Alex Palou told me that he feels there’s at least five drivers better than him in the world right now. While I beg to differ, he’s taking a humbling approach to his 74-point advantage over the field entering Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, USA, INDYCAR Radio Network).

The 26-year-old is on a string of races to where he’s started 3rd, 1st, 1st and 3rd and finished 1st, 4th, 1st and 1st. He’s led 172 of the 440 laps in the process.

MORE: Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 Race Preview

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he told me on Tuesday afternoon ahead of Sunday’s race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. “I think it’s very tough to compare drivers with the equipment you have, with the experience you have… So, yeah, I wouldn’t say that.

“Obviously I rate myself very high, I have to say. Otherwise, yeah, I wouldn’t be doing this. Yeah, I still think there’s a lot of things that I can improve as a driver, that I want to improve as a driver, and that I see from other people like Scott Dixon doing better.

“Yeah, I rate myself high, but not too high. I don’t think I’m here like top five in the world. I think there’s very, very talented guys out there, even in INDYCAR.”

For a driver that says he feels like he can still improve, that’s got to get the paddock’s attention.

His Road America win in the last outing was his 7th straight top five finish on the season and 8th top 10 in as many races run this year. He’s scored 23 top five finishes in the last 41 races.

Among those 23 are 17 podium finishes. By comparison, over that same span, Scott Dixon has 22 top five finishes but 10 of those were on the podium. Marcus Ericsson has 11 top five finishes with 9 of those on the podium. The thing is, he has 32 top 10’s in this span. Just 9 of those 32 top 10’s were on the podium.

Palou has 36 top 10’s in that span with 17 on the podium. See the difference?

When going back to last year, he won the season finale by a half-a-minute in leading 67 of 95 laps in the process. It was that weekend he and Ganassi patched things up and off he’s went since with an average finish of 3.2 over the last nine races. He’s led 265 laps in that span with four race wins.

That recent success has opened an insurmountable points lead to 74 points over teammate Ericsson. Josef Newgarden is 81 points out. Pato O’Ward and Dixon are each tied for fourth but 98 points arrears. Everyone else is 125+ behind.

With 9 races remaining, can anyone catch him?

“It’s kind of out of our control,” said Newgarden. “They’ve had a good run up to this point, right? They’ve not had a bad race. I think that’s to be expected.”

O’Ward was more blunt about it.

“I think we all need to be better if we want to catch the 10 car,” O’Ward lambasted.

Next up is Mid-Ohio this Sunday to where Palou has finished third and second respectively in each of the last two years. Then it’s to Toronto to where he was sixth as a rookie there a year ago but has finished fifth and first respectively in his last two street races run on the season.

While Iowa and Gateway could pose problems, you still have the Indy Road course (he won the last time out), Portland (he won in 2021) and Laguna Seca (he won last year) left too.

This has become his championship to lose.

In saying that, Palou knows that this championship is still far from over too. He feels like his results are more of a byproduct of maximizing their races to where others aren’t.

“At the same time I just think that everything is working really good for us now,” he continued. “I feel like we were as strong as we are now at the beginning of the season, but we had some ups and downs during the races. Long Beach was a clear example where we were running in the top four, got caught up on an accident, dropped back to 15th and still finished P5.

“Our performance is there. It’s just we’re able to get the results and get clean weekends, which is not real easy to do very often in INDYCAR.

“I feel like we have momentum. Momentum in motorsports matters a lot for driver confidence, team confidence, mechanic confidence. Everybody want to get the win, just like you are asking for more and more. It just gets better and better.

“Hopefully we can, as I said, keep the wave big or even bigger. Hopefully we can continue having some success.”

Palou, even with such a large lead, well he’s not points racing yet. Newgarden nearly overcame a 125 point deficit just three years ago to take the title away from Scott Dixon. Palou knows in this series, anyone can get just as hot as he has.

“If it was another series, maybe yeah, you could try and just finish where you need to finish. In INDYCAR you really can’t,” he notes.

He said that he did points race at the end of the 2021 season, but that was due to trying to secure his championship. He drove under the limit in doing so. This time, it’s far too early to be doing that and he feels like he should try and score more points to get an even bigger gap.

Newgarden agrees.

“When you have eight races in a row without a bad one, this is what happens points-wise,” said the two-time series champion. “What’s going to happen on the final nine, it’s impossible to say. There’s so much season still that he’s got a good cushion at this point, they’ve done a great job, but I don’t think that guarantees anything in INDYCAR.”

O’Ward, last year’s Mid-Ohio pole sitter, also says that this is a long championship road and a lot can happen over the course of the next nine races. They just need to keep improving themselves and hope for the best.

The thing is, podiums are no longer going to cut it. O’Ward has squandered finishes of 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 2nd and 3rd respectively when he’s finished on the lead lap. It’s those finishes of 17th (Long Beach), 24th (Indy 500) and 26th (Detroit) as to why he’s where he’s at today.

Same for Newgarden. He’s won twice (Texas, Indy 500). He’s finished second once (Road America). It’s 17th in St. Pete. It’s 15th in Barber. It’s 10th in Detroit. That’s why podiums no longer cut it.

The only real way to catch Palou now is if he makes some uncharacteristically bad mistakes and I use that in plural since he has such a big cushion.

So far? Palou hasn’t really had that many races that didn’t go well.

What’s even scarier for the field is, he’s just getting started.

“I would say I have more confidence with the car,” says Palou as to why he’s clicking so well now. “I know a little bit more what I need from the car. The same for the team. They know what I need. They know what works for me, what doesn’t.

“In 2021 we were just guessing and trying stuff. Sometimes works, sometimes it didn’t. ’22 we understood a little bit more. This year I just have more confidence with myself, with the car, obviously with the team.

“So yeah, it’s tough to say. I don’t think it’s one thing. I would say it’s a little bit of a lot of things that are helping us be more consistent.”

That’s led to a wave of confidence out of Palou. He feels better now than at any point of his entire racing career thus far.

“I would say it’s getting bigger,” Palou said of this momentum.

“Our performance is there.”