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| Álex Palou attempts to remain IndyCar champion leader at Gateway |
IndyCar has made its way to Gateway, and this will be a one-day show for the 25 drivers competing in tonight's Bommarito Auto Group 500. The day will commence at 1:15 p.m. ET for a 90-minute practice session with qualifying following at 5:00 p.m. ET before an 8:40 p.m. ET green flag.
Álex Palou leads the championship with four races to go, but the Spaniard will have his work cut out for him again. After losing an engine at the IMS road course, Palou will take his third grid penalty of the season. Because this one comes at an oval, it will be a nine-spot drop for the championship leader instead of six like he experienced at the first Belle Isle race and Nashville. The last five seasons have seen the driver leading the championship with four races remaining go on to win the championship. Palou has led the championship after eight of 12 races including the last four.
Palou's penalty opens the door for Patricio O'Ward, who trails the Ganassi driver by 21 points. Head-to-head, Palou has finished ahead of O'Ward in seven of 12 races, but O'Ward has the advantage on ovals 2-1. Both drivers have finished in the top ten of all three oval races. O'Ward is coming off a fifth-place finish on the IMS road course. O'Ward has always had consecutive top five finishes in his career. He has yet to have a top five finish without another top five finish preceding it or succeeding it.
Scott Dixon is right back in the championship fight, 34 points behind his teammate Palou. Dixon has finished on the podium in three of the last four Gateway races. Last year, Dixon won the first Gateway race to get his 50th victory. He has been stuck on 51 victories for the last nine races. This is Dixon's longest drought between victories since he went 12 races between his victories at Toronto in 2018 and the second Belle Isle race in 2019. Starting with Juan Pablo Montoya's CART championship in 1999, the last 30 champions between CART, Champ Car, the Indy Racing League and unified IndyCar have all at least been in the top three of the championship with four races to go. The last champion not in the top three with four races remaining was Greg Ray in the 1999 IRL season. Ray was sixth with four races remaining.
Josef Newgarden gained 20 points on Palou in Indianapolis and Newgarden is now 55 points back with four races to go. Last year, Newgarden was 76 points off the championship lead with four races to go and finished 16 points off the title, a 60-point gain over the final four races. Newgarden enters this weekend's race with 199 laps led. He has led at least 300 laps in six consecutive seasons.
Marcus Ericsson enters Gateway on a career best six consecutive top ten finishes, but Ericsson has only started in the top ten for one of those races, third at Mid-Ohio. The Swede has started in the top ten for only four races all seasons, one of which was the first Texas race, where the championship positions set the grid. Ericsson's only oval top five finish was last year in the first Gateway race.
Graham Rahal needs to make up ground quickly he would like to remain in the championship fight, but Gateway is one of Rahal's worst racetracks. His best Gateway finish was tenth in 2018. His average finish at Gateway is 15.6. The only track where Rahal has more than three starts and an average finish worse than Gateway is Indianapolis, where his average finish is 18.1 over 14 Indianapolis 500 starts.
Colton Herta is coming off a third-place finish on the IMS road course, and like Rahal, Herta needs to be flawless and then some for the remainder of the season. Herta has never had consecutive podium finishes in his IndyCar career and he has never finished on the podium on an oval. His best oval finish was fourth in the first Gateway race last year.
Simon Pagenaud has dropped to eighth in the championship, losing a position after each of the last three races. Pagenaud been the top Penske finisher in only one race this season, the Indianapolis 500 where he finished third. Pagenaud led seven laps last week on the IMS road course, the most he has led since he led 14 in last year's Indianapolis 500.
Will Power is coming off his 40th career victory, which puts Power in sole possession of fifth all-time. Power was the third fastest to 40 career victories, reaching the milestone in his 247th start. That is 13 fewer starts than Michael Andretti and 22 fewer starts than Scott Dixon. Power only took three more starts to get to 40 than Mario Andretti, but a whopping 93 starts more than A.J. Foyt. Power has not won consecutive races since he won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Indianapolis 500 in 2018.
Rinus VeeKay finds himself in a funk. VeeKay has gone from fourth in the championship after the first Belle Isle race to tenth after the second IMS road course race. He has not been the top Ed Carpenter Racing finisher in any of his last four starts. VeeKay was in the top ten in both Gateway races last year, finishing sixth and fourth. He won at Gateway in Pro Mazda in 2018 and he was runner-up in the 2019 Gateway Indy Lights race.
Takuma Sato has four consecutive top ten finishes at Gateway, which includes a victory and a runner-up finish. Sato has yet to start a race in the top ten this season and his best two starting positions were both Texas races, where points set the grid for each race. His best qualifying effort this season is 15th at St. Petersburg, the Indianapolis 500 and the second IMS road course race.
Alexander Rossi is coming off his second top five finish of the season after finishing fourth on the IMS road course. Rossi has not had a top five finish on an oval since he was runner-up at Texas in 2019. Rossi has finished in the top five of the 13th race of the season the last three years. This is the longest Rossi has gone in a season without a podium finish. He had scored at least one podium finish within the first 12 races of his first five IndyCar seasons.
Scott McLaughlin is coming off the worst finish of his IndyCar career after finishing 23rd on the IMS road course. Despite McLaughlin's recent run of form, he has been 13th in the championship after the last three races and he was 12th in the two races prior to that.
Jack Harvey will be looking for his second consecutive top ten finish and fourth of the season. Harvey has finished in the top ten of the 13th race of the season the last two years with a tenth at Mid-Ohio and a sixth in the second Harvest Grand Prix race on the IMS road course. He has started in the top ten of seven of 12 races this season, including three of the last four.
Romain Grosjean was second last week at Indianapolis and Grosjean could become the first Dale Coyne Racing driver with three podium finishes in a season since Justin Wilson in 2013 when Wilson had fourth podium finishes but did not win a race. This will be Grosjean's first oval start. No driver has ever scored their first career victory at Gateway.
Ryan Hunter-Reay has won the 13th race of the season twice in his career. One was Loudon 2011 and the other was Iowa 2015. On both occasions those were Hunter-Reay's first victory of the season. He has not had a top five finish on an oval since fifth at Texas in 2019 and his last podium finish on an oval was third at Iowa in 2017.
Conor Daly is back in the #59 Gallagher Chevrolet for Carlin this weekend. He was 21st and 24th in the Texas races back in May. He has finished in the top ten in all four of his Gateway starts. Five of Daly's 16 top ten finishes in IndyCar have come with Carlin, equal with Dale Coyne Racing for Daly's most top ten finishes with one team.
Sébastien Bourdais was tenth on his Gateway debut in 2017, but he finished 21st and 19th in his other two starts on the 1.25-mile oval. Bourdais has not had a top five finish on an oval since he was fourth at Pocono in 2018. Since 2017, A.J. Foyt Racing has had at least one top ten finisher in three of five Gateway races, including two top five finishers, Conor Daly in fifth in 2017 and Tony Kanaan in third in 2019.
James Hinchcliffe will be making his 158th start this weekend. This will break a tie with Patrick Carpentier for third most experienced Canadian in IndyCar history. The only Canadians with more starts are Paul Tracy on 281 starts and Alex Tagliani on 205 starts.
Ed Jones will make his 60th IndyCar start this weekend. The only driver in IndyCar history to pick up a first career victory in a 60th career start was Max Papis at Homestead in 2000. Nineteen drivers have taken 60 starts or more for their first career victory. Jones' most recent top ten finish on an oval was his eighth-place result at Gateway in 2018.
Felix Rosenqvist was eighth and seventh in both Gateway races last year. Those were his first two oval top ten finishes in his IndyCar career. Rosenqvist's only top ten start this season was fourth at Nashville. Last year, the Swede started in the top ten for four of six oval races
Dalton Kellett will be making his first IndyCar appearance at Gateway. Kellett made three starts at Gateway in Indy Lights with finishes of seventh, seventh and sixth. Kellett has finished outside the top twenty in the last five races and in eight of 12 races this season.
Ed Carpenter will run the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet for the fourth time this season. This will be the fewest starts Carpenter has made in an IndyCar season since he only ran four races in the 2010 IndyCar season. He has finished 20th or worst in three of his five Gateway starts, though he was second to Sato by 0.0399 seconds in 2019, the closest Gateway finish.
Tony Kanaan is back for his 387th career start. He has had top ten finishes the last two years at Gateway with a third in 2019 and a ninth in race one last year. This Gateway race falls six years, 11 months and 22 days after Kanaan's most recent IndyCar victory at Fontana in the 2014 finale. Kanaan has made 90 starts since that victory. There have been only two other instances of a driver going more than 90 starts between victories, Graham Rahal's 124 starts between his 2008 St. Petersburg victory and 2015 Fontana victory and Johnny Rutherford's 97 starts between his 1965 Atlanta victory and 1973 Ontario 100-mile heat race victory.
NBCSN's coverage of the Bommarito Auto Group 500 at Gateway Motorsports Park will begin at 8:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 8:40 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 260 laps.
