If Alex Palou is going to successfully defend his IndyCar Series championship, he will need to overcome the gauntlet of four oval races over the final five rounds.
While none of the 27-year-old Spaniard’s 11 career wins have come on ovals, he has built up a strong run of form on them.
Over the last 17 oval races dating back to the 2021 season, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver has amassed seven top-fives and 14 top-10s; both marks have him ranked in the top five among active drivers, with the latter statistic pairing him alongside team-mate and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon for second, one less than the 15 held by Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.
Consistency will undoubtedly be the biggest key, with Palou’s average finishing position eighth (7.75) on ovals the past four seasons, a number better than the 11 (11.05) carried by Team Penske’s Will Power, currently second in the championship standings at 49 points back.
Although everyone still mathematically in the title fight still has Palou’s attention, undoubtedly at the top are Penske’s trio of Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Power. The group have combined to win 10 of the 13 oval events dating back to 2022, with seven – including the last two Indianapolis 500s – claimed by Newgarden.
Palou, who is trying to win his third IndyCar title in four years, spent Thursday morning at Chip Ganassi’s base before sitting down exclusively with Autosport ahead of the run-in.
“There is no doubt it doesn’t favour us,” Palou said of the oval-heavy end to the season. “I wouldn’t say that’s made on purpose; it’s more like it doesn’t favour us.
“It was the same way when the season started, it’s not like it changed. Everybody knew we could say that at the beginning, it favoured us a little bit because we knew we went to some tracks where we had really good results and mostly wins in the past.
“Now we’re going to places the team has not won in the past; I have to say Gateway, Scott won there last year, but we were not super-fast. He did Scott Dixon things; saving fuel, tyres, did one stop and then he won. But on pure pace, we were not amazingly good enough to win, so that doesn’t help us.
“We only have one road course left, which is Portland. We won there last year, so we’re really good there and looking forward to that one. I would much prefer if there were only one or two ovals there is a little bit more than that and it favours them [Team Penske] but it’s okay.
“It’s the game. I think if we can pull this off, it will be pretty amazing.”
A test at Milwaukee left Palou feeling confident with his Honda-powered #10 entry and the one-mile oval, though he did not participate in the recent running at Nashville.
The combination of a lack of experience at the last two tracks blended with Penske’s oval prowess and with continued learnings of the mid-season introduction of the new hybrid unit leaves plenty of wildcards on the table for Palou to overcome.
“We want to try and be as quick as possible getting up to speed at Gateway,” he said. “Try and get as many points as possible there because then we go to Portland back-to-back, and then Milwaukee back-to-back.
“There’s so many points in the span of three weeks.”
Palou is cautious, though, of having to push through a repeated style of racing to last month’s double-header at Iowa Speedway, which saw zero on-track passes for the lead and only 195 passes for position over the 500 combined laps.
“It was a bit frustrating for everybody: drivers, fans,” he said. “When I also heard from the Gateway test this past week wasn’t great and what I heard from Nashville wasn’t great, either. So, I’m not looking forward to going there and having a race where it is mostly dictated by your qualifying speed.
“Yeah, you can get lucky with a yellow and suddenly do like Power in Iowa where he goes from like 19th to first, but there’s only one car and you need to pray for a yellow at the right time.
“What I’m not looking forward to in this last stretch is not being allowed to race and not being able to make moves during the race. Hopefully, I’m wrong. Hopefully, we learn from the testing and Iowa, but I don't think it’s easy.
“I know everybody is trying hard; IndyCar is trying hard. Everybody wants this to work, but that’s the only thing that I’m not really looking forward to.
“It’s not the fact that I’ve never won on an oval, it’s more the fact of like, ‘Man, I think I’m getting there but I need the chance at an oval to race.’ I think we did amazingly at Indy, we could overtake, everybody could overtake.
“We made some moves starting out. I don’t remember where we started, like 14th or 15th, and made it up to P5. That was fun, but Iowa was not fun. I was starting up front and I was lacking that feeling of racing and being able to make moves or defend. It was more of, ‘Okay, you are second, just hold your position and we will be fine.’ Hopefully, Gateway is not that way.”
But what if Palou scored his first oval win in a race that was similar to Iowa?
“We needed to win,” he quipped. “I don’t care even if we do only one lap, who cares? Yeah, it was the most boring win but yeah, I got it. Like, ‘Oh, that was a very important race. Oh my God, I cannot believe it!’ Yeah, okay. I won, so I don’t care. I have the trophy, the points and I have the smiles, obviously.”
Then Palou provided a more thoughtful response…
“Now, seriously, getting to that point, it wouldn’t feel the exact same,” he said. “We wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh my God, I was holding off Dixon, Newgarden or Power’ and I ended up winning or I did an overtake for the win on the outside of Turn 1 and Turn 2 at Gateway.
“It’s not the same as what we saw in Iowa; I finished second in the second race and I said it was not fun. There was only one person that could be happier than me and that was Power, and he was not even super excited, either, because they didn’t feel… we want that competition.
“We want that - making it hard - because someone is pushing you or maybe it’s easy but because you had so much advantage because your team gave you an amazing car and you were on fire that day, but you won. You want the ability to fight.
“It wouldn’t feel the same, but I would take it. Every single time I would take a boring win every day, if I could.”
