Rivals Eye Alex Palou as Summer Sprint Starts Sunday at Mid-Ohio

Fox Sports

2 days ago

INDYCAR
The path to this year's NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship is a six-month marathon, but the final push is more of a sprint.
Beginning this weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, the 27 car-and-driver combinations will face eight races over the next nine weeks. Specifically, Sunday's The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the All-New 2026 Passport represents the first of four races in July.
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The remaining schedule is as diverse as it is hectic. This month, there are two road course venues, a short oval hosting two races, and a street circuit. Overall, the rest of the season features four races on ovals, three on road courses and one on a street circuit. The champion will be awarded the Astor Challenge Cup Aug. 31 at Nashville Superspeedway.
All told, there are 1,410 laps still be run in 2025.
Every race has a green flag, and the one signifying the start of the season's second half comes Sunday at Mid-Ohio. Here are five things to consider in this 90-lap race.
Palou on a Mission
Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge champion Alex Palou (No. 10 Open Al Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) remains in control of this title pursuit, and he brings a commanding 93-point lead into this weekend's event. In nine races held this season, Palou has won six, finishing second in another.
Palou's goal is to clinch a third consecutive series championship and fourth in five years, but he can also earn another significant place in the sport's history. A.J. Foyt (1964) and Al Unser (1970) each won a record 10 races in their most successful seasons. Mario Andretti won nine races in 1969. Palou can reach or even exceed those totals.
Palou has won five races at tracks remaining on this year's schedule. He won at Mid-Ohio in 2023 and has a pair of race wins each at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna (site of the July 27 race) and Portland International Raceway (site of the Aug. 10 race). The Spaniard has fared particularly well at Mid-Ohio, finishing on the podium in each of his four races with Chip Ganassi Racing. He finished second last year.
Kirkwood the Season's Other Winner
Not since 1980 has an INDYCAR SERIES gone this long without realizing a third driver reaching victory lane. This year, Palou has won six races, Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27 Andretti Global Honda) has won the other three.
That means a host of drivers, including Team Penske drivers Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden, along with Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward, Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon and Andretti Global w/Curb-Agajanian's Colton Herta, are still chasing their first season victories.
This will be Kirkwood's fourth series start at Mid-Ohio, and he doesn't have a lot to show for the previous three. His best finish came last year when he crossed the line in eighth. He qualified in the third position two years ago. But he did win both 2021 INDY NXT by Firestone races on the 13-turn, 2.258-mile circuit.
Dixon Is Mid-Ohio's King
Dixon is easily this series' most accomplished driver at Mid-Ohio, winning six of his 21 starts. The driver of the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda also has finished second and third once each. In 2014, he famously drove from the last starting position (22nd) to win.
Given Dixon's past success at Mid-Ohio, this would seem to be a good opportunity for the New Zealand driver who turns 45 later this month to extend his record streak of seasons with at least one race victory. His count is 20 consecutive years, a run that began with a late-season win in 2005 at Watkins Glen International.
Dixon's career total is 58 series wins, which ranks second all-time to Foyt's 67. But Dixon is winless in the past 20 races dating to last year's victory in Detroit. Last year at Mid-Ohio, he finished 27th after a mechanical gremlin bit him ahead of the race's official start, and he completed only 40 laps.
Next Winner: O'Ward? McLaughlin? Newgarden?
If someone other than Palou or Kirkwood is going to win a race this season, it's likely he will do so this weekend at Mid-Ohio, a track which has produced eight different winners in the past eight races.
O'Ward won last year's race, chasing down Palou, who had led 53 of the first 56 laps. The driver of the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet led the final 24 laps.
Palou won the 2023 race, and before that it was McLaughlin, Newgarden, Herta, Power, Dixon and Alexander Rossi driving to victory lane. Graham Rahal (2015) is also a former series race winner at Mid-Ohio. That makes nine former winners in this field, something no other event on the season schedule can match.
Other Items of Interest
Aside from the many different race winners, Mid-Ohio's podiums have recently been predictable.
Chip Ganassi Racing has produced the second-place finisher in each of the past four series races at Mid-Ohio. That's Marcus Ericsson (2021), Palou (2022, 2024) and Dixon (2023). Team Penske has had the past three third-place finishes (Power in 2022 and 2023 with McLaughlin last year).
One-two finishes by teams are also a regular occurrence at Mid-Ohio. In the series' 138 instances since 1990, this track has had 16 of them, double the eight of the next closest (the former Belle Isle Park circuit in Detroit). Palou and Dixon were the last teammates to sweep the top two positions at Mid-Ohio, in 2023.
This weekend's action begins with the first practice at 4:30 p.m. ET Friday (FS2, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). Television airing shifts to FS1 until the race Sunday afternoon, with the second practice at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, the warmup practice is at 9:30 a.m. ET. The race broadcast on FOX starts at 1 p.m.
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