The 16th and penultimate round of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season will be held at Portland International Raceway. This is IndyCar's second of three visits to the Pacific Time Zone. The series' only other visit was Long Beach back in April. Only 205 laps remain in this season, 110 of those laps will be completed this weekend in Oregon for the 28th Grand Prix of Portland. There have been six different winners from six different countries representing six different teams in the last six Portland races. Those six Portland races stretch back to the 2005 Champ Car season. The driver who has led the most laps has not won three of the last four Portland races.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday September 4 with green flag scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 5:30 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 12:00 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 3:05 p.m. ET
Qualifying: 3:05 p.m. ET
Final Practice: 7:15 p.m. ET (30 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 3:30 p.m. ET (110 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
The Championship Picture
Two races remain and seven drivers are alive for the IndyCar championship.
On top is Will Power with 482 points. Power has led the championship after the last three races and after five of 15 races run so far in the 2022 season. Power's lone victory was at Belle Isle in June, but he has seven podium finishes, the most in IndyCar this season. His ten top five finishes also top the series. Power also leads IndyCar with four pole positions and his pole position at Gateway has him tied with Mario Andretti for most pole positions in IndyCar history.
Josef Newgarden's fifth victory of the season at Gateway has Newgarden three points off his Team Penske teammate Power in the championship with only two races remaining. Newgarden's five victories are his only podium finishes this season, He has only two top five finishes that were not victories, a fourth at Belle Isle and a fifth on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in August.
Scott Dixon dropped to third in the championship and 14 points behind Power after Gateway. Dixon has nine consecutive top ten finishes and 14 top ten finishes from 15 races. The lone exception was a 21st-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 after a pit lane speeding penalty on his final stop. Despite the penalty, the 33 points Dixon scored in the Indianapolis 500 are the fourth most he has scored in a race this season.
Marcus Ericsson has dropped to fourth in the championship, Ericsson's lowest championship position since eighth after the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. The Swede has lost one championship position after each of the last three races, and he is now 17 points behind Power's championship lead. Ericsson has not had a top five finish in the last five races. Since his Indianapolis 500 victory, he has only led four laps, three at Road America and one at Gateway.
Defending champion Álex Palou is back within a race of the championship lead. Palou is 43 points back and could leave Portland with the championship lead with a victory and a combination of other results. At the moment, Palou will be hoping to remain within 49 points of the championship lead after this race, the greatest number of points a driver can make up should the championship leader also start the race. He has only one top five finish in the last six races.
Scott McLaughlin has some work to do to remain alive for the championship after Portland. McLaughlin trails Power by 54 points, the most possible points a driver can score this weekend. However, with Power likely to start this race, McLaughlin will not be the championship leader after this race. McLaughlin has four consecutive top five finishes after having only three top five finishes in the first 11 races of this season. He has led laps in three consecutive races.
Patricio O'Ward is the final driver mathematically eligible for the championship. Fifty-eight points separate O'Ward in seventh and Power in first. In the last ten races, O'Ward has five top ten finishes, but he has finished outside the top ten in those other five races and three of those results were finishes outside the top twenty. His only podium finish on a road/street course this season was his victory at Barber in May.
With only 108 points remaining on the table, Felix Rosenqvist, Alexander Rossi, Colton Herta and Rinus VeeKay were mathematically eliminated from the championship after Gateway.
There is a chance Will Power could clinch the championship this weekend. It would require Power winning the race with at least two bonus points, Newgarden finishing 25th or worse with no bonus points, Dixon finishing 16th or worse with no bonus points and Ericsson finishing 11th or worse with no bonus points. If Power wins the race, Palou, McLaughlin and O'Ward would be eliminated no matter where they finish.
We will be guaranteed the championship going to the final race if Newgarden scores at least eight points, which would be achieved with a finish of 22nd or better with no bonus points, Dixon finishing 11th or better with no bonus points and/or Ericsson finishing ninth or better with no bonus points.
Only Power could clinch the championship a race early. If Power starts the race, he will be guaranteed a chance at the Astor Cup at Laguna Seca. If Newgarden scores a maximum points victory, Dixon would need to finish 14th or better and Ericsson would need to finish 11th or better to remain alive for the championship.
The only way Palou says alive if Newgarden wins the race is if Palou finishes second with a share of bonus points. If Newgarden wins with only one bonus point, Palou must finish second with at least three bonus points. If Newgarden wins with multiple bonus points, Palou would be mathematically eliminated for the championship.
Roaring Rookies
While seven drivers are still alive for the championship, the Rookie of the Year battle has intensified in recent races.
Christian Lundgaard is the top rookie in the championship with 283 points, but David Malukas is only 11 points back. Both drivers scored their first career podium finishes in recent races. Lundgaard was runner-up to Alexander Rossi on the IMS road course at the end of July. Malukas was second to Josef Newgarden at the most recent race at Gateway.
In the tale of the tape, Lundgaard has six top ten finishes this season while Malukas has only three top ten finishes. Lundgaard has an average finish of 13.2 compared to Malukas' 14.067, but Malukas has the better average starting position between the two drivers. Malukas' average starting position is 13.267 compared to Lundgaard's 15.6. Both drivers have made the Firestone Fast Six twice this season with Malukas having five second-round qualifying appearances to Lundgaard's four second-round appearances.
Two other drivers have an outside chance at Rookie of the Year honors.
Callum Ilott is 93 points off Lundgaard entering the final two races. Ilott has only one top ten finish this season, an eighth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. He has made the second round of qualifying five times this season, but the Briton has not made the Fast Six once this season. Prior to finishing 21st at Gateway, Ilott had finished in the top fifteen in five consecutive races. Ilott must win at Portland to remain alive for Rookie of the Year.
Devlin DeFrancesco is mathematically alive for Rookie of the Year, 106 points behind Lundgaard with 108 points left on the table. If Lundgaard starts at Portland, DeFrancesco will be eliminated from Rookie of the Year contention. Even if Lundgaard does not start, DeFrancesco would have to win the final two races and score at least six bonus points between the two races to claim Rookie of the Year.
One rookie already out of the Rookie of the Year picture is Kyle Kirkwood. Kirkwood sits on 157 points, 126 points behind Lundgaard. Kirkwood has been ranked outside the top twenty in the championship for 11 consecutive races and after 12 of 15 races this season. He has finished outside the top fifteen in four consecutive races and in 13 of 15 races this season.
The last seven Rookies of the Year have represented seven different countries. Lundgaard could make it eight different nationalities in the last eight years, and he would be the first Danish driver to ever win IndyCar Rookie of the Year. Lundgaard would become the first Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver to win Rookie of the Year since Ryan Hunter-Reay took the honor in the 2007 Indy Racing League season. He would be the fourth RLLR driver to take Rookie of the Year after Kenny Bräck, Danica Patrick and Hunter-Reay.
Malukas is attempting to become the first American to win Rookie of the Year since Alexander Rossi in 2016, and Malukas would become the third Dale Coyne Racing driver to win Rookie of the Year. The first two were Alex Lloyd in 2010 and Ed Jones in 2017. Malukas would be the first American Rookie of the Year to have competed in Indy Lights the season prior since Marco Andretti in 2006.
Outside the Title Fight
Focus will be on the championship over the final two races, but there are contests for championship positions from top to bottom.
Forty-nine points cover eighth through 11th in the championship with Felix Rosenqvist leading this group with 340 points, five points ahead of Alexander Rossi. Colton Herta rounds out the top ten, six points behind Rosenqvist.
There is then a 29-point gap between Herta and Rinus VeeKay with Graham Rahal only three points behind VeeKay. Simon Pagenaud sits on 294 points, three more than Romain Grosjean in 14th.
Rossi has finished in the top ten of the championship in five consecutive season and his worst championship result is 11th. Rosenqvist is aiming for his best championship finish since he was sixth as a rookie in 2019. Arrow McLaren SP is aiming for multiple top ten championship finishers for the team's first time in IndyCar history, even dating back to the Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports days. Herta has finished in the top ten of the championship in all three of his full IndyCar seasons.
VeeKay went from 14th in the championship to 12th in the championship during his sophomore season last year. Rahal has seven consecutive top ten championship finishes and nine in the last 11 seasons. Pagenaud has only finished outside the top ten in the championship once in his career, 11th in 2015. Meyer Shank Racing is also looking for its first top ten championship finish in IndyCar. Grosjean was 15th in the championship last year despite only starting 13 of 16 races.
Previous Indianapolis 500 winners Takuma Sato and Hélio Castroneves are tied on 239 points with two races remaining. Sato holds the tiebreaker for 18th in the championship based on his fifth-place finish at Gateway. Castroneves' best finish this season was seventh in the Indianapolis 500. Sato is on pace for his worst championship finish since he was 18th in the 2014 season.
Castroneves is on pace for his worst championship finish in a full season since he was 15th in the 1999 CART season. His worst championship finish in a full season was 17th in his rookie season in 1998. The Brazilian is 17 points behind Conor Daly for 17th and 33 points behind Malukas for 16th. Daly's best championship finish is 17th, and he has finished 18th in the championship three times in his career. Daly trails Malukas by 16 points for 16th and possibly his best championship finish in IndyCar.
Meanwhile, there is a tight fight for 20th in the championship. Jimmie Johnson currently holds the position with 194 points, only four points ahead of Callum Ilott. Jack Harvey is ten points behind Johnson while Devlin DeFrancesco is 17 points behind the Ganassi driver.
Johnson is averaging 12.933 points per start this season, nearly four more than what he averaged last year only running the road and street course events. Ilott has only finished ahead of Johnson in six of 15 races they have both started this year. Harvey had finished in the top fifteen of the championship in the last two seasons. DeFrancesco has not been ranked in the top twenty of the championship once this season.
Who Needs a Win?
Only two races remain in the 2022 IndyCar Series season and the opportunities for victories are vanishing quick. Through 15 races, there have been eight different winners, but 17 drivers will lineup on the grid in Portland looking to make it winner #9 in the 2022 season.
Álex Palou leads the pool of winless drivers, and Palou has much need for a victory. The Spaniard is looking to avoid becoming the first winless defending champion since Scott Dixon in 2004. He is also looking to keep his championship hopes alive. Since 1979, only two defending champions took 16 races or more to get their first victory of a season, Jimmy Vasser in 1997 and Gil de Ferran in 2001. Currently fifth in the championship, Palou could become the second driver in three seasons to finish in the top five of the championship without a victory. The other was Patricio O'Ward in 2020.
Felix Rosenqvist is the next winless driver in the championship and the only other one in the top ten of the championship. It has been 41 races since Rosenqvist's only IndyCar victory at Road America in 2020. He has only two top five finishes this season, a fourth at the Indianapolis 500 and a third at Toronto. He was second at Portland in 2019 and sixth here last year.
Rinus VeeKay is looking for career victory number two. VeeKay's three top five finishes this year are tied for his most in a season with his rookie year in 2020. He was 26th at Gateway, his second worst finish of the season behind 33rd at Indianapolis. Indianapolis was in the middle of a three-race run without a top ten finish. The Dutchman has finished outside the top ten in the last two events.
Graham Rahal carries an 88-race winless streak into Portland, the longest active streak in IndyCar. Despite Rahal's results, he has eight top ten finishes this season, tied with Rosenqvist for the seventh most in IndyCar. Rahal has also only led eight laps this season, six at Toronto and two at Gateway.
Simon Pagenaud is on the longest winless streak of his IndyCar career. Up to 40 races, Pagenaud has not won since the first race of the 2020 Iowa doubleheader. His one podium finish would be his fewest in a season since he had zero in his rookie season during the 2007 Champ Car season. That runner-up result in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is Pagenaud's only top five result. Last year were his fewest top five finishes in a season with three.
Ten of the 17 winless drivers this season are looking for their first career victory. Four drivers have had their first career victory come at Portland. The first was Al Unser, Jr. in the inaugural Portland race in 1984. The next was Alex Zanardi in 1996 with Mark Blundell scoring his first career victory in a memorable finish at Portland the following year. The final first-time winner at Portland was A.J. Allmendinger in 2006 in Allmendinger's first race with Forsythe Racing after being released from RuSport after the first three races of that season.
The other two winless drivers entered this weekend are Takuma Sato and Hélio Castroneves. Sato won the 2018 Portland race while Castroneves' best Portland result was seventh in 2000 from pole position.
Road to Indy
Two Road to Indy championships will be determined this weekend, but there is a chance all three could be claimed in Portland.
Indy Lights has its penultimate round in Portland, and Linus Lundqvist has a 108-point lead with 162 points left on the table. If Lundqvist gains one point to his championship, he will not even need to show up for the Laguna Seca season finale. In all reality, Lundqvist should clinch the championship just by starting the final three races of the season.
If Lundqvist finishes 12th in each of the final three races of the season with no bonus points scored and Matthew Brabham, second in the championship on 372 points, were to win all three races with the maximum 54 points in each, the two drivers would be tied on 534 points with the championship coming down to a tiebreaker.
Both drivers would be level on five victories, level on one runner-up finish, level on two third-place finishes and level on two fourth-place finishes. The tiebreaker would come down to Lundqvist having one fifth-place finish while Brabham's next best finish would be sixth. However, that is an unlikely turn of events.
With Lundqvist having a hand on the trophy, the battle will be for second in the championship. Brabham is one-point ahead of Andretti Autosport teammate Hunter McElrea and 11 points clear of teammate Sting Ray Robb. Benjamin Pedersen moved back into the top five of the championship with his third-place result at Gateway. Pedersen is 41 points behind Brabham and Christian Rasmussen has dropped to sixth on 320 points. Danial Frost has 310 points in seventh.
Jacob Abel, Kyffin Simpson, Ernie Francis, Jr., Christian Bogle and James Roe, Jr. round out the top 12 in the championship.
Indy Lights will race at 1:20 p.m. ET on Sunday September 4.
Portland is the final round of the Indy Pro 2000 season, and it is a triple-header. With 99 points left on the table, three drivers could win the championship, but it will likely go to Louis Foster.
Foster has 377 points, 77 points clear of Reece Gold in second. All Foster needs to do is score 22 points over the three races to clinch the championship. He can do that in race one with a third-place finish or better. He has ten podium finishes this season from 15 races. Gold has won twice this year, but not since the second race on the IMS road course in May.
Nolan Siegel has an outside chance at the championship. Siegel is 86 points behind Foster. Siegel won two of the first four races of the season and he was runner-up at Gateway. Enaam Ahmed is 99 points behind Siegel, but even if Ahmed swept the three races with maximum points from each race, Foster would still be champion on tiebreaker as Foster has six victories.
There is a close fight for fifth in the championship Braden Eves has it with 268 points, three ahead of Josh Green. Eves and Green each have one victory. Green won the first race of these season at St. Petersburg and Eves won at Road America. Salvador de Alba has two victories after his triumph at Gateway. De Alba is 21 points outside the top five. Kiko Porto sits in eighth, 29 points off of Eves.
Yuven Sundaramoorthy and Jack William Miller round out the top ten in the championship with 213 points and 209 points respectively.
Race one of the Indy Pro 2000 weekend will at 3:20 p.m. ET on Friday September 2 with the second race of that day being later that day at 8:00 p.m. ET. The final race of the Indy Pro 2000 season will be at 5:20 p.m. ET on Saturday September 3.
There is a proper championship tussle in U.S. F2000 with three drivers within 23 points and four drivers mathematically alive.
Myles Rowe leads the championship with 345 points, 22 points ahead of Michael d'Orlando and 23 points ahead of Jace Denmark.
Rowe has won five races and he has finished in the top five in eight consecutive races and in nine of the last ten races with that tenth race being a sixth on the IMS road course. D'Orlando and Denmark both have three victories. Rowe, d'Orlando and Denmark are all tied on 12 top five finishes this season. D'Orlando has four consecutive top five finishes and eight in the last ten races, but he was 14th in both of those other non-top five races. Denmark has five consecutive podium finishes and ten consecutive top five finishes.
Jagger Jones has a slim shot at the champion. Jones is 80 points behind Rowe. It is unlikely Jones will win the championship. His only victory this season was in the second Barber Motorsports Park race. He has only two top five finishes in the last seven races.
Outside of the championship fight, Billy Frazer looks to hold onto fifth in the championship with 229 points and has an eight-point advantage over Thomas Nepveu. Frazer has six podium finishes, but he has finished outside the top ten in the last four races and in five of the last six races. Nepveu was runner-up in the most recent race in Toronto. The Canadian has two podium finishes and six top five results this year.
Bijoy Garg is on 203 points in seventh, 23 points ahead of Christian Weir. Nicky Hays has 172 points while Dylan Christie and Spike Kohlbecker are tied on 165 points with Christie owning the tiebreaker based on his third-place finish in the second Toronto race. Jacob Douglas is 19 points outside the top ten.
U.S. F2000 will race twice on Friday September 2, first at 2:20 p.m. ET and then at 7:00 p.m. ET. The final race of the U.S. F2000 season will be at 1:15 p.m. ET on Saturday September 3.
Fast Facts
This will be the 15th IndyCar race to take place on September 4 and the first since Scott Dixon won at Watkins Glen.
The only drivers with multiple victories on September 4 are Johnny Aitken, who won at Minneapolis and Cincinnati in 1915 and 1916 respectively, and A.J. Foyt, who won at DuQuoin in 1961 and 1967.
Team Penske has won three of the last four races held on September 4.
Portland will become the eighth consecutive different track to host a race on September 4. The others are DuQuoin, Ontario, Mid-Ohio, Vancouver, Kentucky, Baltimore and Watkins Glen.
Only one of the last 15 Portland races has had an American winner (A.J. Allmendinger 2006).
Ten of the first 12 Portland races had American winners. Emerson Fittipaldi won the other two Portland races (1989 and 1993).
The average starting position for a Portland winner is 3.962 with a median of two.
Seven Portland races have been won from pole position and seven races have been won from the second starting position. Twenty-two Portland races have been won from a top five starting position.
Only twice has Portland been won from outside the top ten (Mark Blundell in 1997 (11th) and Takuma Sato in 2018 (20th)).
The average number of lead changes in a Portland race is 5.962 with a median of six.
Last year's Portland race had a track record 12 lead changes, the first time a Portland race produced a double-digit number of lead changes.
The last six Portland races have had at least seven lead changes.
There have been at least two lead changes in every Portland race.
The average number of cautions in a Portland race is 2.1538 with a median of one. The average number of caution laps in a Portland race is 8.2962 with a median of seven.
There have been six caution-free Portland races, most recently in 2007.
Five of them first nine Portland races were caution-free
Eight Portland races have had exactly one caution.
Predictions
Álex Palou makes it two consecutive Portland victory and keeps his championship hopes alive. At the of Portland, five drivers will be alive for the championship. A minimum two of the top seven in the championship will not get out of round one of qualifying. But there will be no red flags in qualifying. At least two Team Penske drivers finish in the top ten. The top three starters will not all finish in the top three. Graham Rahal will lead fewer than 36 laps. There will not be multiple drivers taken out in the first corner on the opening lap of the race. Callum Ilott will not pull over because of a mechanical issue. Christian Lundgaard and David Malukas will finish within four spots of one another. Sleeper: Jack Harvey.
