Luke McKeown dominates INDYCAR Thrustmaster iRacing Pro Series season opener at Long Beach

Opening lap chaos headlined the return of the INDYCAR Thrustmaster iRacing Pro Series on Thursday night. Racing on the Streets of Long Beach, 33 of the top-ranked virtual IndyCar competitors were set to open their 2026 campaigns in a positive way, but for more than half of the field, their dreams were crushed in a track blocker at the fountain while Team Redline’s Luke McKeown ran away with the victory from the pole.

Alongside Coanda Esports’ Dan Amor at the drop of the green flag, McKeown cleared by the exit of Turn 1, as Amor began down the chute to the fountain alongside another Team Redline entry in Florian Lebigre. Contact led to calamity as the racing surface became blocked off. Only a few were able to escape without damage to their car. McKeown, of course, was the only driver ahead of the accident scene, and was able to cruise home to the opening race victory, the second of his career.

CHAOS ON THE START! The 2026 INDYCAR Thrustmaster iRacing Pro Series is underway, but we’ve got a MASSIVE stack-up in the fountain!!!

Tune in to see how it all unfolds! https://t.co/3zRHcs8Rff@IndyCar | @TMThrustmaster pic.twitter.com/qaFc5fYRAg

— iRacing (@iRacing) January 9, 2026

The chaos behind unfazed the long-time eSports competitor at the front. Even with the early advantage, McKeown extended that lead to ultimately be more than 11 seconds over the defending champion, his Team Redline teammate Diogo Pinto. “It’s amazing to get the win,” McKeown said post-race. “My pace going into it—with the updates to the car—things have changed, so it’s nice to see the pace is really good. I just really wanted to have a good start to the season. I think it’s really important to have momentum in a season, so it kind of started off perfectly.”

Pinto’s title defense starts with a strong second place, while his closest competitor from the inaugural season, Team Hype with Powerslide’s Philip Kraus, also survived the opening lap to finish fourth. In between the pair, a rookie to this series but another long-time iRacing eSports competitor in Alessandro Bico rounded out the podium. Five of the 13 rookies in the series finished inside the Top 10.

As it will be with all five of the Street and Road Course events on the calendar, Long Beach was the first to feature tire compound change rules. All competitors are tasked with running both compound tires during the 41-lap event. Most drivers began the race on the Alternate virtual green-walled, eco-friendly Guayule Firestone tires, these tires offering faster lap times, but shorter stints. Only a handful of drivers opted to begin on the Primary black-walled Firestones, one of which was Kraus from the seventh starting spot.

While Kraus was able to avoid the chaos at the start, and jump up to fourth, he was overtaken by Drago Racing’s Nicolas Mateo early on due to the tire compound difference. When McKeown pitted from the lead, Mateo opted to stay out one lap further, leading his first career lap on Lap 20. When Mateo pitted, Kraus stayed out an additional seven laps before pitting in at Lap 28, handing the lead back to McKeown.

McKeown, Pinto, and Bico, all on the popular strategy, were able to get around Kraus, but surprisingly, Kraus was able to leapfrog over Mateo and Mateo’s Drago Racing teammate, Alx Spetz, who had pitted on Lap 19. The Guayule tires allowed Kraus to gain some of the time he had lost, but the tire advantage fizzled out as the laps ran down.

With the attrition at an all-time high, only nine cars finished on the lead lap. Five drivers that started 20th or worse all finished inside the top-11, including Drago Racing’s Michael Romanidis, the biggest mover of the race, up from 29th to finish in eighth. Other notable survivors included Team Redline’s Gustavo Ariel, finishing seventh from starting 20th, Nexxus eSports’ Quami Scott, the last car on the lead lap in ninth after starting 25th, Team Hype with Powerslide’s Adam Blocker, up 20 spots from 30th to 10th, and Powerslide’s Alexander Russell, who finished 11th after starting in 28th.

Among those to retire after the first lap included Amor, his Coanda teammate Elliott Vayron, Drago Racing’s Peter Berryman and Ricardo Rico, Privateer Jaden Munoz, SZESE E-Sport’s Tamas Simon, Bleu Mercure Esport’s Vasilios Beletsiotis, and two Team Redline entries in Sam Kuitert and the winner of the first race in the first season, Edoardo Leo. Powerslide’s Alexander van de Sandt was heavily damaged early, but was able to rejoin to finish 22nd, earning three more points than finishing where he would have if he didn’t push to get back in the race.

RACE RESULTS FROM RACE NO. 1 | STREETS OF LONG BEACH

DRIVERS STANDINGS AFTER RACE NO. 1 | STREETS OF LONG BEACH

Leaving Long Beach, McKeown owns a 14 point lead from a perfect race over Pinto. McKeown got every possible point available, including the 50 for finishing first, the point for leading a lap, the two points for leading the most laps, and the point for winning the pole position. The only other two drivers that earned a bonus point were Kraus and Mateo, the only two drivers to lead a lap other than McKeown.

Last season, McKeown finished in fifth, behind Pinto, Kraus, Leo, and Team Hype with Powerslide’s Robert Maleczka III. While Pinto and Kraus were able to both start off their title conquests on the right foot alongside McKeown, Leo and Maleczka III will have a tall hill to climb, with two less races than the first season, and in Maleczka’s case in particular, two less oval races to even the playing field with the road warriors at Team Redline, Williams Sim Racing, Drago Racing, and more.

NEXT RACE: PORTLAND MAKES ITS DEBUT

The second race of the season will take place at Portland International Raceway on Thursday, January 15th. The first proper Road Course race of the season, Portland joins the fold for the first time after it was added to the iRacing catalog of tracks last year. Expect the contingent of Team Redline competitors to be in the mix, but similarly to Long Beach, they’ll likely have to avoid calamity once again in the opening chicane at the 1.96-mile venue in the Pacific Northwest.

All of the action starts at 8:00 p.m. ET, and will be live on INDYCAR’s YouTube channel, as well as across all of iRacing’s social media channels.

For more information on the INDYCAR Thrustmaster iRacing Pro Series, visit www.iracing.com/indycar-esports/.
For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

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