5 things I’m watching for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Portland (3 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network)

And then there were two. After Scott Dixon’s romp on the paddock over the last two NTT INDYCAR SERIES races, he’s now trimmed 52 points off his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate’s points lead and is the last driver remaining who can mathematically catch Alex Palou. The question now is, can he legitimately catch him?

The title has come down to the final race for 17 straight years. If it’s going to jump to 18 consecutive, Dixon has to continue this hot streak this weekend in Portland.

With 108 points on the docket over the final 2 weeks, can Dixon close the gap enough? He gained 27 points last weekend and needs to gain at least 21 more on Sunday. Realistically, he needs to gain 26 or more points since you get 54 points as a max day but 5 for showing up. Which means if Palou is 49 points up on Dixon, the title is his since he owns the tiebreaker.

“Yeah, a win always feels good,” Dixon said after his Gateway win. “To go back-to-back feels fantastic, on two very different circuits. Again, I think it’s a testament to what this team has been able to do, all four cars throughout this year.

“It’s been definitely a bit of a trying year for us I think. As I mentioned before, not getting the results that the team deserved.

“I think what is special is going into the last two races, it can only be a Ganassi driver, which is very cool. I know that makes Chip very proud, and the hundred-plus employees that work at that place, as well.”

Essentially, Palou has to finish 3rd or better this weekend and that’s if Dixon scores max points. That’s 54 points (pole, most laps led, lap led and win). He has 491 points for the season. That gets him 545 in total. Palou has 565 points accumulated already. To be 54 points up on Dixon would mean he needs to get to 599 total points this weekend which is 34 points scored. You get 35 points to finish 3rd without leading a lap.

“We’ve won at Portland before and I also got my first INDYCAR pole there, so it is a special place,” said Palou. “The team is looking good for the championship, and we know that it will stay within the team, which is the most important thing. We have a chance to win it and seal the title there, so hopefully we can bring it home early.”

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?

The thing is now, Palou is likely going to be points racing. He has to. Why risk giving up a lot of points. With that said, you have some spoilers that can make things interesting if they can finish between Dixon and Palou on Sunday.

Colton Herta won poles in Road America and Mid-Ohio. A bad pit call kept him out of victory lane in Road America and speeding on pit road kept him off the podium in Mid-Ohio. Still, at Portland, Herta has started 1st, 6th and 7th and finished 4th, 8th and 6th. His teammate, Kyle Kirkwood finished 13th last year, but also won 5 of his 6 Road to Indy starts (2nd in the other) and has finished 12th, 14th, 9th, 17th and 9th on natural road courses in 2023. He spun while battling for third in Mid-Ohio and was punted while starting up front in Road America, so those finishes could in theory be better.

Alexander Rossi has finished 8th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd at Portland. Pato O’Ward qualified 5th and finished 4th last year. He was also 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th and 3rd on natural road courses this year too.

Felix Rosenqvist qualified 5th, 4th, 6th and finished 2nd, 6th, 19th at Portland.

Then there’s the RLL duo of Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal.

Lundgaard qualified third last year but spun later while running in the top five. At Barber, he qualified sixth and finished there. At Road America he started 7th and finished there too. At Indy, he was on the pole and finished 4th then on the front row and finished fourth again last month with Mid-Ohio coming from 5th to finish 4th.

Rahal went from 10th to 5th the last two years. He qualified in Row 4 for the GMR Grand Prix and overcame being punted on Lap 1 for a top 10 and qualified on the front row in Mid-Ohio and finished seventh. He was also on the pole and came home runner-up in last month’s Gallagher Grand Prix.

Scott McLaughlin dominated this race last year from the pole. There’s plenty of buffers there to take title fight to Laguna.

The thing is, can they get between them too though?

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.

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.

McLaughlin may be the best shot to do so but Dixon and Palou have been great on these tracks too.

“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.

While the Chip Ganassi Racing duo of Alex Palou and Scott Dixon have distanced themselves from the pack. However, the fight behind them is an intense one. 43 points separates the 3rd-6th placed drivers in points.

At one point, it looked like Josef Newgarden was going to run away with being the top Penske driver but now, he only leads teammate Scott McLaughlin by 14 for that distinction.

That’s all predicated by two straight 25th place finishes over the last couple of races. Now, he’s in a real threat to lose out on not only third, but if this continues, Newgarden could realistically drop to fifth. The Tennessee native has finished 2nd in each of the last 3 points championships and 51 points out of doing so right now.

Can he make up 51 points on Dixon over the next two races?

For Portland, Newgarden is 4-for-4 in top 10 finishes here but hasn’t finished better than 5th in any of the 4 races either. On natural road courses this season, he’s also finished 15th, 7th, 2nd, 12th and 25th respectively.

Laguna Seca is his best bet to maximize points with being 8th, 7th, 2nd there. The track was repaved and at Road America back in June, another repaved surface, he too was runner-up. He’s also finished in the top 2 in 4 of the last 6 season finales including 3 straight years too (1st, 2nd, 2nd).

However, can he truly stop the slide? The gap he has between he and Dixon (51) is similar to the gap (52) between he and 7th in points Will Power.

That’s why he may have to be looking behind him instead of in front at this point moving forward.

Last year, McLaughlin dominated this race in Portland and was sixth in the season finale. He’s once again coming on strong to end the season.

He’s had a top 8 finish in each of the last 9 races with results of 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 8th, 5th. Really, it’s the Month of May in Indy that’s been holding him back of making up progress.

His last two GMR Grand Prix finishes?

20th, 16th.

In three Indy 500 starts, he’s also only finished 20th, 29th and 14th respectively.

Outside of that?

He’s thriving.

Really though, if you think about it, Indy is what’s kept him from being closer in the championship right now.

It was just qualifying 16th and finishing there in May’s GMR Grand Prix and finishing 14th after starting there for the Indy 500. Take those two races out, his average finish is 6th. Even if you go back to the start of last season, take out the last two Indy 500’s and the last two GMR Grand Prix’s and his average finish is 6.35.

His average Indy 500 finish? 21st.

His average GMR Grand Prix finish? 18.0

His average Gallagher Grand Prix finish? 11.66.

Everywhere else? 6.35.

See the glaring weakness?

It’s truly astounding that in just his third full-time season that he has the potential to finish ahead of both multiple time champion teammates in the sport. Let that sink in for a moment. He’s on the verge of potentially doing so.

We also can’t over look Pato O’Ward. He’s sandwiched between Newgarden and McLaughlin right now. O’Ward is three points clear of McLaughlin but 11 behind Newgarden.

The Arrow McLaren Racing driver has 3 podiums in the last 5 races and has finishes of 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 3rd on natural road courses this season.

He qualified 5th and finished 4th in Portland last year. He was then 5th and 8th in his two Monterey tries. O’Ward has 8 consecutive top 10 finishes on the season including improving in each of the last 4 races (10th to 8th to 3rd to 2nd).

The 24-year-old is 4th right now, the best non Penske and Ganassi driver. He’s finished 4th, 3rd, 7th in points in his first three years and on the verge of another top 5 finish this year.

He’s closing that gap to the big teams. The last 20 champions have hailed from the Penske, Ganassi or Andretti camps. Ganassi will make this 21 straight.

The last time a team other than the “Big 3” won a championship was Panther in 2002 with Sam Hornish Jr.

His only issue is not having a win thus far. He’s winless in his last 20 starts. His crux this season has been being overly aggressive at times.

O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races of the season. He was 4th in 1 of the other 2 races. The one that he wasn’t was being overzealous in Long Beach.

The Indy 500 he was aggressive on the Lap 192 restart with Marcus Ericsson in Turn 3. He was first, slipped to third by time we got to Turn 1 and when trying to get back, he overstepped it. In Detroit, a bad pit stop while leading and pushing too hard to make up for it saw him catch the wall.

Take those three races out, his average finish on the season is 4.58.

That’s why McLaughlin and O’Ward are a dangerous combo to watch over the final 2 races.

Marcus Ericsson is P6 (397 points) and leads Will Power by 9 for that spot.

A couple of teams are eyeing the future while also hopeful of staying above a crucial cut line in points. On Monday, a couple of loose ends were tied up with Tom Blomqvist being named as the permanent replacement for Simon Pagenaud in the 60 ride for the final two races of the season and Juri Vips as the fill-in for Jack Harvey’s former ride in the No. 30 Dallara-Honda for RLL.

These two are tied for the final two spots above the cutline right now and with Blomqvist having 1 career start and 0 laps in race conditions (opening lap crash in Toronto), it makes Vips’ learning curve by comparison this weekend less extreme and less daunting.

So why experiment now with so much on the line? Only the top 22 in entrant points at seasons end get the bonus money and these two currently hold the final two spots. Is it worth the risk?

Not only do both teams think so, they both also have eyes to the future endeavors too in hopes that these 2 rides aren’t in this position a year from now.

Blomqvist was already named as 1 of the 2 drivers for MSR a year from now. He knows he’ll be here.

Plus, I think it also shows that maybe Linus Lundqvist isn’t a part of their future for 2024 either. Rumor is that he’s heading to another team in the paddock for next season so I can see MSR not wanting to give that said team seat time for their driver. Why would they?

Why not just go ahead and put Blomqvist in this ride and off you go?

“I’ve got to thank Jim (Meyer) and Mike (Shank) for getting me in the car and looking ahead now to next season having been confirmed to drive with MSR next year,” he continued. “It’s a good thing to be getting these races under my belt before the season and working in preparation for my full program in 2024. I got a brief test in Toronto under very challenging circumstances – without any real preparation whatsoever.

“Now I’ve got a little bit more understanding and knowledge and I’m hoping it’s going to be easier this time. I’m going to have the opportunity to get into the simulator and I know a little bit more of what to expect in terms of the way the weekend runs. I don’t know Portland at all and I know everyone has been racing flat-out in the summer. It’s still going to be an absolutely huge challenge. The series is so, so competitive and I am still new to these cars. I’m not putting any pressure on myself and I’m just going to go out there and do my best. Hopefully I can do Mike and Jim proud and make progress with every session. Hopefully after these next two events I can be happy and put in some strong performances and go into winter break with more knowledge on the series and be able to build on this.”

For Vips, Conor Daly did his part in Gateway to get this ride above the water (-2 entering, +1 leaving) and despite no starts here before, he’s been around the team for almost a year now learning behind the scenes and waiting in the shadows for this moment.

“To be honest, I haven’t,” Vips told me if he has any nerves or trepidation on making his first start in a race in over a year. “Maybe once I get there I’ll start feeling them, but at the moment there is almost no — there’s excitement, obviously, because I just haven’t been in a car for so long, and I haven’t raced for so long.

“But nerves are almost zero at this stage because I have so much to prepare and so much to do with media and with the engineers, simulators, and stuff. It’s organizing all of that that’s on my mind now, so it’s almost like I feel like I don’t have time to be nervous at the moment.

“I think that might change once I get to the track obviously because it has been a while, and it’s such a competitive series, so yeah we’ll need to do well.”

Vips comes with baggage so for RLL to take this risk, well it’s saying how much RLL values his talents. They could have anyone for this seat. It’s a paid ride. However, Bobby Rahal feels Vips has a value and the talent to compete here.

“Yuri came up on our radar screen by a friend of mine in Europe,” Bobby Rahal told me. “Of course, this was after the mistake that he made, after it was public, after he was released from his Red Bull contract.

“So he was kind of — although the team that he drove for knew him well, and they certainly believed that, yes, it was a mistake, but that was not emblematic of him as a person, and they still ran him the remainder of that year. That was the Hitech team.

“Anyway, I spoke to some friends that had worked with Yuri, and they were just very unbelievably impressed and supportive of him, with his skills. Knowing that, I know that, as I said earlier, also Yuri had already gone through diversity training in London with Dr. Lateesha Osbourne.

“I think he knew there was a lot more to do beyond that even, but we felt that certainly all the response we were getting from people who had been with him was very positive.

“Obviously sad that he made a mistake of this nature, and he paid a huge price for it, I might add, but was impressed because he set about correcting that and learning from that and continues to this day.

“So as I said, the opinions I got about him as a driver were extremely high, and he did do that test for us, and we were quite pleased with it at Sebring.

“So I guess I personally feel and I think Mike Lanigan, our team, feels that everybody makes mistakes, and you have to do what you can to repair and learn from those mistakes, but everybody deserves a second chance. I certainly feel strongly about that, so that’s why he is here.”

Vips actually drove an Indy car for the first time on October 12, 2022 at Sebring International Raceway in a test for the team and again at Barber Motorsports Park on March 13, 2023. He has also performed static simulator testing for the team during the season as well.

“I’m super happy to get the opportunity with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and very thankful to Bobby, Mike and everyone at the team,” Vips said. “I haven’t been driving all year so the anticipation for this opportunity has been immense but I’m really looking forward to starting again. We tested together at the end of 2022 in Sebring and it seemed like we just gelled. I got along with everyone and I really like the atmosphere at the team. Bobby’s also one to give second chances and I’m extremely grateful that he is giving me one and I really hope to bring a good result for him, Mike and the whole team.”

Vips is also stepping into a nice situation in that RLL’s best tracks this season have been on natural road courses. Between that and being emersed in the team already, this could be an easier transition period.

“I hope I can prove myself and most importantly get them into the Winners Circle, which is always my main mission,” Vips said. “I feel ready for these races, I think the tracks suit my experience and driving style and the car as well. I’ve already integrated myself with the team this year, doing some work for them on the simulator so I already know the people and feel very comfortable with everyone which is a big benefit for me as well.”

The thing is, he’s also not seen these next 2 tracks before, which makes them tough to honestly prepare for.

“There is not much you can do other than simulation and look at data so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been making sure that I will be as ready as I can to race. Obviously, I’ve only done two test days in the last 10 months so I haven’t done a lot of driving so that is definitely going to limit me but I’m doing absolutely everything I can to get as good of a result as possible.”

With 5 of the bottom 6 overall in the standings being rookies, with 4 of the 6 being on the outside looking in, why not make these moves ahead of time? They’re learning together and it’s not like someone is stepping in and using veteran experience to beat them.

“Well, I think there’s a couple of things about these next two events,” Rahal told me. “One that I think is a real value to us is the series test at Laguna Seca on Thursday before the race. So it’s more than just getting time at the two events themselves, but it’s getting a full day at Laguna in advance of the race.

“I think the amount of knowledge and comfort and everything that a driver needs to do his best, I think that is going to help that process a lot.

“I think Portland, that’s going to be a challenge, there’s no question about it, because you don’t have that much practice time before you go into qualifying. As we all know, qualifying is so intense and so close.

“I mean, you don’t have to be far off the pace, and you could be in the last one-third of the grid, so I do think there’s going to be a lot of demands this coming weekend.

“But having the two races weekend-to-weekend, having the test day, to me all of that made a lot of sense. And, of course, Yuri is from the road racing background, so going to an oval, especially an oval like St. Louis, would have been really I think an unbelievable experience never having done one before.

“But I would also say that I thought Conor did a super job for us this last weekend and really was very appreciative of his efforts. A real pro. So when we had three races to go, we just felt that that was the best solution to those three races.”

Vips likes what he sees in IndyCar and is hopeful this is just the beginning.

“I really like it so much,” he told me. “When you come to a race weekend, it’s just such a different atmosphere. Like, the paddock is very open. The fans get to see the cars, see the drivers, be really close to them. Be like — I don’t know how to say — maybe immersed, I think, in the experience much more.

“Yeah, the racing is awesome. That’s one side that I really like about it. You get such close racing. It’s very hard here, but when you watch the races, they’re super exciting.

“So, yeah, that’s the appeal I have for INDYCAR, and yeah, I think it’s just an awesome series.”

Agustin Canapino dropped from +5 to -1 with being 22nd while Devlin DeFrancesco’s 19th place result had him go from -3 to -4.

Standings With 2 Races Left

14. No. 15 RLL Honda +85

15. No. 21 ECR Chevy +78

16. No. 18 DCR Honda +71

17. No. 77 JHR Chevy +62

18. No. 14 Foy Chevy +28

19. No. 06 MSR Honda +25

20. No. 20 ECR Chevy +11

21. No. 60 MSR Honda +1

22. No. 30 RLL Honda +1

23. No. 78 JHR Chevy -1

24. No. 29 Andretti Honda -4

25. No. 51 DCR Honda -38

26. No. 55 Foyt Chevy -53

View all posts by Eric Smith