IndyCar restarts at Portland on Sunday with Alex Palou 83 points clear and six races left in five weeks — a closing run that takes the series through three time zones, two ovals, two permanent road courses and two street circuits before Laguna Seca on 6 September.
The arithmetic is unforgiving for everyone behind him. With a maximum of 54 points available per weekend, Palou's cushion over Team Penske's David Malukas is worth more than a full race. Kyle Kirkwood is third, 87 back. Nobody else is within 100 points.
Portland is also, awkwardly for the chasers, one of Palou's better rooms. He won there in 2021 and 2023, clinched the 2023 title at the circuit with two rounds to spare and clinched again last season with three to go. Sixteen of his 24 career wins have come on permanent road courses.
He arrives with an extra advantage too. Chip Ganassi Racing used its additional test day — available to organisations running full time in both IndyCar and Indy NXT — at Portland during the off week, and Palou made clear how much the team needed it.
"We haven't had a test on a road course since I don't know when — we haven't had any this year," Palou told INDYCAR.com. "It's going to be huge for us to get a test there."
The case against rests on the fact that Portland has recently belonged to someone else entirely. Will Power has won the last two races there, adding to a 2019 victory, and does so this year in Andretti Global colours rather than Penske's. Christian Lundgaard took pole at Portland last season and finished second.
Lundgaard, fourth in the standings on 353 points, is the form road-course runner in the field: wins at Indianapolis and Road America, seconds at Barber and Mid-Ohio, an average finish of 1.5 across permanent road courses this year.
"I'm eager to get back out to Portland. We had a ton of pace there last year in qualifying and in the race," Lundgaard said in Arrow McLaren's race preview. "And, of course, we've had a lot of success on road courses this season as well. I'm confident we'll have the package to be up front and in the fight again as we start this busy closing stretch."
His team-mate Pato O'Ward, fifth on 336 points and a Mid-Ohio winner this year, took a more sanguine view of a season that has not gone to script. "It was great to have a break before this intense next few weeks to close out the season starting in Portland," O'Ward said. "This year has been full of surprises, so we're just trying to make the most of what we have each and every weekend."
Nolan Siegel, nineteenth on 164 points, has quietly become the third Arrow McLaren car worth watching after a run of top-10 pace. "Our group on the 6 car has continued to make good progress this season, regularly running towards the front in the top 10," he said. "We're going to keep pushing and aiming to maximize every chance we have."
The structural problem for Malukas and Kirkwood is that neither can simply wait for Palou to break. Malukas is still winless in 73 starts and needs multiple victories plus a Palou failure. Kirkwood's strength is street circuits — five of his six career wins — but Palou has outscored him by 41 points on street courses this season, winning at St Petersburg, Long Beach and Detroit.
Malukas' clearest opening is the Milwaukee Mile double-header, where he leads the series in oval points after a runner-up finish in the Indianapolis 500 and a pole at Phoenix. Palou finished second at Milwaukee last year.
Portland's 110-lap race starts at 4pm ET Sunday on FOX, following qualifying on Saturday evening. Round 13 of 18.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/palous-83-point-lead-meets-indycars-six-race-sprint-at-portland). Visit for full coverage.*