David Malukas fears a menacing "trifecta" at IndyCar's upcoming Iowa double-header

AJ Foyt Racing's David Malukas has given his take ahead of this week's Iowa race weekend. In line with this, he has touched upon how challenging the tightly-packed three-day event is going to prove to be, especially on Saturday and Sunday.

This week's Iowa race is not like the normal race weekends. From Friday onwards, things will be intense around the Iowa Speedway with little to no margin for any kind of errors. The first day of track running will comprise High-Line Session and Practice, Saturday will have Qualifications and Race 1, and on Sunday, there will only be one event, Race 2.

During a press conference, David Malukas was asked to talk about getting away without any kind of car damage after Race 1 (in regard to the quick turnaround to Sunday's Race 2), and he added the following (via ASAP Sports):

"It's going to be -- yeah, I was actually already just talking with my trainer trying to figure out a recovery plan. It's going to be a very tight turnaround. The races are going to be longer. This package is probably going to be even heavier on the wheel. It's going to be a very tough challenge for all of us physically."

"I think a lot of the preparation that we did in the off-season into this season, I think a lot of it's going to come down to this weekend. It's going to be our toughest weekend by far, I'm pretty sure, and it's going to be hot on top of all of it."

He added:

"So you're having the trifecta of it -- it's going to be a tough race for sure. All the training we've prepared for, it's going to come down to this."

The 2025 IndyCar season is 10 rounds down, and the upcoming race weekend will be Round 11. After all the intense racing on various tracks so far, David Malukas finds himself in 12th place in the standings with 187 points.

"We just can't have luck": David Malukas' take on Mid-Ohio race

David Malukas secured a 17th-place finish in last week's Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. He started the 90-lap Grand Prix from P13, but during the chaotic race, he only slipped backward on the grid to ultimately end his outing behind AJ Foyt Racing teammate Santino Ferrucci, in P16.

In line with this, via a post-race interview, he asserted that his team made a bad strategy call, from which he was just not able to recover during the race. However, he hopes that things will turn around for good going forward.

"We just can't have luck this season. We had a bad strategy call from the start and kind of just had to put our heads down and deal with it throughout the rest of the race. Things didn't really go our way, unfortunately. Been saying that a lot this season. Hopefully, things can turn around," he said via AJ Foyt Racing.

David Malukas, at the age of 23, has so far competed in over 40 IndyCar Grand Prix events. He drives with the #4 on his AJ Foyt Racing car and has secured three podium finishes.

Malukas' most notable on-track outing came this year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Malukas secured a sensational second-place finish behind Alex Palou in the Indy 500.

In 2024, he secured a P24 finish in the drivers' standings with only 148 points. Considering this and his current P12 position in the drivers' standings, he is well on his way to a better finish in the ongoing 2025 season.