SALINAS, Calif — Hunter McElrea started on pole and led all 35 laps en route to his fourth career Indy NXT win on Saturday at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. It kept his small championship hopes alive in the process by scoring his second win in the last four races at that in his No. 27 Andretti Autosport entry.

However, Christian Rasmussen just has to really show up on Sunday and the title is his too. Rasmussen followed McElrea across the finish line under caution as an incident between Nolan Siegel and Jamie Chadwick in Turn 10 brought out the final caution of the race with one lap remaining.

McElrea trails Rasmussen by 49 points but with 54 points available for Sunday’s race and Rasmussen getting six points for racing, the title is his.

That’s why he raced more conservatively for much of Saturday’s opening race of the doubleheader race weekend. With he and McElrea starting alongside each other on the front row, he let the pole sitter in McElrea go at the start and tucked in behind to follow him in the slipstream into the opening corner.

McElrea had the best car and pulled away anyways. By Lap 3, his lead over Rasmussen was up to 3.1904-seconds. Three laps later, it was nearly a five second advantage at 4.9212-seconds.

He was in a different zip code before it was all negated from the first caution of the day on Lap 17 between Louis Foster and Jacob Abel in Turn 6. Abel was yelling for a blocking penalty to be thrown for Foster earlier but without one called, he made a maneuver by Foster on track for which Foster slipped off in Turn 6 and got into the tire barrier.

The race would resume on Lap 22 but quickly go back to caution on Lap 23 for Kiko Porto going off course in Turn 11.

The green would fly again on Lap 27 and McElrea was already pulling out to a big lead again only for another caution for debris.

The final restart would occur on Lap 30 and McElrea and Rasmussen pulled away and never looked back.

McElrea had 1 podium in the first 8 races but 4 in the last 5. He does have 10 top five finishes on the season however.

Rasmussen now has his 5th podium in the last 7 races including results of 1st, 1st, 6th, 1st, 5th, 2nd since Iowa. He’ll take home the title officially on Sunday with a season that has seen him score four wins, seven podiums, 10 top 5’s, 12 top 10’s and 240 laps led.

He starts on the pole for Sunday’s 35 lap race with McElrea this time starting alongside in a flip-flop of Saturday.