Alex Palou has been the story of the season thus far as he enters Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, USA, INDYCAR Radio Network) with a massive points lead over his competition. Palou, on the heels of three wins in the last four NTT INDYCAR SERIES races, including two straight, leads teammate Marcus Ericsson by 74 coming into the annual stop at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

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

“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.”

This is the third time that the 2.258-mile road course has hosted a race in this part of the schedule and in the two prior trips, Ericsson (2021) and Palou (2022) finished runner-up. In both instances, Team Penske won the race with Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin the last two years respectively.

Newgarden (-81) in third in points with a season highlighted in being the Indy 500 champion. McLaughlin (-125) is sixth and hopeful Mid-Ohio sparks the same end of season turnaround this year as it did last when he had eight top 10 finishes over the final nine races including a pair of wins and six top four results.

His average finish in the opening eight races last season?

12.25.

His average finish now after the first eight races?

9.3.

Still, these two and their Penske teammate, Will Power, have a chance to shine on Sunday afternoon.

This season has come down to another Penske vs. Ganassi show in general. They’ve won 7 of the 8 races run including five straight. Among the last three, they’ve gone 1-2 in each. They’re become untouchable and I say they’ll be so again this weekend.

Since 2020 which was the debut of the Aeroscreen, both Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have each scored 9 wins on these types of tracks. Andretti Autosport has won the third most times (4) in this span (Aeroscreen era).

Only the McLaren win last year at Barber by Pato O’Ward and Ed Carpenter Racing on the Indy Road Course (2021) are the only other teams to have won on a natural road course during the Aeroscreen era.

They’re also dominating the podiums too. Between Penske (22), Ganassi (20) and Andretti (17), they’ve combined to have taken 59 of the 72 podiums chances (81.9%) in this span. Arrow McLaren Racing (5) and Dale Coyne Racing (4) are next best followed by ECR (3) and RLL (2).

7 of the last 8 Mid-Ohio races have seen teammates on the podium.

2022: Penske-Ganassi-Penske

2021: Penske-Ganassi-Ganassi

2020 Race 1: Penske-Penske-Andretti

2020 Race 2: Andretti-Andretti-Andretti

2019: Ganassi-Ganassi-Andretti

2018: Andretti-SPM-Penske *

2017: Penske-Penske-RLL

2016: Penske-Penske-Andretti

That’s among the last 24 Mid-Ohio podiums, Penske has 11 of them (45.8%), Andretti with 7 (29.1%) and Ganassi 4 (16.6%). Between this trio, that’s 22 of the last 24 (91.6%).

This season, the podiums have gone:

Barber: Penske-Andretti-Penske

IMS: Ganassi-McLaren-McLaren

Road America: Ganassi-Penske-McLaren

Penske and Ganassi have swept the podium here in each of the last two years and have won the race in six of the last eight years overall.

Which bodes the question, who can break this party up?

Maybe it’s Ganassi eliminating themselves?

They’ve won literally half of the races this year (4-for-8) including 3 of the last four at that.

However, they’ve not been so great at this track lately though. They’ve won just once in their last nine tries. That one though was a thrilling 1-2 photo finish in 2019 between Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist. Can they get back going again?

Dixon, does have six Mid-Ohio triumphs but he’s also had just one podium in his last nine tries there too. Palou did finish third and second his last two years here while Ericsson has finished second and sixth respectively.

Can they reclaim their ground here?

Ganassi, at one point, had 7 wins in an 8 year span here by three different drivers. They’re 1-for-9 since.

They’ve finished second in each of the last two years. Can they top Penske to get back?

Maybe it’s Andretti Autosport.

Last year this was one of the most difficult weekend’s in Andretti Autosport’s history. They had so much inner turmoil that it was a black eye for this entire organization. Now, coming off of a tough race in Road America for which they should have won, can they rebound on Sunday?

Colton Herta said that he had the best car out there in the last race for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America. He wasn’t wrong. He started on the pole and led a race-high 33 of 55 laps under the sun filled Wisconsin skies. However, a bad strategy call took not only a win away, but a spot on the podium as well.

Herta led the first 11 laps before pitting for the first time on Lap 12. He’d take the lead back over on Lap 13 and would lead again until his second stop on Lap 25. Both times were under caution. The second one, he had a slower stop which took him from first to third among the leaders. The thing is, both Marcus Armstrong and Will Power didn’t pit which also meant Herta would be restarting the race from fifth.

They called him down on Lap 40. It was 15 laps from the end. He could make it, but had to save some fuel in order to do so. The rest of the field didn’t follow him down. They pit a lap later.

That 4.014 extra miles allowed them to push until the end while Herta was in fuel save mode. While he took the lead back on Lap 47, he only held onto it for two laps. Palou got by on Lap 48 and a few laps later, then came the rest.

Herta faded to fifth in the end. It was a dejecting finish for a driver with so much promise. He still doesn’t have a podium this season and only has two top fives now at that.

This can’t make bossman Michael Andretti very happy. He made mention before the season opener in St. Pete that the entire organization studied these types of scenarios this offseason to improve upon.

8 races in, they’re still making the same mistakes.

“I mean we did have many races where we had very fast cars last year, but we tended to do something wrong, shoot ourselves in the foot one way or another,” Andretti said back in March. “That’s another thing we’ve really studied and worked on. Hopefully our pit stops will be better and strategies will be better.

“We really worked on trying to be a lot more detail-oriented, things like that.

“I hope it pays off.”

So far, it’s not.

It happened here last year where Herta took the lead but no one called him down pit road while INDYCAR was holding out to throw a caution to let the leaders pit. It caused Herta to lose the race and a top 10 too.

He won in 2020 and was eighth and ninth respectively prior. That’s why I don’t put a lot of stock in his 13th and 15th place runs the last 2 years.

Romain Grosjean’s free fall also continues. Entering the Month of May, he had two poles and a third place start in the first four races. He also had two consecutive runner-up finishes and sat fifth in points (-15).

Since?

His starts are 18th, 19th, 3rd and 19th with finishes of 11th, 30th, 24th and now 25th.

These are still his best type of tracks as he was seventh here in 2021. Now, he has the car that Ryan Hunter-Reay had six top eight finishes in including three podiums over his final five races. Grosjean was also runner-up in Barber. 3 of his 5 runner-up finishes in INDYCAR have come on natural road courses.

For the second straight race last time out too, Kyle Kirkwood was involved in a first lap crash in the first corner. For the second consecutive race, he’d rebound to finish in the top 10 as well. It makes you wonder what he could do if he kept his starting spot up front.

He qualified ninth with Foyt last year. In the Road to Indy, Kirkwood won all three times in USF2000 competition in 2018, won both times in Indy Pro 2000 in 2019 and won three of his four Indy Lights starts here in 2021 including a fifth place finish at the end.

That’s 8 wins in 9 tries.

Can one of them win on Sunday?

Still, on the season, Grosjean crashed going for the lead with 29 to go in St. Pete. He crashed from fourth with two laps left in Texas in a race that 3 of their 4 cars crashed. Grosjean was on the wrong end of strategy in Barber and finished runner-up.

The Month of May was dismal for the entire organization, Detroit was just okay and now Road America was a tough finish. Can they rebound?

Arrow McLaren Racing seems the wisest choice and safest.

They had 2 of their three cars on the Indy road course podium, another in Road America and Pato O’Ward scored the pole here just last year. His teammate Felix Rosenqvist was a close second here in 2019 and won in 2020 at Road America. Alexander Rossi has six top six finishes in his last seven tries on the track including three podiums in his last six overall there. In qualifying here, he’s made the Fast 6 in 4 of the last 7 tries. He’s finished eighth, third and respectively on natural road courses in 2023.

Then you have the two Ohio based teams.

RLL has Graham Rahal who has nine top 10 finishes in his last 10 “home race” starts including seven of them being in the top six. He scored a pair of fourth place results in September 2020 on his home track and was sixth and 12th respectively the last two July’s. He’s only made the Fast 6 just 3 times in the last 12 tries at his home track though but 7x since 2014 he’s at least made it out of the 1st round in quals too.

Christian Lundgaard was in the Fast Six and finished there in Barber. He won the pole and finished fourth in Indy, started and finished sixth at Barber and started seventh and finished there in Road America. He finished 11th here a year ago.

Jack Harvey now with the hometown team at RLL, has two top 10 finishes in his last five Mid-Ohio starts and hungry for a win. He also swept the weekend in Mid-Ohio in Indy Lights competition in 2014 too. His detriment is he’s only qualified 20th, 9th, 5th, 19th, 23rd and 24th respectively.

Meyer Shank Racing had duel top 10 finishes last year and has Simon Pagenaud who’s always a threat there. At one point, this was his playground. Pagenaud had five top four finishes in a six races span including 10 straight top 10’s before his 14th place run in 2021. He was back in the top 10 (10th) a year ago. Now, he’s in another home team at MSR who consistently put out good cars for Jack Harvey here.

Qualifying is going to be everything on Saturday. 7 of the last 8 races here were won by a front row starter including 5 of which from the pole. 3 of the last 4 here were won from the pole and 4 of the last 6 at that.

We’ve also had 8 different winners in the last 9 races here (Graham Rahal, Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden (x2), Alexander Rossi, Scott Dixon, Will Power, Colton Herta and Scott McLaughlin).

Top Stat

This race has seen some domination lately. Josef Newgarden led 73 of 80 laps in 2021. Colton Herta led 57 of 75 in Race 2 of 2020. Will Power led 66 of 75 a day prior. Alexander Rossi led 66 of 90 in 2018 while Newgarden led 73 of 90 in 2017. Who’s next?

Scott McLaughlin led 45 of 80 a year ago. Pato O’Ward led 28 of the remaining 35. Only Colton Herta (7 laps led) led a year ago.