Two drivers that we need to keep an eye out on for the final 7 races of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season have to be Alex Palou and Christian Lundgaard. Combined, they’ve won 5 of the last 6 races on the season including four in-a-row.

While Palou is the obvious choice, Lundgaard has echoed some of Palou’s recent sentiments about the series which should made the entire paddock nervous.

“I would say I have more confidence with the car,” Palou said heading into Mid-Ohio earlier this month. “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.

“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.”

Palou came to the series as a wide-eyed rookie with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020. He did so at the start of the pandemic which left minimal track time in the form of practice as well as testing. He had one top five finish and three top 10’s in 14 starts.

Ganassi took a chance on him that offseason for the 10 car. A prove it type of multi-year contract. Palou proved it by winning three times in the 16 race 2021 season which resulted in a season championship. 10 top five finishes and 12 top 10’s to go along with 137 laps led.

What’s scary was, he did all that off instinct. That was his first time with Ganassi and he had only ran 14 races previously. They didn’t know what he wanted and he didn’t know what to even tell them that he wanted.

“In 2021 we were just guessing and trying stuff,” he admitted. “Sometimes works, sometimes it didn’t.”

Last year, it started out great in the form of three podiums in the first four races run. Off he goes again. Then came that contract dispute that brought forth a dark cloud over he and the team. Access was cut off. Tensions were rising. It cost he and the team overall performance.

When they made up, he came from 11th to lead 67 of 95 laps in Monterey to score the season ending win by nearly a half of a minute.

’22 we understood a little bit more,” Palou continued. “This year I just have more confidence with myself, with the car, obviously with the team.”

Boy does he ever.

Since that season finale a year ago, Palou’s not finished worse than eighth and that was in this year’s season opener on the streets of St. Pete. He’s scored a top five finish in 10 of his last 11 starts including a stretch now to where he’s finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st and 2nd. That fourth is the outlier for which he started on the Indy 500 pole, led 36 laps and looked like the one to beat until Rinus VeeKay hit him on pit road near the midrace mark. Still, he came from behind to get a top five.

In 43 starts with Ganassi, he’s had a podium in 20 races and he says that he’s just now getting comfortable?

Same for Lundgaard. Just look at what he told me last Wednesday afternoon.

“I’d say I was pretty much comfortable as soon as I basically — I mean, last year we saw certain tracks where it took me a while to just figure stuff out, but I would say this year we’ve been fast in pretty much all Practice 1 sessions,” he noted to me last week.

“To me that just indicates I’ve been to all these tracks now. I’m comfortable in the team. I’m comfortable in the series. I’m comfortable in the car. I didn’t really need to go out early in the session just to run laps. We’re actually going out straight away with our run plan and not having to deal with all the trying to figure stuff out.

“I guess to really answer your question, I’m very comfortable in the car. I know exactly what I need, exactly what I want, and that’s where the three drivers come in, where it’s tougher for a team to fix and get a car that fits three different driving styles.”

That’s showing off more and more.

Last year, Lundgaard was seeing all but one of these tracks for the first time. He had just two top 10 finishes in the first nine races.

When he finally got to test at Sebring last summer, it was a momentum turner for he and this RLL team. Lundgaard had 5 top 10 finishes in the final 8 races including a pair of top five finishes too. One of those top five’s was a runner-up result on the Indy road course.

He was feeling much better entering his sophomore year.

He’s qualified better this year than where he started on the same track in 8 of the 10 races. 1 of the remaining 2 was the same (31st both years in the Indy 500) and Texas he went from 25th to 27th.

However, he’s also finished better in 8 of the 10 too. The only two not were being 19th in Texas both years and being 14th at Belle Isle last year but 16th on the downtown Detroit circuits this year.

Outside of that, he’s improving dramatically.

Street courses last year he qualified 15-20-19-10-3. This year’s, he started 11-17-18-1 so far in the same races. In regard to finishes, they were 11-18-14-8-8 last year to 11-18-14-1 this year.

On natural road courses, he qualified a year ago 14-8-13-16-6-4-16. This year, it’s been 6-1-7-5. For those finishes, it was 15-9-10-11-2-21-5. This year, he’s finished 6-4-7-4.

Ovals are the outlier but that’s a problem across all of RLL at the moment. They know they’re lacking there. Same for street circuits. But, Toronto also showed that maybe they have found something for these types of tracks.

With 3 oval races left, 2 at Iowa and 1 in Gateway, to go along with another street race in Nashville and three on natural road courses (Indianapolis, Portland and Laguna Seca), I can see this duo winning at least 2-4 of the remaining events.

“Luckily, we have another Indy GP later this year, in August, and we’ve been competitive there. I had my first podium, had my first pole there, so I might as well get my first win at the speedway,” Lundgaard said on Wednesday too. “I really do think that we have that opportunity at that race. We just need to nail it during that weekend.

“Again, there might be other opportunities. We know we’ll be strong at the two road courses at the end of the year, and I do think we’ll be strong at Nashville as well. We just need to figure Iowa and St. Louis out, and I think we can at least finish around sixth or seventh in the championship if we really do things well.

“I’m definitely hoping for a podium, definitely hoping for a win. We’ve come close a couple of times this year. So I’m definitely hoping we get to that.”

Lundgaard won the pole the last time out on the Indy road course and was runner-up for this race last year. Palou won the race this past May. In Portland, Palou won in 2021 and Lundgaard had a top five going before late race contact with Alexander Rossi. For Laugna Seca, Palou won by a half a minute last season while Lundgaard finished fifth.

Lundgaard has those top sevens in all natural road courses this year where Palou has finished 1st, 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st on them in his last five.

At Nashville, Lundgaard started third last year which is where Palou finished.

While RLL is hopeful of going on another second half of the season surge, bobby Rahal won’t admit that they’re out of the woods just yet.

“I don’t think we’re out of the woods. If you look at earlier in the year, we were not too bad in St. Pete. Graham finished 6th I think it was,” he said.

“Now, maybe it might have been some attrition ahead of him to get to 6th, but nevertheless, P6, so okay. Long Beach, we were average, at best. Barber, we were not too bad. Indy Grand Prix, pole sitter, so not too bad.

“Now, we didn’t win. We ended up 4th because to some degree I think we didn’t know. Here we are in the front role on pole, and I kind of think our guys — we haven’t been there very often, so I’m not sure we thought we knew what to do when you are up there.

“Yeah. So on road courses, not too bad. Although, as I say, Detroit really — that bothered me more than Indy because we should have been — I mean, we won Detroit several years ago, the two races. We won that race. Then to go back there and be so out of it, that just really bothered me.

“So, anyway, you have to make changes that you think are right, and thankfully we’ve had some good results since then, but we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing. You just can’t rest on our laurels. We have to keep pushing.”