INDIANAPOLIS — As we head to the final 2 events of the 2022 NTT INDYCAR Series season, both are on the west coast and both on similar circuits at that. That’s a very big deal actually because each are on natural road courses. Portland and Laguna Seca may not look anything alike necessarily, but both are also similar in nature of what packages these teams bring and usually that package equates from one track to the other.

With that said, who are the top drivers on them?

This year we’ve seen a lot of parity in fact. We’ve seen a different winner in all 5 rounds on these tracks from 3 different organizations. Pato O’Ward won Barber, Josef Newgarden won Road America, Scott McLaughlin won at Mid-Ohio while Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi won the 2 Indy races respectively.

In terms of points accumulated, 3 of the top 5 all belong to the Team Penske camp including the top 2 even. Scott McLaughlin leads the way with 151 total points scored between both Indy races, Barber, Road America and Mid-Ohio. He won Mid-Ohio and has 4 top 7’s in 5 starts on them.

Will Power is 1 point shy of him despite not having a win. He does have 4 top 4 finishes but was 19th in the other. McLaughlin was 20th in his lone finish not in the top 7. The difference being the win.

Alexander Rossi is actually 3rd in his No. 27 Dallara-Honda to lead the charge among Honda drivers. He won Indy and was third in Road America. Marcus Ericsson (3 top 6’s) in 4th while Josef Newgarden (3 straight top 5’s) ranks 5th.

It’s interesting in the fact that O’Ward while winning at Barber still ranks 15th. That’s because he was 12th or worse in his other 4 starts. Scott Dixon is 3rd in points but is in a tie for 6th most points scored on them. Alex Palou is 9th.

It’s also interesting in the fact that Ganassi has 3 drivers in the top 5 in points and have statistically fared better recently at these 2 tracks left, but it’s Penske who has the advantage on these types of tracks this season.

Dixon has 2 top 5’s in 3 Portland tries including being 3rd last year. He was 3rd in his 2019 Laguna start too. Palou was 1st (Portland) and 2nd (Laguna) respectively last year. Ericsson was 7th in Portland and 6th in Laguna.

Penske meanwhile was 9th and 12th respectively for McLaughlin and 21st, 1st and 13th at Portland for Power and 2nd and 26th at Laguna. Newgarden was 10th, 5th and 5th at Portland and 8th and 7th at Laguna Seca.

Points Scored

1. McLaughlin 151

2. Power 150

3. Rossi 142

4. Ericsson 139

5. Newgarden 131

6. Herta 126

6T Dixon 126

8. Veekay 119

9. Palou 118

10. Lundgaard 114

11. Rahal 106

12. Pagenaud 102

13. Rosenqvist 101

14. Grosjean 95

15. O’Ward 94

16. Sato 90

17. Daly 87

18. Malukas 81

19. Harvey 71

19T. Ilott 71

21. Helio 68

22. Devlin 59

23. Johnson 42

24. Kellett 36

25. Kirkwood 35

26. Calderon 3