The stretch run is upon the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, and it will come fast and furiously.
How the drivers and their teams compete – and finish races -- over the next five frenetic weekends will determine the final standings and where the Astor Challenge Cup resides for the 2024 season.
SEE: WWTR Event Details
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou holds a 49-point lead over Team Penske’s Will Power atop the standings. But there are five races to go, four of them on oval tracks. That’s a long way to go, given that oval racing can be wildly unpredictable.
Palou certainly is in the driver’s seat, but he would feel better about his path to a third season title in four years if he had an oval win on his resume. Power has 10, including the most recent oval race (July 14 at Iowa Speedway). Note that Palou finished second and has consistently raced well on such tracks.
The maximum a driver can score in a single series race is 54 points. The fewest? Five. That’s potentially a 49-point swing at any of the five remaining races. All totaled, there are 270 points still to be won.
First up in the championship pursuit is this Saturday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline at World Wide Technology Raceway (6 p.m. ET Saturday, USA Network, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network). Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who sits third in the standings, won last year’s race by nearly a full lap (22.2 seconds), and he started the race 16th. Fellow title contender Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren was second. Palou finished seventh, losing 27 points to Dixon that day.
Dixon, who is 53 points out of the lead, also won the first of the two races at World Wide Technology Raceway in 2020 and has finished on the podium on two other occasions. As important, he has 22 career series wins on ovals.
The driver who has dominated the races at this 1.25-mile oval is Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. While the winner of the past two Indianapolis 500s presented by Gainbridge is a distant ninth in the standings, he has won four times in this series at World Wide Technology Raceway, including three in succession (2020-22). Newgarden has won nine of the past 14 oval races since the end of the 2021 season, so he figures to be the driver to beat in most of the remaining races this season.
Power is the other former WWTR race winner in this 27-car field. He won in 2018.
Rightfully so, much of the focus is on the top portion of the standings, but don’t sleep on David Malukas. The Meyer Shank Racing driver has finished second and third in the past two races at this track. In a breakout performance in 2022, Malukas found himself dicing with a pair of Team Penske drivers. That day, he overtook Scott McLaughlin late in the race and then chased Newgarden to the finish line while employed by Dale Coyne Racing with HMD.
Another driver to watch is Alexander Rossi, who has been cleared to return following surgery to repair the thumb he broke at Toronto’s Exhibition Place street circuit July 19. Rossi has two career oval wins in this series. Newgarden has 15, Ed Carpenter three, O’Ward and Graham Rahal two each, and Marcus Ericsson and McLaughlin are one-time oval winners.
These are just a few of the storylines in play this week. The Olympics are over. It’s time to get back to high-speed racing.