MADISON, Ill — We haven’t had qualifying yet so not much will change among the favorites, fades or sleepers for Sunday’s race.

• Starting spots still key – With track position and pit sequences mattering, starting spots were key here. We’ve seen 9 straight Gateway winners coming from a top five starting spot and 8 of the last 9 from the top 2 rows.
• Pole winners bad luck – You would think since qualifying means a lot, the pole winner would have success. In fact, it’s the opposite in Gateway. There’s not been a pole winner here since Helio Castroneves did it in 2003. For Iowa, the pole winner is now 1-for-19.
• Other than Josef Newgarden, we’ve had a new winner of this race each time. Only the best win at Gateway too. Names like Paul Tracy (1997), Alex Zanardi (1998), Michael Andretti (1999), Juan Pablo Montoya (2000), Al Unser Jr. (2001), Gil de Ferran (2002), Helio Castroneves (2003), Josef Newgarden (2017,2020, 2021, 2022), Will Power (2018), Takuma Sato (2019) and Scott Dixon (2020) all won on the 1.25-mile oval heading into this weekend.
• 5 out of the last 6 races at WWTR have seen the driver that led the most laps fail to win. In 2018, Scott Dixon led 145 laps but finished third. In 2019, Santino Ferrucci led 97 laps but finished fourth. In 2020, Pato O’Ward (94 laps in Race 1) and Takuma Sato (66 laps led in Race 2) finished third and ninth respectively and last year, Power led 128 of 260 laps and didn’t win.

TRACK COMPARISONS/WHO’S BEEN GOOD ON THEM

Iowa is the closest comparison as the only other short oval.

• Chevy has won 13 of the last 15 short oval races.
• Team Penske has won 11 of the 13 races for the Chevy camp including going 7-for-9 here.

Favorites

Josef Newgarden

Hard to ignore the team that’s won so many times here. Josef Newgarden has 4 wins in 7 starts with 484 laps led.

Newgarden is THE short oval king. He’s won 6 races here, 4-for-7 at World Wide Technology Raceway and also has a 2018 win at Phoenix as well. That’s 11 of his 29 wins (37.9%) on short ovals.

In fact, each of his last 6 race wins have come on ovals as has 8 of his last 10 wins (80%) in general. 14 of his 29 wins (48.2%) were on ovals.

Newgarden’s led 111 or more laps in 9 of his last 11 Iowa starts including six wins, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 12 tries.

Pato O’Ward

He’s finished 3rd, 2nd, 2nd and 4th in his 4 Gateway starts. At Iowa, he was 4th, 12th, 2nd, 1st, 3rd and 10th respectively. In his last 16 oval starts in general, he’s finished 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 15th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 24th, 3rd and 10th respectively. He led all the long run categories during Saturday’s practice.

Alexander Rossi

Has never had much success here, but now he’s in a McLaren. He’s finished 22nd, 5th, 10th and 15th with them this year but was P6 in practice on Saturday.

Takuma Sato

Sato may be Ganassi’s sleeper. He won in 2019 and has finished in the top 10 for six straight races including finishes of 9th, 1st, 2nd, 9th, 6th and 5th respectively. Now, he has a Ganassi car. His laps led in that span are 4, 61, 14, 66, 0 and 22 respectively too. He was P3 in Saturday’s practice.

Alex Palou

He’s finished 11th, 8th, 7th, 20th and 9th and has never led a lap here. In Iowa, the Spaniard has finished 11th, 14th, 6th, 13th, 8th and 3rd respectively. He’s scored the second most oval points (141) this season with finishes of 3rd, 4th, 8th and 3rd. He’s had a top 8 finish in every race run this year. Why not?

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Sleepers

Conor Daly

This is arguably his best track and he was an impressive P8 in practice on Saturday.

Colton Herta

He tested here and had a chance of winning in 2021. Herta was P7 in practice on Saturday too.

Felix Rosenqvist

P5 in practice and driving a Chevy. He had podium pace in Iowa too.

David Malukas

A Top five in Texas, a runner-up last year and sweeping Indy NXT races in 2021 puts him solidly on this list. He was 8th in Iowa 2. He has the 10th most oval points accumulated in 2023 and was P12 in practice.

Callum Ilott

He’s been solid (9th, 12th, 15th, 14th) on ovals this year. He needs a strategy play to win, but who knows. He was 10th on Saturday.

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Fades

Will Power

He has 3 St. Louis poles in the last 4 races including 2 straight, but no wins to show for it. In fact, among his 4 Gateway poles, he’s 0-for-4 in taking them to victory lane. His lone win (2018), he started fourth. What’s wild is, he’s never started worse than fourth here either. His overall finishes are 20th, 1st, 22nd, 17th, 3rd, 3rd and 6th respectively. His last five Iowa finishes are second, third, second, 5th and 2nd respectively. Power has 8 top sixes in his last 10 Iowa starts. Somehow though, he’s winless in 17 Iowa tries as well and 1-for-7 here. With the crash on Saturday, I’m wary.

Scott McLaughlin

He was fourth and third respectively here and third, 2nd and 5th in his last three Iowa starts. McLaughlin has 13 top 5 finishes so far and among his 13 top 5 finishes in the sport, 7 of which came on ovals. My concern? 9 spot grid penalty.

Scott Dixon

Here, Dixon has won (2020) but was also 15th, 2nd, 3rd, 20th, 5th, 19th and 8th in his other starts. He’s not led a lap in any of his last three races here. He’s also 0-for-19 now at Iowa but has been solid. On ovals this season, Dixon has finished 5th, 6th, 6th, 6th. He has 11 straight top 7 finishes on the season too. He also has a 9 spot grid penalty.

Ed Carpenter Racing

They’ve struggled here lately. Team owner Ed Carpenter was runner-up in 2019. His finishes since? 20th, 21st, 22nd and 22nd respectively. Carpenter’s last 10 Iowa finishes are – 18th, 12th, 10th, 19th, 15th, 23rd, 25th, 17th, 24th and 23rd respectively. Rinus VeeKay was 6th and 4th as a rookie in 2020 but 21st and 26th since. He’s finished 11th, 10th, 17th and 18th on ovals this season.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (3 top 10’s in 6 starts) has never led a lap here either.

Santino Ferrucci

He’s fast on ovals, but his Gateway finishes are 4th, 16th and 10th respectively.

Rookies – Benjamin Pedersen, Agustin Canapino, Sting Ray Robb, Linus Lundqvist

No way a rookie wins in a fraternity of championship winners here.