber Motorsports Park, a 17-turn road course, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Officially announced on July 27, 2009, the inaugural event was on the weekend of April 9–11, 2010. The event is under the management of the local group Zoom Motorsports. The venue is designed to allow for nearly 100,000 spectators and will have an estimated economic impact on Greater Birmingham of $30 million.
History Having an IRL race at Barber became a possibility in 2007 when the league had testing session at the facility on October 12, 2007. The test would also serve in evaluating the track as a potential site for a race beginning in the 2009 season. By July 2008, IRL revealed its 2009 schedule with new races being held at Long Beach and Toronto, but not at Barber. However local officials indicated that Barber was under strong consideration for a 2010 date.
Due to the success of the testing session in 2007, Barber was selected for a full-field, three-day testing session in March 2009. Officials remained confident that the track would gain a race in the future due to the desire of the IRL to expand into the South, as well as the location of the Honda Manufacturing of Alabama plant in nearby Lincoln, Honda being an official engine supplier of IRL.
The opportunity to pursue the event came after the Detroit Indy Grand Prix was discontinued. Initially, Zoom Motorsports looked to have the Detroit race moved to Alabama for the 2009 season; however, the league decided in February 2009 to not replace the event on its schedule. With an open date available for 2010, Birmingham made its pitch to IRL officials and was selected to hold the event over Cleveland (Burke Lakefront Airport), Houston, Baltimore, Nashville, Charlotte and Portland. IRL cited both strong support from both local and state government in addition to the large crowd that attended an IRL training session in March 2009 as factors in Birmingham being selected for the race.
Past winners SeasonDateDriverTeamChassisEngineTiresRace DistanceRace TimeAverage Speed(mph)ReportRef Laps Miles (km) 2010 April 11 Hélio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara Honda Firestone90214.2 (344.721)1:56:41106.436 Report 2011 April 10 Will Power Team Penske (2) Dallara Honda Firestone90214.2 (344.721)2:14:4392.194 Report 2012 April 1 Will Power (2) Team Penske (3) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone90214.2 (344.721)2:01:40102.081 Report 2013 April 7 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara Chevrolet Firestone90214.2 (344.721)1:52:05110.818 Report 2014 April 27 Ryan Hunter-Reay (2) Andretti Autosport (2) Dallara Honda Firestone69*164.22 (264.286)1:40:4394.537 Report 2015 April 26 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara Chevrolet Firestone90214.2 (344.721)1:55:53107.176 Report 2016 April 24 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske (4) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone90214.2 (344.721)1:48:42114.254 Report 2017 April 23 Josef Newgarden (2) Team Penske (5) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone90214.2 (344.721)1:54:09108.809 Report 2018 April 22/23 Josef Newgarden (3) Team Penske (6) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone 82* 195.16 (314.06) 2:01:14 93.335 Report 2019 April 7 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara Honda Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:55:46 107.272 Report 2020 April 5Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic 2021 April 18 Álex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara Honda Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:52:53 110.025 Report 2022 May 1 Pato O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara Chevrolet Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:48:39 114.304 Report 2023 April 30 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske (7) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:47:58 115.019 Report 2024 April 28 Scott McLaughlin (2) Team Penske (8) Dallara Chevrolet Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:56:45 110.081 Report 2025 May 4 Álex Palou (2) Chip Ganassi Racing (2) Dallara Honda Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721) 1:46:33 116.562 Report 2026 March 29 Álex Palou (3) Chip Ganassi Racing (3) Dallara Honda Firestone 90 214.2 (344.721)1:45:58117.210 Report
Notes 2014: Race postponed same day and shortened to 100 minutes due to lightning and darkness policy. 2018: Race suspended until Monday after 23 laps due to heavy rain. The race was resumed as a timed race with 75 minutes remaining. 2021: Race rescheduled from April 11 to April 18 after the Grand Prix of Long Beach was rescheduled and to allow for network television coverage.
Indy Lights/Indy NXT winners Season Date Winning driver Winning team 2010 April 11 Jean-Karl Vernay Sam Schmidt Motorsports 2011 April 10 Víctor García Team Moore Racing 2012 April 1 Sebastián Saavedra Conquest Racing 2013 April 7 Carlos Muñoz Andretti Autosport 2014 April 26 Zach Veach Andretti Autosport April 27 Gabby Chaves Belardi Auto Racing 2015 April 25 Spencer Pigot Juncos Racing April 26 Spencer Pigot Juncos Racing 2016 April 25 Ed Jones Carlin April 26 Santiago Urrutia Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 2017 April 22 Nico Jamin Andretti Autosport April 23 Colton Herta Andretti Steinbrenner Racing 2018 April 21 Patricio O'Ward Andretti Autosport April 22 Patricio O'Ward Andretti Autosport 2019Not Held 2020 April 4Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic April 5 2021 April 17 Linus Lundqvist Global Racing Group with HMD Motorsports April 18 David Malukas HMD Motorsports 2022 May 1 Linus Lundqvist HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing Indy NXT 2023 April 30 Christian Rasmussen HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing 2024 April 28 Jacob Abel Abel Motorsports 2025 May 4 Dennis Hauger Andretti Global 2026 March 28 Nikita Johnson Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR March 29 Alessandro de Tullio A. J. Foyt Racing
References
External links IndyCar.com race page Champ Car Stats: Barber archive