Alex Palou made a rare mistake Saturday in his near-perfect drive to another NTT INDYCAR SERIES title this season, and yet he made up for it.

Palou’s No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda nosed into the tire barrier in the second round of qualifying at Portland International Raceway, but he gathered things back up to advance and, in the Firestone Fast Six round, earned the third starting position for Sunday’s BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland.

Meanwhile, there were near-misses by nearly all of Palou’s challengers. Only Team Penske’s Will Power, who put his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet on the front row alongside first-time NTT P1 Award winner Santino Ferrucci of AJ Foyt Racing, cleared Palou.

Power is hopeful that gives him just enough of an advantage on the reigning series champion in the 110-lap race (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network).

“Just got to keep finishing ahead of Palou – he’s right there,” Power said. “Obviously, I can be more aggressive than he can at the start. I have a lot to lose, but I have less to lose than he does.

“We’ll just focus on trying to win the race.”

Power is fourth in the standings, 66 points behind Palou.

The other drivers chasing Palou will have work to do in this race, especially with the 28-car field as closely tied as this one is.

Colton Herta, the driver of the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda of Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian, is second in the standings and 59 points out of the lead. He will start eighth after Andretti Global teammate Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27 AutoNation Honda) and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal (No. 15 Hendrickson Honda) serve their six-grid starting position penalties for unapproved engine changes. Each team is allowed to use four engines before incurring a penalty.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who is third in the standings and 65 points back, will also move up from his 11th qualifying position to start ninth, but he knows just how tightly compacted this field is. That will make for a tense race on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile natural terrain road course.

“It’s tough when you miss (advancing) by less than a tenth (of a second),” he said.

Dixon, like Herta and Power, needs Palou to have a misstep in the race. But Palou has already had one this weekend, and he doesn’t make many mistakes. In the past 35 starts over two-plus seasons, the two-time series champion has finished in the top 10 on 33 occasions.

Super-Tight Field

Almost every driver lamented how close the times are at PIR. It’s incredible, really.

Just look at how close the times were in Round 2 of qualifying, knowing only the top six advanced:

• 2nd: Kyle Kirkwood, 58.3491 seconds
• 3rd: Alex Palou, 58.3491
• 4th: Christian Lundgaard, 58.3917
• 5th: Santino Ferrucci, 58.3982
• 6th: Graham Rahal, 58.4066
• 7th: Josef Newgarden, 58.4163
• 8th: Romain Grosjean, 58.4494
• 9th: Marcus Armstrong, 58.4518
• 10th: Colton Herta, 58.4593
• 11th: Scott Dixon, 58.4772

Thus, the separation at the cut line was a scant .0097 of a second, and the difference between second and 11th place was just .1281 of a second.

“It’s insane,” Newgarden said. “I don’t know how to describe it anymore. We have essentially a new car that we’re all working with (given the hybrid technology). It’s five races old, is 100 pounds heavier, it’s hybridized so it’s a completely different (challenge). And somehow everybody is within a tenth or two of a second.

“It’s unbelievable how tight it is. You can’t make any little misstep, whether it’s (the driver) driving the car or the team with the setup or any little detail. I don’t think there’s anything more competitive on the planet. It’s always been that way with INDYCAR, and somehow it just ratchets it up every year.”

Rosenqvist Hit Inside Barrier in Turn 1

Sometimes being close is too close.

Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist found that out the hard way in Saturday morning practice when his right front wheel pounded the inside guardrail in Turn 1. The contact sent the No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda bouncing through the rumble strips at corner exit.

The car was a good 3 feet off the ground as it launched over the second curbing. Fortunately, no other car arrived on the scene at the same time.

“It was more air than I expected on the second curb,” Rosenqvist said of the launch. “I hit the wall and then the first curb wasn’t that bad, and I slowed down quite a lot. The second one, it was like, (wow!).

“I was just too greedy there and flirted with the wall too much.”

All the NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers try to cut the corner in Turn 1, but Rosenqvist had his car so far to the right that his left-side tires were completely to the right of the rumble strip, leaving him no angle to avoid the barrier.

“I didn’t feel I was that close,” he said. “I’ve been closer, I think.

“It’s a tough corner. Everyone talks about Turn 1, and I think whatever millimeter you can find there you’re quicker. I definitely took it too far.”

The team made repairs before qualifying, but Rosenqvist didn’t get the lap he wanted and will start in the 19th position.

Sides of McLaughlin’s Shoes Take a Beating

Ever noticed Scott McLaughlin’s driving shoes? Yeah, we hadn’t either.

But the driver of the No. 3 Freightliner Team Penske Chevrolet was asked about how much wear the sides of them have taken. McLaughlin offered an explanation.

“I’m a little different than some guys,” he said. “I run cups underneath my pedals. (They) hold my ankles in place.

“Someone like Josef (Newgarden), he doesn’t (use) those, and his shoes are pristine when he gets out of the car. Mine are torched because you’re going through four or five Gs and then your ankles are going to and fro.

“Everything in (the cockpit) is built for me. No one can fit in there as good as I can. But that’s what you want, and that’s how you drive fast.”

McLaughlin indeed drives fast. He has a series-leading four NTT P1 Awards as the fastest driver in qualifying. He felt he had a car capable of winning the pole – he had the fastest laps in both practices – but he said he couldn’t get a clean gap amid traffic and failed to advance to the second round of qualifying. He qualified 14th and will start 20th in Sunday’s race after a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change after qualifying today.

Odds and Ends

• Drivers talk of such fine lines in these sessions. Power missed winning the pole in part because of slightly dropping a wheel in the dirt in Turn 12 on his final qualifying lap. Herta pushed wide in Turn 7 and incurred wheelspin on another lap exiting the same turn.

• Palou thought he might have damaged his front wing when his car nosed into the tire barrier in the second round of qualifying, but the team said there “was not a mark on it.”

• All these sessions at PIR seem to have some form of adventure, and in addition to Rosenqvist’s contact with the inside barrier in Turn 1, the Saturday morning session included Sting Ray Robb sliding into the tire barrier in Turn 12, Grosjean bouncing through Turn 1 and Will Power having a long, contact-free slide in the final corner.

• Australia’s Lochie Hughes, 22, of Turn 3 Motorsport clinched the USF Pro 2000 championship Friday evening at PIR, earning a scholarship to advance to INDY NXT by Firestone in 2025. Hughes is in just his third year of racing in the U.S.