INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Palou said coming into this past two race stretch of Nashville and Indy Road Course that he was hopeful to score as many points as he could. That’s because he knows what Josef Newgarden is capable of at the World Wide Technology Raceway. He’s won three straight times there and is a perfect 4-for-4 on ovals this season.

The gap sat at 80 points going into last week’s race at Nashville and is now 101 going to Gateway in two weeks. That’s a massive win. He gained 26 points on Newgarden in this span which sets him up nicely for his second championship in a three-year span.

“Today good championship day,” Palou told me after netting his 42nd career top 10 finish in just his 61st start. “Yeah, obviously, it’s great. I would have liked to have more obviously. But yeah, it’s good. I mean, the target was to try and do the best we can. We had plans for a little bit more, I would say without that last thing. But anyway, it was a good a good rate of return.”

54 points is a max race day. There’s 162 points available for the taking and he holds a 101-point gap. The math says that Palou just needs to maintain just as he did on Saturday.

He said he didn’t have a great car on the reds at the end to fight for much more so he settled for a top 10 instead of risking anything for a top five. He lost a couple of spots there but with what happened to Josef Newgarden early, that was perfectly fine.

“Yeah, I mean, we struggled always honestly, especially the last time with the reds,” he continued. “We seem to be really good on the used reds and then when we saved for the new reds for the end, we expected a little bit more. We couldn’t really get it.

“But yeah, anyway, it’s good for the team with Scott winning and good for the championship.”

Newgarden had an abysmal weekend.

The reigning Indy 500 champion was just 24th and 14th in Friday’s double practice session and only qualified his No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet in 19th. As a result, they elected to change his engine prior to Saturday’s Gallagher Grand Prix which left him starting in 25th.

It cost him on the first lap as he was collected in that opening lap melee. He fought from behind the rest of the day and came home where he started…25th.

Newgarden has just 1 podium in 14 Indy road course tries too. Out of his last six Indy road course races, he’s led just two laps. He was seventh in May. On natural road courses this season, he’s finished 15th, 7th, 2nd, 25th respectively.

Palou has finished 5th, 5th, 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd, 7th over the last 12 races. Newgarden has finished 9th, 15th, 7th, 1st, 10th, 2nd, 12th, 5th, 1st, 1st, 4th, 25th himself.