This is what Mick Schumacher’s rookie IndyCar season keeps doing. A career-best eighth at Nashville less than four weeks earlier had suggested the German was finally starting to string together the weekends that would justify a 2027 seat somewhere on the grid. Sunday in Markham, on IndyCar’s first visit to the Ontario street circuit, was set up to be another of those weekends.

Schumacher had qualified 10th, had worked his way up to eighth by lap 15 and was closing on the lead pack when he ran straight on at Turn 4. There was no contact with another car. He clipped the pointed inside wall, the front of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda pivoted, and heavy wheel damage left him nose first in the tire barrier. He was classified 25th and last.

“We weren’t even pushing hard”

Schumacher took the blame himself after climbing out.

“We weren’t even pushing hard. We had a really good car,” he told reporters.

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He pointed to the geometry of the corner, saying the car “just got to that pointy end of the corner” and that “we don’t have a round wall here,” meaning the sharp edge of the concrete barrier redirected his steering into the wall.

Ericsson denies Grosjean at the front

Up ahead, Marcus Ericsson passed Romain Grosjean with five laps to run and pulled away to win by 7.5 seconds. It was Ericsson’s fifth career IndyCar victory and his first with Andretti. Will Power completed the podium, with Alex Palou fourth and Pato O’Ward fifth.

Twenty-fourth, and no seat at RLL for 2027

Schumacher went into the weekend 24th in the championship after Nashville, six races from the end of the season and, according to a season audit published four days before Markham, five points behind Caio Collet in the rookie order. The same audit said he had been racing on a broken wrist since the St. Petersburg opener.

The wider picture is harder. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has agreed to sell one of its three charters to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at season’s end, cutting to two full-time entries. Graham Rahal and Louis Foster are contracted for 2027, which leaves Schumacher without a seat at the team that hired him. He has been linked to Meyer Shank Racing, which needs to replace 2026 Indianapolis 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist, and says he is already talking to several teams.

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The next round is the Freedom 250 Grand Prix on the streets of Washington, D.C. on 23 August, another IndyCar debut circuit. On the record Schumacher has built so far, he needs it to look more like Nashville than Markham.

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