IndyCar 2025: Alex Palou on verge of championship at Portland International Raceway

The chatter, expectations, and reality haven’t been lost on Alex Palou.

It would take a disaster for Palou to not win the NTT IndyCar Series championship — for a fourth time, and third in a row. He has won eight races, including the Indianapolis 500, and sports a huge lead in points heading into the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland, Sunday at Portland International Raceway. It’s been one of the best IndyCar seasons ever — Palou does have a shot at tying or breaking the IndyCar record wins in a season (10) — and certainly cements him among the elite in the long history of the open-wheel series.

But even though he and teammates, competitors, media and fans believe the same thing, Palou still has to pilot the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda for earn points in Portland and possibly Milwaukee and Nashville to claim the championship. He leads Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward by 121 points, and he can clinch the title by finishing first or second and scoring a bonus point (winning pole, leading a lap) at PIR. If Palou leaves Portland with a lead of 108 points or more, he will secure the championship.

The expected 27-car field takes the green flag at PIR at 12:22 p.m. Sunday (KPTV Fox 12).

“Everybody’s saying we’ve won already. We still need to ‘win it,’” the 28-year-old Spaniard said. “I don’t want anybody to say they are mathematically still alive for points.”

But, racers still gotta race, and the last time Palou spun laps at the 1.964-mile, 12-turn PIR road course, two-time Portland winner and Penske Racing’s Will Power kicked butt — beating Palou by about 10 seconds last year, running away with the win with a soft-tire strategy. Anything can happen on race day, although weather won’t be factor — it’s forecasted to be sunny and hot.

Whereas Palou has been great, Power, a two-time series champ and 44-race winner and a remaining driver from the Champ Car days at PIR, has been down. He has won races in 17 seasons, but not 2025, yet, as Penske Racing has been shut out from atop the podium. He’s ninth in points. He has led only four laps all season; Palou has led on 563 laps.

Power marvels at Palou and the Ganassi team. Talk about high praise: “As a driver, he’s one of the most well-rounded drivers I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t make mistakes,” Power said.

Palou does it with a bit of a dashing style, “walking the tight rope, just a very good execution of judgment,” Power added. “(Six-time champ) Scott Dixon was very solid because he’s conservative, but Palou does aggressive moves and pulls them off. He’s a tough customer.”

It’s possible for Palou to reach 11 wins, which would surpass the record of 10 wins by open-wheel greats A.J. Foyt (1964) and Al Unser (1970). Even if he gets to nine, he’d be tied for second-most wins with a fairly recognizable driver — Mario Andretti, 1969.

To be talked about in the same breath as legends is quite a thrill for Palou, who has 19 career wins.

“My dream was just to be a professional race car driver and I never thought about records,” he said. “It’s amazing to be in the position I’m in today. … I owe everything to my team — my personal team and racing team — and everybody behind me. I’m enjoying everything, riding the wave.”

As far as racing on a beautiful day at PIR:

“I’m excited. There are a lot of reasons to be excited,” said Palou, a winner at PIR in 2021 and ’23. “It’s a place where we’ve done really well in the past. With such a magical season, we can still finish even better. We’ll see how the car feels. It’s been feeling amazing … especially on road courses.”

Palou has always felt “comfortable” at PIR. He wants to qualify well — even though leaders often get caught up in traffic on PIR’s notorious first turns — and try to keep up with the speed of others and stay in contention. The memory of 2024 PIR’s race is still there. Palou’s team finished on hard tires, and couldn’t make up ground on Power. “He destroyed us,” Palou said.

Power on Penske drought

Perhaps IndyCar’s most powerful man has yet to see one of his drivers win a race in 2025. Roger Penske hasn’t been shut out from victory this late in the season since 1999, when his teams went winless. Power said he remains confident — after all, he and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden have combined for 82 career wins.

“I feel good going into every race with a shot of winning,” Power said. “It’s been a very difficult year as a team, one of those years where nothing flows well. … I would say we are as a group a bit tense. We’re used to performing at a high level. I haven’t lost faith. I know our team is still very strong.” …

IndyCar got a boost when Fox signed up to broadcast every race in 2025 — all 17 races on network TV. Now Fox has purchased part of the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Penske Entertainment. Having long trailed Nascar and Formula One in national consciousness, it could be a needed breakthrough for IndyCar.

“It’s a big deal — to start with a TV deal that was great for us, with so much marketing (on Fox), we’re very excited about that,” Power said. “Now that they’re part owner of the series and speedway, it’s exciting, something that will really help us.” …

Briefly

• Only three other drivers have won three consecutive championships: Ted Horn (1946-48), Sebastien Bourdais (2004-07) and Dario Franchitti (2009-11).
• Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood has won three races and O’Ward two. Scott Dixon has won once.
• The weekend’s action includes: IndyCar practice at 2:30 p.m. PT Friday (FS2); on Saturday, it’s the second IndyCar practice at 9 a.m. PT (FS1), the NTT P1 Award qualifying at 11:30 a.m. PT (FS1) and the final practice at 4:30 p.m. PT (FS1).
• For tickets, see raceportland.com.
• Dennis Hauger leads in the Indy NXT Series, which includes Wilsonville’s Josh Pierson, 19, among its lineup. A third-year Indy NXT driver, he finished atop the podium twice (third, second) in two races at Laguna Seca.
• Big-time open-wheel racing started at PIR in 1984, and CART and then Champ Car raced there until 2007. IndyCar made its PIR debut in 2018 with Takuma Sato winning the inaugural race.