Scott Dixon vs. Alex Palou
Scott Dixon trails Alex Palou by 74 points entering Sunday’s BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland (3 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). With 54 points being a max day, he has to chop off at least 20 points off Palou’s lead on Sunday. However, you also get 5 points for showing up so it really needs to be down to 48 or 49 points leaving here.
Dixon has previously proven that he can unlock another gear, as he remains the only driver in the history of the sport to achieve three distinct streaks of three consecutive race victories (2020; 2013; 2007) in a single season. He’ll need to turn this 2 race win streak into a four race streak if he wants any shot of hoisting his 7th Astor Cup next weekend.
However, Dixon is 0-for-6 at Portland and 0-for-5 in Laguna Seca. Can he find victory at both?
He’s going to have to.
Dixon was 3rd in Saturday’s practice and qualified his No. 9 Dallara-Honda in 4th. Palou was 3rd and 5th in practice and starts one spot behind Dixon in 5th.
I think he’ll shadow Dixon enough to force Dixon to have to win. Can he?
Still, Palou can’t feel great despite this gap. Dixon can see everything Palou is doing. They know his strategy. They know what his car has. There’s no secrets.
Plus, Dixon has had a top 7 finish in all but 1 race this year. That was when he was punted by Pato O’Ward in Long Beach. Ironically enough, O’Ward has finished 3rd and 2nd the last 2 races to Dixon’s wins.
In saying that, Palou can see everything Dixon has and is doing too.
“I think the 10 car (Palou) has had an almost perfect season and kudos to everybody on the 10-car side. They’ve done everything right,” said Dixon. “On the days they may have struggled for pace, they were able to sort that out with strategy in the race. They’ve really just had no bad days. When people have those years, it can be a bit hard to watch for other competitors in the field, but I’ve been in that place where anything you kind of touch just turns to gold or goes in the direction you want it to. I think what is very special is, going into the last two races, to only have a Ganassi driver able to win the championship. It’s very cool and very, very good for this team.”
Palou has had a top 8 finish in every race this season including being 7th last Sunday.
Since May, Dixon has finished 6th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th, 1st, 1st. That’s an average finish of 4.09 in that 11 race stretch.
Palou has finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd, 7th, 7th in the same 11 races for an average finish of 3.45.
They’ve earned the right to be here. To have won 6 of the last 11 races they’re the class of the field.
For Portland, Dixon has finished 5th, 16th, 3rd, 3rd in the last 4 years. Palou won in 2021 and was 12th last year.
For Laguna Seca, Dixon was 3rd, 13th and 12th while Palou was 2nd, 1st.
On natural road courses this season, Dixon has finished 7th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, 1st with Palou 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 7th. Combined, they’ve won 4 of the 5 including all consecutively.
Even Dixon remains in the hunt leaving here, the last time that a driver leading the points this time of year with one race remaining that didn’t win the championship after the season finale concluded was in 2015. Juan Pablo Montoya was 34 points up on Graham Rahal but it was Dixon, who was 47 points behind, ended up winning the race at Sonoma as well as the title.
The kicker there was, that race paid double points. They don’t do that anymore. The last time someone came from behind to win the title in the final race with normal paying points was 2012. Ryan Hunter-Reay was 17 points down heading to Fontana that year. Will Power crashed and Hunter-Reay triumphed. That was the final time in a four consecutive year streak that saw the second placed driver entering the season finale ended up taking home the Astor Cup trophy after. Dario Franchitti did it the previous three times with entering the last race 5 points behind Scott Dixon in 2009, 12 points arrears to Will Power in 2010 and 11 points away from Power again in 2011.
If you go back to 2008 though, it’s only happened five times in a 13 year span. None of which other than the double points year exceeded 17 points.
In 2021, O’Ward was 35 points behind. Newgarden was 48. Last year it was 20 points between Power and Newgarden/Dixon and 39 points behind is Ericsson. McLaughlin was 41 points back.
What will Dixon make of the gap this weekend?
Can Rahal Score Win?
Graham Rahal went 105 races without a pole. He’s now won 2 of the last 3. For the Indy road course, he had the race won but Scott Dixon did Scott Dixon things by making up from a first lap spin to winning on pit strategy.
If not for that, Rahal likely wins as he led 36 of 85 laps that day.
Rahal noted on Saturday that his race car is better than his qualifying car. Can he end his 106-race winless drought?
He went from 11th to 5th last year and if not for cautions, had the race covered in 2021.
The last 2 pole winners here won the race too.
Tire Strategy
We know this is a 110-lap race. To get from the start to the finish line, you’ll need three pit stops.
However, this year’s race is going to come down to tire strategy. What tire is the preferred one? In most years, it’s the Firestone alternate. However, this year could be different.
“I mean, that’s kind of been the trend here the past couple of years,” Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood said on Friday. “Granted, when we get our information from Firestone, it says that it’s likely to wear faster for this weekend.
“So it’s still a little bit of an uncertainty, I would say. You never really know until after warmup, but I would say based on practice one field, the fact that we were able to run a certain lap time and then go back out and still be quicker than the primary tires indicates kind of towards a red race, but like I said, we won’t know until warmup.”
Arrow McLaren Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist agreed.
“Yeah, I mean, historically it’s kind of been a red race. So I thought the gap lap time-wise was pretty big,” he noted. “It was like a second I think for most drivers. So, yeah, that’s what I’m predicting.”
However, Graham Rahal, today’s pole sitter, feels it’s the actually the opposite.
“Obviously it was nice to run the blacks. I think Firestone has done a good job here,” he said. “The tire is very, very tricky though, the red and the black, frankly. There’s big deg. The peak is very, very early. I think reds after lap 2 are pretty well gone.
“I think the reds are going to throw a lot of people for a twist tomorrow.
“This race has always been a red race, traditionally has, and I think we might see some different stuff this year, which is why we were keeping all those blacks, frankly, to be able to go into the race with.
“We’ll see what happens.”
As a result, he feels like this could be a Firestone primary race instead. At least he’s hoping. Rahal feels like his No. 15 Dallara-Honda was better on the primary tires than the reds. His pole on blacks proved so.
“We really struggled with the reds yesterday,” said Rahal. “Really struggled with the reds. So a lot of what we had to do today was just to get the car to rotate for those specifically.
“To be honest, it’s everywhere. I don’t think the tires are that different. I think the red is softer, but when — the reason I went to blacks was because on the very first outing, I was P1 and group 1 on the blacks, and I did like a 58.30 or something, so my red pace wasn’t much quicker it at all. That’s why at the end I just felt, hey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that again on reds, and so I went for the blacks.
” I think that the front tire gets really heat saturated and it gives up. It’s like 10, 11 — 10 you’re flying, 11, and then you get to 12 and the tire is just hot and it gives up and is pretty lazy.
“So to get it to rotate, you’re doing a lot of stuff that’s not very good for the race.
“Like I said, I think we’ve just got to go back on that a little bit.”
The thing is, Rahal says that the reds will fall off with higher temps, but it’s likely going to be cloudy and in the 70s on Sunday which as a result, could help the reds in the long run.
“The hotter the temp, I think it’s going to kill the reds,” said Rahal. “They saturate very quickly. I think they get very hot, and it creates further problems.
“But tomorrow is a cooler day, too, and if you’re up front, God bless we have a good start and we can do that.
“When you’re in that position, I think you can try to take care of them and maintain the reds a little bit better.
“Let’s see what we get, frankly. Let’s see what we get tomorrow, go racing, and hopefully have a good clean start and make those things last as long as we can.
“To do this in two, you’ve got to go, what, 35, 36 laps on your reds? That’s a lot to ask. I’ve already done it this weekend on blacks, so I know the blacks can do it and do it competitively, but it’s a lot to ask of the reds, I think.
“Most people won’t do it, too, to be clear, but if you tried.”
Last year, 5 of the top 6 starters elected to go with the reds on the first stint including each of the top 2 rows. The winning strategy was to pit on Lap 21 and go back to reds, then pit on Lap 49 for blacks and go to Lap 79 for the final set of reds.
13 of the bottom 14 starters each went with blacks to starts but everyone was on reds for the final stint.
This year, the top three are on reds but the four cars behind them are each on primary tires. Which’s the strategy from pit stop 1? Last year it was run the first stint until around Lap 20-21. The strategy was to put on reds for the second stint. They ran it until Lap 49 before pitting for blacks. That’s because the final stint was on reds again so this way it was best served to use the blacks for the third stint.
Which is the best tire to run the final stint with? That will dictate what you do on tire strategy for your first and second pit stops.
Start of The Race
“It’s definitely the most unpredictable turn in the series,” says Josef Newgarden on Turn 1 at Portland. “I can tell you that. When it goes according to plan, it’s fine. More times than not, that doesn’t happen.”
I mean the situation isn’t a good design. From a wide front stretch with a lot of real estate to work with on a straightaway that span 2,450 feet to then dive into a tight right hand corner and a quick left after.
“There’s always room on the inside,” said Will Power. “They’re used to braking on the very outside of the track, it’s super wide. Obviously [on the inside] your 90 degrees is going to be much sharper. You’re going to have to brake much earlier than you have been. I think that’s most of the issue.”
With 27 cars fighting for the same spots, nothing good can come out of it. That’s also why INDYCAR made some changes prior to last year’s race.
INDYCAR made a change to the start procedure allowing the front row participants of Scott McLaughlin and Will Power to accelerate exiting Turn 12. That was in hopes of spreading out the field entering Turn 1.
While they’d be going faster, it also could have created some space in a way that the cars behind will be slowing in Turn 12 before accelerating themselves.
The alternative was having everyone on the front straight in hopes of a slower Turn 1 entry but in seen in support races, that is creating more havoc.
“We gave them input at the Christmas meetings,” said Power last year. “We suggested that they start on the back straight. I’m not sure where starting extremely late came from. I could understand you don’t get the tow effects, getting up to speed to get a tow effect.
“But if you had half the field in turn 12 when you went green, that’s half the cars that are spreading out. Might be better to go really early.”
Now, do we see a similar instance?
The last time that a first lap crash occurred here was back in 2021 and it ironically enough, helped those that were involved. Similar in nature to what happened a few weeks ago in the Gallagher Grand Prix for Scott Dixon.
Still, when we come back here this weekend, we have to know that a crash could occur and could do so at any spot in the field. I mean the 2021 crash happened with the guys up front.
Since we’ve came back here in 2018, we’ve had an opening lap crash in the first corner in all but last year’s race.
With massive championship implications for Portland, I’m curious who gets through Turn 1 unscathed at the start and who doesn’t.
Can RLL, Andretti Steal Win From Penske/Ganassi
Penske and Ganassi have been the most dominant teams on the season and arguably here too. They’ve won all five races on natural road courses in 2023 and have won the last 3 here too. They have 3 of the top 5 starters for Sunday’s race too.
For podiums, Ganassi has 4, Penske and Andretti each have 3 while DCR and RLL both have 1. Penske and Ganassi swept the podium last year and had 2 of the 3 in the 2 races prior.
At Mid-Ohio, the podium read Ganassi-Ganassi-Penske. In Road America, it was Ganassi-Penske-McLaren.
However, with Graham Rahal on the pole and Colton Herta in 3rd, that’s 2 of the top 3 starting spots from RLL And Andretti. 11 of the last 12 races at Portland have been won from a top 3 starter. The only Penske or Ganassi driver in the top 3 is Penske’s Scott McLaughlin.
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