Simon Pagenaud has a really good shot of closing the championship deficit he has on his teammate Josef Newgarden in the NTT IndyCar Series points standings again on Saturday night in Gateway. Pagenaud, has two top four finishes in as many tries on the 1.25-mile St. Louis area race track.

Newgarden, won the race at Gateway back in 2017 but was only seventh last year.

We know the race win will likely come down to either them or their other teammate Will Power as Penske has won three of the four short oval races under this new car that was adopted in 2018 as well as six of the last seven overall. They’ve also won five straight oval races and 13 of the last 18 too.

Penske, has won the last four races at Gateway as well.

That’s all great news for Pagenaud. So is this – he’s finished better than Newgarden in two straight races and three of the last four. That’s propelled him to 40 points out. He was over 60 points arrears a few races ago.

With Alexander Rossi’s crash last weekend in Pocono too, Pagenaud has also out paced him in three of the last four races as well. Can he keep this incremental gain going into the final two races of the season?