Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden are feeling the pressure. They once championship front runners are still third (Newgarden) and fifth (O’Ward) in the standings, but when Alex Palou rattles off finishes of 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st and 2nd over the last six races, the gap to him continues to grow.

Newgarden is 126 points back. O’Ward is 143.

For Newgarden, he started 11th last Sunday in Toronto and after overshooting his pit stall coming into his final stop of the day, the Indy 500 champion went from inside the top 10 back to 11th to attack the final stint.

To make matters worse, he was in fuel save mode too. It’s hard to make up ground in 11th but also having to be cognizant of your fuel number.

“It was pretty big fuel save at the end,” he said. “Thank goodness I was trying to do a little more than we needed to in the final stint, just to prepare for the end.

“None of us knew what was happening there or what was going to happen with two laps to go. We must have had some fuel error issue because they’re going off our calculations and normally they are always spot on.

“So something must have been messed up today, which we were unaware of.”

He’d still gain six spots on track to rebound and finish fifth. That also left Newgarden feeling what might have been if not for that mistake on pit road.

For O’Ward, he was feeling defeated when leaving Toronto after a mistake on his final pit stop too. The Mexican driver started third in the race and ran in the top five for much of the way. He was in the mix for the win in the final stint before having to slow massively to save fuel.

He went from 5th to 8th in the end. That’s all because of him not being able to attack as they didn’t get his No. 5 Dallara-Chevrolet full of fuel on his final stop.

O’Ward started third but that was all due to a nice strategy call in the second round of qualifying on Saturday. In the closing minutes, he was 12th out of 12. However, they elected to put on a fresh set of Firestone wet tires and propelled himself to the top of the round.

In the Fast Six, he was overshadowed on the final lap by only Christian Lundgaard and Scott McLaughlin. That still left him third.

He had a ho-hum race. While running in contention, he didn’t have race winning pace but by not filling the car up left him in no mans land.

“It was a tough day for us,” O’Ward admitted after scoring his 7th top 10 finish of the season. “We just keep making the same mistakes that don’t help our races go forward. We need to look into what the issues have been and fix those because they’re obviously valuable points that we’re just throwing away. But Iowa is coming next, and we’re usually pretty strong there.”

While it was his third consecutive top eight finish and fifth in the last seven races, it’s no where near where he thought that he’d be.

He started 2023 off with a pair of runner-up results. He was overzealous in Long Beach but was fourth in Barber and runner-up again in the GMR Grand Prix.

To have three runner-up finishes and 116 laps led in the opening five races had him second in points coming into the Indy 500. Now he’s fifth.

But, for both he and Newgarden, this is a chance for them to really make up some ground.

Palou has finished 11th, 14th, 6th and 13th at Iowa and 15th, 12th, 20th and ninth in Gateway. That makes up 3 of the next 5 races.

These are also spots to where Newgarden and O’Ward can win all three races themselves.

The duo have combined to have won 7 of the last 8 oval races in general with Newgarden winning 6 of the last 8 all by himself. He’s 2-for-2 this season.

On short ovals in general, Newgarden and O’Ward have won five in-a-row dating back to Race 2 at World Wide Technology Raceway in 2020. They’ve also gone 1-2 in 5 of the last 12 oval races too.

Last year, Newgarden and Will Power combined to lead 221 of the 250 laps (88%) on Saturday and Newgarden, Power and Pato O’Ward led 293 of 300 laps on Sunday giving the bowties their 7th win in the last 8 Iowa tries including 5 straight. 

Newgarden won Race 1, O’Ward Race 2.

Newgarden has led 111 or more laps in 7 of his last 9 Iowa starts including four wins, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 10 tries. He’s won 3 of the last 5 here as well as having scored 5 wins in the last 7 short oval races in general.

O’Ward has been great in Gateway (3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th) and even better here: 4th, 12th, 2nd, 1st. In his last 14 oval starts in general, he’s finished 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 15th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 2nd and 24th respectively.

Can they sweep the weekend again with each winning or does one of them sweep it all together themselves?

The doubleheader format in general started in the series in 2013 and only two times has someone swept both races in the same weekend. Scott Dixon did it in Toronto in 2013 and Graham Rahal at Belle Isle in 2017. Josef Newgarden had a great shot last year in leading 206 of 250 laps in his Saturday win and cruising to what was shaping up to being a easy win on Sunday. Until his suspension gave out on him while leading.

Newgarden had 1 more pit stop left and was dusting the field on Sunday. He led a race-high 148 laps. However, he failed to sweep the weekend.

2-for-17 now.

This format started with three races (Belle Isle, Toronto, Houston) in 2013, fell to Belle Isle and Houston in 2014 and just Belle Isle as the standalone from 2015 through 2019. During the 2020 season, due to COVID, we had it in Texas, Road America, Iowa, World Wide Technology Raceway, Mid-Ohio and on the IMS road course. Last year it was back to Belle Isle again before moving to here this weekend.

Oddly enough, 3 of O’Ward’s 4 career trips to victory lane came on the 2nd day of a doubleheader weekend which makes him a strong favorite for Sunday.

Will anyone beat them this weekend or do they run away with this? You’d be hard pressed to find someone outside the Chevrolet camp.

Chevy has swept the podium on both days at Iowa last year and took 4 of the 5 spots on the lead lap on Saturday and a 1-2-3 sweep on Sunday giving the bowties their 7th win in the last 8 Iowa tries including 5 straight. At World Wide Technology Raceway, they’ve won 5 of the 7 races since the return including 3 straight.

“I think Chevy’s done a great job this year giving us drivability and horsepower,” said Power. “It definitely showed this weekend, all the Chevy cars were really strong.

“Yeah, just lucky to be involved with these guys. They’re very, very good at their job.”