This could be the week Alex Palou clinches his third consecutive NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship and his fourth season title in five years.
The driver of the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda enters the BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland presented by askROI with a 121-point lead over the only other driver with a chance to win the season title, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward. Palou makes it a no-contest by completing the Portland International Raceway event with a 108-point lead.
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We could spent time outlining the point possibilities, but know this: O’Ward must finish ahead of Palou in Sunday’s race (3 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network) to harbor any championship hope, and even then it will take considerable work in the Aug. 24 race at the Milwaukee Mile and the season finale Aug. 31 at Nashville Superspeedway to pull off the comeback. Palou will be the champion if he finishes second or higher Sunday and scores a bonus point (either by winning the pole or leading a lap).
Palou is on pace to become the fourth driver in INDYCAR SERIES history to capture three consecutive season championships. Those who have done so are Ted Horn (1946-48), Sebastien Bourdais (2004-07) and Dario Franchitti (2009-11).
Palou could become the sixth driver with four or more series titles. A.J. Foyt holds the record with seven, Scott Dixon has six. Those with four are Mario Andretti, Bourdais and Franchitti.
Palou’s coronation is one of many storylines heading to the Pacific Northwest.
Eight and Counting for Palou
Palou has a chance to break an all-time record, too. In 1964, Foyt won 10 races, a feat matched by Al Unser in 1970. The only other driver with nine race wins in a season was Andretti in 1969.
Palou has eight wins in 14 starts, including the most recent race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. With three races remaining, Palou has a chance at 11 wins, but to reach that mark he will have to win season’s final four races, and he has never won four in succession.
Still, winning two of the remaining three races seems achievable. Palou has won two races in Portland – 2021 and 2023 – and he finished second in last year’s race. He has never finished on the podium in Milwaukee or Nashville, but he won his first short oval race last month at Iowa Speedway and his first oval race of any kind in May in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.
Palou has had a historic year even if he doesn’t win any of the remaining three races. He is already one of only nine drivers to have won at least eight races in a season, and it was 18 years since the last member of the club – Bourdais – did so.
Palou Primed for Another Early Title
Here’s another example of Palou’s domination: Before the Spaniard arrived in the series in 2020, the last driver to clinch a season title in advance of the final race was Bourdais in 2007. Palou is on the verge of accomplishing the rare feat twice in three years.
In 2023, Palou secured the championship in the penultimate race, held at Portland. This year, he could again celebrate in the City of Roses.
Team Penske Eyes First Win of Season
The surprise of the year is that Team Penske has still not won a race, the deepest it has gone in a season without winning since 1999, when it went winless in 20 races.
Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden are all capable of ending the drought this weekend. Power won last year’s race by leading 101 of the 110 laps and finishing 9.8267 seconds ahead of Palou. The win was Power’s second on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course, the other coming in 2019. He also finished second to McLaughlin in 2022. Newgarden finished third last year in this event.
These three drivers have combined for 82 series victories and four season championships. A win by Power will give him a victory in 18 seasons, tying Foyt for second place. Dixon has the sport’s record with 23.
Ferrucci, Armstrong Among Those To Watch
Fourteen drivers in this weekend’s 27-car field have won races in their careers, which means 13 have not. Several among the latter could break through in the remaining three races.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci won the NTT P1 Award last year for this event, the first road course pole of his career in the series. He finished eighth in the race.
Since mid-May, Marcus Armstrong of Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian has eight top-10 finishes in 10 races, helping him climb to eighth place in the standings. David Malukas, who is Ferrucci’s teammate at AJ Foyt Racing, finished second in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.
Many of the drivers still seeking their maiden series wins are bunched in the standings. Armstrong is eighth, Malukas 10th, Ferrucci 13th and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen 14th. Rasmussen has top-10 finishes in three of the past four races.
Another Title Pursuit Is Much Closer
Pay attention to the tight NTT INDYCAR SERIES Rookie of the Year battle.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Louis Foster, who won last year’s INDY NXT by Firestone championship, leads PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman by just four points.
In the four previous seasons, the Rookie of the Year finished an average of 45.5 points ahead of his nearest challenger. The closest of those battles was in 2022 when Christian Lundgaard edged Malukas by 18 points.
This weekend’s action begins Friday with practice at 5:30 p.m. ET (FS2). Saturday’s schedule features the weekend’s second practice at noon ET (FS1) followed by NTT P1 Award qualifying at 2:30 p.m. ET (FS1) and the final practice at 7:30 p.m. ET (FS1).
Sunday’s race is the 15th of 17 on this year’s calendar.