LEXINGTON, OH — Alex Palou made mention this past week that he doesn’t feel like he’s doing anything differently now than he was at the beginning of the season. It’s just that he’s having better fortunes compared to everyone else’s costly mistakes.

“Our performance is there. It’s just we’re able to get the results and get clean weekend,” Palou said this past Tuesday.

Take Road America for a prime example. Pole sitter Colton Herta had that race won, but pitting a lap too soon in the final pit sequence handed Palou the win.

Then, during Sunday’s Honda Indy 200, the top three starters, all in front of Palou, each had mistakes. As a result, it gifted the victory to the Spaniard for his third straight victory and fourth time in the last five races.

“Yeah, I don’t know, honestly. It’s been great,” Palou said after leading 48 of 80 laps during Sunday’s ninth race of the season. “It’s been amazing since the month of May. Well, I would say all year, but we’ve been able to have really consistent and really fast cars, and we’ve been able to maximize everything.”

Palou also said this past week too that he felt like he had all the momentum and in motorsports, momentum matters a lot for not only a drivers’ confidence, but for the team as well. .

“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.”

Boy has it ever.

Palou was the only driver in the top five of the starting lineup to start on the Firestone primary tires. Just like in Indianapolis, a race that he started third, going the opposite tire strategy as those up front around him paid off.

As the others on the alternates saw their tires degrading towards the end of the opening stint, Palou pounced.

He caught third place starter Kyle Kirkwood for that third spot. With a battle on Lap 19, Kirkwood spun in Turn 4 trying to defend it.

From then on, Palou set his sights on the top two starters – Herta and Graham Rahal. He was on their tail by the end of the stint.

Herta first peeled off on Lap 26. Rahal peeled off one lap later. Palou followed suit on Lap 29. By doing so, he inherited the lead once his teammate, Scott Dixon pit on Lap 29. Outside of pitting for his final time on Lap 54, he’d never look back.

“We knew that we had the pace, but we needed clean air,” said Palou of that opening race strategy. “Obviously it’s tough at Mid-Ohio to follow cars — well, to overtake cars, I would say.

“That’s why we went for the primaries at the beginning, which we thought it was probably a bit risky, but if we were able to cross the first lap on position, we were going to be good for our strategy.

“So, yeah, made it work. We saved a little bit of fuel. Waited until the 27 struggled a little bit on tires. We were able to pass and then just run a bit longer than Colton and Rahal to get the lead.

“Yeah, it was fun. The car was really fast obviously. It was great to be able to do everything that we planned, and all the pit stops and everything was fine.”

It’s not even that Herta was speeding on pit road coming to his final stop, or Rahal who had two slow pit stops that handed the lead to Palou. He was just that good and was untouchable despite starting from the fourth position.

It’s when you’re firing on all cylinders all around, it’s when you know that you’re tough to beat. His competition is taking notice too.

“Yeah, obviously everyone needs to beat Palou, but I don’t think — that’s going to be a very tough challenge to beat him in a championship this year. He is so on point in every respect, in every respect,” said third place finisher, Will Power.

“He is not missing a thing, which is very difficult in this series to be extremely fast, which there are a lot of guys that are, but then being able to do all the disciplines as well plus the intricacies of fuel save, tire conservation, in-and-out laps, the qualifying.

“Just from a strategy standpoint as well, which I know it’s the first time he won a championship. That group on that car is very smart. Like, they’re putting it all together. Yeah, it’s an absolute team effort, but he is also nailing it.

“It’s bloody hard to have that all nailed, and he is doing it.”

Dixon agreed.

“Yeah, it does make it tough,” he said. “As Will commented, and it’s not just Alex, but Julian, the whole 10 car group are just doing a phenomenal job. Even with Barry as well.

“It’s never a single person. The effort is big I think on all the cars in Chip Ganassi right now, but they’re firing on all cylinders.

“It’s hard. I think we had a pretty good race today, but obviously we still didn’t have enough to overcome that. I think had a few things changed, same as with Will, same as anybody out there, could have been a bit more racier.

“Yeah, it’s going to be tough to beat.”

Palou opened up an even larger lead now in entering 74 points up to leaving 110 ahead. For a driver that said that it’s far too early to points race and that he feels the target on his back is no different now than it was if he had a 10 point advantage, has a two race gap with eight races remaining.

Palou bested Dixon by 5.0242-seconds and the only reason it was that small was because Palou was coasting in the final 10 laps. That lead was over 10 seconds within 10 to go.

It was Dixon’s 14th top five finish at Mid-Ohio as he moved from fifth in points to second. Power was third while Christian Lundgaard and Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top five.

Andretti/RLL Shutout Of Podium

Andretti and RLL combined to have four cars qualify in the top five for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200. Could they capitalize on those starting spots and knock the “Big 2” off in the 80 lap race?

This was exactly why Andretti swapped strategists during the off week. They threw away a win in Road America with Herta on the pole and leading the race heading to the final pit stops. He was called down pit lane one lap too soon and it not only cost him a win, but a podium finish too.

In St. Pete, Romain Grosjean crashed with 29 laps-to-go while battling for the lead. In Barber, Grosjean was unfortunately on the wrong end of strategy from the pole. It wasn’t his fault though but rather an ill-timed caution.

In Detroit, Grosjean ruined his front row starting spot with a spin then later a crash.

Between eight races run, Andretti has had a car on the front row in six of them. They have one win to show for it.

For the third straight year, pit road took Herta out of contention. While he was on the wrong tire strategy to start with in comparison to Palou, a pit road speeding penalty on his final stop was the dagger. It took him from second to 13th. He’d gain two spots to finish 11th in the end.

In 2021, two bad stops took him from a second place start to 13th. Last year, he started third and was in the lead when Kyle Kirkwood got off track. INDYCAR delayed throwing the caution to allow the leaders to pit. Herta missed the code word and didn’t. It took him from a win to 15th .

Now this.

Kirkwood spun while battling Palou for third on Lap 19 and only came home 17th.

What about RLL?

In Indy, they had 2 cars in the top four and had just one finish in the top five. In fact, it was the pole sitter dropping to fourth while being on the wrong tire strategy.

On Sunday, Rahal had two slow stops and he’d finish seventh. Christian Lundgaard had a solid all-around day in going from fifth to fourth, but that’s all that he had.

He qualified sixth and finished there in Barber, qualified seventh and finished there in Road America, so he’s glad to at least make up a spot in Mid-Ohio.

Still between four combined Andretti-RLL cars, you would have thought one of them would get it right. They didn’t.

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Penske/Ganassi Show Again

Even with four combined RLL-Andretti cars in the top five, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing still shutout the podium and put four cars in the top five of the finishing order instead.

Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have now won 8 of the 9 races run this season as well as the last four here. In fact, they’ve taken the top two spots in the last four races on the season now.

However, on a day that most thought if teammates were going to be sharing the podium for the sixth straight race here, it was supposed to be Andretti or RLL. However, Ganassi though went 1-2. Penske went 3-5.

We should have never doubted them.

Even with Palou becoming the sixth straight different race winner here, all but one has been among Penske or Ganassi.

This race has seen a lot of parity, but for whatever reason, they’re all among the “Big 3.” The last nine have been won by either Penske, Ganassi or Andretti. In fact, the podiums have been dominated by them too.

The last time someone not of these three organizations got a trophy here was SPM in 2018.

2023: Ganassi-Ganassi-Penske

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

It’s been since 2015 since someone not of them won the race but that’s the only time in the last 18 years that it’s occurred.

Since 2020 which was the debut of the Aeroscreen, Ganassi has 10 wins on these types of tracks. Penske has nine. Andretti Autosport has won the third most times (4) in this span (Aeroscreen era).

So far this season, Penske won Barber, but Ganassi has won the last three at Indy, Road America and Mid-Ohio.

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 (23), Ganassi (22) and Andretti (17), they’ve combined to have taken 62 of the 75 podiums chances (82.6%) in this span. Arrow Mclaren Racing (5) and Dale Coyne Racing (4) are next best followed by ECR (3) and RLL (2).

For Ganassi, they’ve finally found the top step of the podium again here. At one point, Ganassi had 7 wins in an 8 year span here by three different drivers. They were 1-for-9 since.

Then they go out and go 1-2 on Sunday for their fifth win of the season.

“I think Ganassi in general seems to have a very good package right now all-around,” admitted Will Power. “So they’re a tough group, tough group. All good drivers. Obviously a very strong team. I think we all have a little bit of work to do.”

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Should Race Get Lengthened?

The Honda Indy 200 is technically no longer the “200” anymore. It’s not 200 laps nor 200 miles. In fact, it never truly was a 200-mile race other than 1990-1993. Prior, this was a 156-mile race at start (1980), then 202 miles from 1983-1989. 1994-2001 it was a scheduled 187 miles before moving back to 202 miles 2002 and 2003.

From 2007-2012, it was 85 laps or 202 miles. From 2013 through 2019, it was extended to a 90-lap race (203 miles).

That ended in 2020 in a doubleheader weekend during COVID. A pair of 75 lap races (169 miles each) ensued.

In 2021, it was back to a one race weekend but the distance was 80 laps (181 miles). It was that way last year and again this time around this weekend.

In saying that, which is the better distance here?

The strategy now is an easy two-stopper. You can try for three, but it typically won’t work. Pato O’Ward tried it on Sunday and while it did get home from 25th to 8th, he still only got to eight. Also, 10 of the top 11 finishers last July were on a two-stop strategy and the only reason that the third-place finisher, Will Power, wasn’t was because he had an opening lap spin and had to pit an extra time.

15 of the top 16 finishers in 2021 was on a two-stopper including the entire top 12.

Today, it was an easy two stopper…again.

I get the notion of 80 laps because it’s a sprint race. Yes, you have to conserve some to make it, but once you’re in the window, you can sprint to the finish. A three stopper opens up fuel save for those on two stops.

With 90 laps, it’s just 10 extra laps, but that’s also enough to open up an extra stop. 2 of the top 3 finishers in 2019 were on a three-stop strategy. The race winner was a two stopper. It was evenly split among the top six with 3 on two stops and 3 on 3 stops.

Alexander Rossi won in 2018 with a two stopper but the next 13 cars were on a three-stop strategy.

That opens up a better race because you create natural comers and goers. It may be a tad more confusing on who’s doing what in person, but strategy wise, it’s a win.

You get some drivers saving fuel on two stints to make it to the end on one less stop, but others just flying on qualifying laps because they know they may have one extra stop to make, but can make up the deficit by going faster laps.

So, which is better?

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Are We Sure Palou’s Not A Top 5 Driver?

Alex Palou admitted to me this past week that he felt like he wasn’t a top five driver in the world right now. I appreciate the humbleness but begged to differ. He went out and led 48 of 80 lap from fourth to win his fourth race in the last five races including three in-a-row. He’s a Rinus VeeKay pit road mistake in the Indy 500 away from winning every race since May.

“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.”

The 26-year-old is on a string of races to where he’s started 3rd, 1st, 1st, 3rd and 4th and finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st and 1st. He’s led 220 of the 520 laps (42.3%) in the process. Mid-Ohio was his 8th straight top five finish on the season and 9th top 10 in as many races run this year.

He’s scored 24 top five finishes in the last 42 races.

Among those 24 are 18 podium finishes. By comparison, over that same span, Scott Dixon has 23 top five finishes but 11 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 37 top 10’s in that span with 18 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 third over the last 10 races. He’s led 313 laps in that span with five race wins.

That recent success has opened an insurmountable points lead. He’s 110 points ahead of Scott Dixon, 116 on Josef Newgarden, 122 on Marcus Ericsson and 127 on Pato O’Ward.

With 8 races left, he has a 2 race cushion and heading to tracks to where he can dominate even more.

“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 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.

The thing is, podiums are no longer going to cut it. O’Ward has squandered finishes of 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 2nd, 3rd and 8th 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. It’s 12th here. 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.”

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Mistakes A Plenty This Weekend

Pato O’Ward was out for redemption this weekend for how last year’s race here ended. He was quickest in Friday’s practice. He then spun in qualifying and as a result, started 25th. While he went on a three stop strategy, it didn’t work, east least for a win. It did gain him 17 positions to finishing 8th, but when Palou wins, that’s not going to cut it.

Josef Newgarden missed it in qualifying and started 15th. He only gained three spots to 12th.

Marcus Ericsson ran over Felix Rosenqvist on the opening lap and finished last.

That’s 2-3-4 in points entering the day.

Kyle Kirkwood spun in Turn 4 while battling Palou for third.

Colton Herta sped on pit road. Graham Rahal had two slow pit stops. A day, scratch that, a weekend full of mistakes, allowed the one who doesn’t make them to shine.

Top Stat

The last three series champion finishes 1-2-3 on Sunday.

LEXINGTON, Ohio (Sunday, July 2, 2023) – Results Sunday of The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the 2023 Accord Hybrid NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (4) Alex Palou, Honda, 80, Running
2. (6) Scott Dixon, Honda, 80, Running
3. (7) Will Power, Chevrolet, 80, Running
4. (5) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 80, Running
5. (8) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 80, Running
6. (12) David Malukas, Honda, 80, Running
7. (2) Graham Rahal, Honda, 80, Running
8. (25) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 80, Running
9. (18) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 80, Running
10. (13) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 80, Running
11. (1) Colton Herta, Honda, 80, Running
12. (15) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 80, Running
13. (14) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 80, Running
14. (24) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 80, Running
15. (16) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 80, Running
16. (20) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 80, Running
17. (3) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 80, Running
18. (11) Jack Harvey, Honda, 80, Running
19. (17) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 80, Running
20. (27) Conor Daly, Honda, 80, Running
21. (19) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 79, Running
22. (22) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 79, Running
23. (21) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 79, Running
24. (26) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 79, Running
25. (10) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 79, Running
26. (23) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 79, Running
27. (9) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 5, Contact

Race Statistics
Winners average speed: 111.125
Time of Race: 01:37:31.9887
Margin of victory: 5.0242
Cautions: 1
Lead changes: 7

Lap Leaders:
Herta, Colton 1 – 26
Rahal, Graham 27
Palou, Alex 28
Dixon, Scott 29 – 30
Palou, Alex 31 – 53
Power, Will 54
Rahal, Graham 55 – 56
Palou, Alex 57 – 80