IndyCar and Penske Entertainment officials said they saw the prospect of elevating two races — Laguna Seca as its future season finale, and Nashville Superspeedway in the prime TV window immediately following an eight-figure FIFA World Cup final audience — as reason enough to make its seventh change to the final race of the year since 2019 .

Therein lies the reason the third-most-watched race of 2025, with an average audience of 1.142 million viewers — trailing only the season opening St. Pete (1.420 million) and the Indy 500 (just over 7 million) in 2025 — will vacate its spot as the potential championship decider and slide into the one-time role with a monster lead-in audience, handing Laguna Seca, a race whose average audience has never topped in 750,000 in average audience since

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