Alex Palou did Alex Palou things two races after Scott Dixon did Scott Dixon things at Indy and World Wide Technology Raceway. Ironically enough, they took 2 of the 3 podium spots in Sunday’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES race in Portland too.

It just goes to show how much Ganassi outsmarted everyone, again. Just as they’ve done for much of the season. From Palou going on a different tire strategy on the first Indy road course visit, to him doing so again at Mid-Ohio to Dixon pitting for fuel under the first caution on the second Indy road course race to Dixon doing 3 stops last Sunday in Gateway compared to everyone else’s 5.

Ganassi took 5 wins just on strategy.

That’s one thing we learned from Portland. Here’s a few more.

• Primary Tires the preferred one – In years past the Firestone alternate tire was the preferred tire here. However, with a new tire this past weekend, it would degrade quicker tipping the advantage back to the Firestone primaries. However, no one truly had a great read on if that truly would happen. With cooler temps on Sunday under cloudy skies, wouldn’t that help the reds and their fall off? That’s why the top 3 starters went with the safer strategy of using the reds at the start. Last year, the winning strategy was to pit on Lap 20-22 and bolt on more reds, pit on Lap 49 for blacks, then pit on Lap 79 for reds to the finish. Everyone had reds on the final stint a year ago. This year, everyone went blacks. It was truly a black race. The top drivers all started the race on blacks. Palou, Rosenqvist, Dixon, O’Ward and Newgarden. They started 5th, 11th, 4th, 6th, 12th respectively. For those that started on reds, Rahal finished 12th, McLaughlin 9th and Herta 13th.
• Restart Rules Helped Again – Death. Taxes. Portland 1st lap, 1st turn crash. Last year, they allowed the drivers to accelerate in Turn 12 in hopes of creating separation and avoiding melee’s. It worked. This year, they did so again. With the initial race start and the Lap 88 restart, we saw no cautions for the first turn. I’d say this move helped and is a breath of fresh air.
• Silly Season – NBC Sports reported that Romain Grosjean wouldn’t be returning to Andretti Autosport in 2024. Felix Rosenqvist said a day before that he’d make his decision in 2-6 days on where he’ll drive for next season. Chip Ganassi Racing on Sunday that Alex Palou will definitely be back in his seat for 2024 too. These are the next three silly season dominos after Marcus Ericsson (move from Ganassi to Andretti) and Linus Lundqvist (replacing Ericsson) were announced in the last two weeks. All signs are pointing to Rosenqvist going to Meyer Shank Racing to team with Tom Blomqvist in 2024. All indications are that David Malukas will replace the departing Rosenqvist with Arrow McLaren Racing. It also looks like Devlin DeFrancesco will replace Malukas with Coyne but with HMD not leaving with Malukas and DeFrancesco bringing money, it leaves a paid seat open at Coyne. Is that for a return of Grosjean? I’ve heard a soon to be announced McLaren and Juncos merger coming just in the way that Foyt and Penske is doing. McLaren is high on Callum Ilott and this allows them to get a closer look and to also keep Malukas too. RLL hasn’t signed Graham Rahal yet but 2 poles in 3 races leads me to believe he’s going no where and will be teaming with Christian Lundgaard. Juri Vips has a front row audition to take over the 30 car. Maybe Conor Daly is in play here too. Andretti is keeping tabs on DeFrancesco’s fight next week because he’s in the 22nd and final leaders circle spot. If he can stay there, then they’d be willing to remain a 4 car outfit. If he falls below the cutline again, then they may scale back to a 3 car team. The extra car could go to MSR for Helio Castroneves’ Indy 500 only bid.
• Palou best driver on natural road courses – Palou has 9 INDYCAR wins, 8 of which have come on natural road courses. He won in 2021 at Barber, Road America and Portland. He won last year in Laguna Seca. This year, he won on the Indy Road Course, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Portland. The other non natural road course that he won at was on the streets of Detroit back in June. His 8 wins on these tracks since 2020 are tops in the series. Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon and Colton Herta each have 3. Power and Palou each have 14 podiums in this same span.
• Ganassi and Penske are tops on natural road courses in general – They’ve won all 6 tracks this season including each of the last 5 by Ganassi. They’ve also won the last 4 in Portland too. for podiums, Ganassi has 24 and Penske 22 since 2020. Andretti is next best with 17. McLaren is next after that with 7.