Track Walk: Gateway 2023

The 15th and antepenultimate round of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season is the final oval race of the season, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 taking place at Gateway Motorsports Park. Only one driver has won multiple races in IndyCar's history at Gateway. Five past Gateway winners are entered in this year's race. Only two teams have won multiple Gateway races. Team Penske leads the way with seven victoires. Chip Ganassi Racing has won three times, and two of those were in the first four Gateway races held from 1997 to 2000. Only one other active team has won at this 1.25-mile oval.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday August 27 with green flag scheduled for 3:36 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Kevin Lee, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Dillon Welch and Georgia Henneberry will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Saturday:

First Practice: 11:00 a.m. ET (60 minutes)

Qualifying: 2:00 p.m. ET 

High Line Practice: 5:00 p.m. ET (30 minutes)

Final Practice: 5:45 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Sunday:
Race: 3:36 p.m. ET (260 laps)

* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock

The Championship Picture

After a significant turn of events on the opening lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course earlier this month, the Astor Cup will be on location at Gateway Motorsports Park and be ready for presentation, as the 2023 IndyCar Series championship could be claimed this Sunday afternoon. 

Álex Palou was seventh on the IMS road course, but despite finishing outside the top five for only the third time this season, Palou extended his championship lead to 101 points over Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon. Josef Newgarden dropped to third in the championship, 105 points behind Palou, after Newgarden suffered his worst finish since the May 2022 race on the IMS road course. 

With this turn of events, all Palou has to do to clinch the championship is leave Gateway with a championship lead of 109 points over second. Palou owns the tiebreaker over Dixon, as even if Dixon wins out to finish the season, the two drivers would be tied on four victories and each would have one runner-up finish, but Palou would claim the tiebreaker with three third-place results to Dixon's one. 

Palou also holds the tiebreaker over Newgarden at the moment, but Newgarden could surpass Palou on victories. The Catalan and the American each have one runner-up finish, but Newgarden has zero third-place results. 

Palou can clinch the championship with a victory and Dixon finishing second but not scoring the maximum four bonus points, one for pole position, one for leading a lap and two for leading the most laps. 

For Dixon and Newgarden, it almost feels like the odds are 50-50 they will be able to remain below the 109-point threshold to keep the championship alive beyond Gateway. For Scott McLaughlin in fourth, a 144-point deficit to Palou means he will have some work to do to claw back at least 35 points. Frankly, anything less than a victory will not be enough for McLaughlin. There is a little more wiggle room than that for the New Zealander. If Palou scored only the minimum five points for this race, McLaughlin could get away with finishing fifth and still mathematically remain alive. However, if Palou finishes in the top ten this weekend, regardless of how McLaughlin does, McLaughlin will be eliminated from the championship. 

It is worse for Patricio O'Ward. O'Ward is 151 points behind Palou. Even with a maximum 54-point victory, if Palou finishes 18th or better, O'Ward will be eliminated from the championship.

Marcus Ericsson is in the identical position that Christian Lundgaard was in at Indianapolis two weeks ago. With three races remaining, only 162 points remain on the table. Ericsson is 162 points behind Palou. The only way for Ericsson to have a shot at winning the championship is to win all three races with maximum points and have Palou not start any of them. 

However, Palou will likely start one of the final three, and even if Ericsson won the final three events with maximum points, he would lose the championship on tiebreaker, as Palou and Ericsson would each have four victories and one runner-up finish, but Palou's three third-place results beat Ericsson's one third-place result. 

After the IMS road course race two weeks ago, Will Power had his championship defense ended, and Christian Lundgaard was eliminated the moment his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammate Graham Rahal won pole position.

Oval Points

While the overall championship still has a glimmer of a hope of going to the finale, the unofficial oval championship has already been claimed despite there being one oval race still to run.

It should be no surprise that Josef Newgarden clinched top oval driver honors with his four victories in four oval races this season. Newgarden has scored 210 points, 69 points more than the next best driver in oval points, which happens to be Álex Palou. 

Despite Newgarden's oval success of late, this is the first time Newgarden has been the top oval driver since 2016 when he drove for Ed Carpenter Racing. He is the first Team Penske driver to claim top oval driver since Simon Pagenaud in 2019. In the previous two seasons, Patricio O'Ward had scored the most points on ovals. Since discipline championships were first recognized in 2010, the oval champion has only won the overall championship twice, Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2012 and Scott Dixon in 2020. 

It is a battle for best of the rest on ovals. Palou is second on 141 points, 18 points ahead of two of his Chip Ganassi Racing teammates, Marcus Ericsson and Scott Dixon. Ericsson holds the tiebreaker as Ericson was second to Newgarden in the Indianapolis 500 while Dixon's best oval finish was fifth at Texas. 

Scott McLaughlin rounds out the top five in oval points with 115, two more than Patricio O'Ward. Will Power is the final driver with a mathematical shot of second in oval points. Power has 97 points, 44 points off of Palou. 

Leading off the third tier of oval drivers is Colton Herta, the top Andretti Autosport driver in these standings. Herta has 87 points, seven more than Alexander Rossi. David Malukas rounds out the top ten in oval points with 79, three more than Rinus VeeKay while Felix Rosenqvist is three points behind VeeKay. 

Callum Ilott has 72 points, one point behind Rosenqvist. Santino Ferrucci has 67 points, 45 of which came from the Indianapolis 500, while two-time oval champion Hélio Castroneves rounds out the top fifteen on 66 points. Mathematically speaking, everyone down to Castroneves has a chance to finish in the top five in oval points this season.

Takuma Sato is a point behind Castroneves in 16th. Romain Grosjean has scored 59 points on ovals this season, three more than Conor Daly and four more than Kyle Kirkwood. 

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's oval struggles are best illustrated in Christian Lundgaard being RLLR's top driver in oval points with 48 points, one more than Jack Harvey. Agustín Canapino has scored 42 points, the leading rookie in oval points, while Devlin DeFrancesco has 41 points and Ed Carpenter has 40 points. Benjamin Pedersen rounds out the top 25 in oval points on 36 points. 

The other drivers to score points on ovals this season are Ryan Hunter-Reay (33 points), Graham Rahal (29), Sting Ray Robb (21), Simon Pagenaud (18), Tony Kanaan (18), Marco Andretti (13) R.C. Enerson (5) and Katherine Legge (5). 

Going For the Sweep

As mentioned above, Josef Newgarden has won all four oval races this season, and Newgarden has the chance to sweep all five oval races on the 2023 IndyCar calendar. Newgarden is the first driver to win four oval races in a single season since Scott Dixon in 2009. Newgarden could become the first driver to win five oval races in a season since Dixon did it in 2008 if Newgarden closes out the deal at Gateway, a place where he has won three consecutive races.

As for sweeping oval races, the only time it has been done was with Sébastien Bourdais in the 2006 Champ Car season. However, Milwaukee was the only oval race on that 2006 Champ Car schedule, not quite an apt comparison to 2023 and Newgarden's accomplishments. 

It isn't just victories where Newgarden has excelled. Newgarden has led 469 of the 950 laps run on ovals this season. That is 49.368% of the oval laps run. He has won all four of these races despite not starting on the front row in any of those races. Newgarden has started on row two for two of these four victories, but he won the second Iowa race from seventh, and he won the Indianapolis 500 from 17th starting position. 

Newgarden's average running position this season in four oval starts is 3.006316. Of the 950 oval laps, Newgarden has been in the top five for 809 laps. That is 85.157% of the oval laps run. He has spent 907 of 950 laps in the top ten, 95.473% of the laps run. Newgarden has been in the top ten for 273 consecutive oval laps. He was last outside the top ten in an oval race on lap 177 of the Indianapolis 500 when he was 12th. 

While Newgarden will be looking for five-for-five, there will be 27 other drivers this weekend looking to spoil the party, beginning with the championship leader Álex Palou. Palou has two podium finishes, three top five finishes and finished in the top ten of all four oval races this season. Palou has led 59 oval laps this season. The Catalan is still looking for his first career oval victory. 

Scott Dixon has finished in the top ten in all four oval races this season, but since finishing fifth at Texas, he has finished sixth in the last three oval events. He has only led four oval laps this season. Dixon's most recent oval victory was the first race of the 2021 Texas doubleheader. 

Newgarden's biggest challenger is likely his teammate Scott McLaughlin. In 13 career oval starts, McLaughlin has three runner-up finishes, five podium finishes, seven top five finishes and ten top ten finishes. All three of his non-top ten results have come in the Indianapolis 500. McLaughlin was fourth and third in his first two Gateway starts. He led 12 laps in last year's Gateway race.

Patricio O'Ward has four top five finishes in four Gateway races. O'Ward's average finish of 2.75 is the best among all drivers with a minimum of three starts at the 1.25-mile oval. This season he has two podium finishes and three top ten finishes on ovals with his accident at the Indianapolis 500 being the lone blemish this season. The Mexican driver has led 130 laps in the first four oval races.

Marcus Ericsson has finished in the top ten in all four of his oval starts. Ericsson led 30 laps before finishing second in the Indianapolis 500. The Swede's last two top five finishes have come on ovals. His fourth in the first Iowa race is his only top five finish in the last eight races.

Will Power led the most laps in last year's Gateway race before he finished sixth. Power has never started worse than fourth at Gateway. Along with his 2018 victory, he has been on the podium in two of the last three Gateway races. Power was in the top five of both Iowa races, but he finished outside the top fifteen at Texas and Indianapolis.

Honda has not won in any of the last seven oval races. Marcus Ericsson's Indianapolis 500 victory last year is Honda's most recent oval victory. Andretti Autosport has not won an oval race since Pocono 2018. The team has not won on a short oval since Iowa 2015. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's best oval finish this season was 13th in the second Iowa race. Meyer Shank Racing's only top ten finish was tenth in the Texas race. Dale Coyne Racing has two top ten finishes this season with its best result being fourth at Texas.

PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge

There are three races remaining this season, but this is the final chance for the $1 million PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge prize to be claimed. The only driver that could claim it is championship lead Álex Palou.

Each IndyCar winner earns a $10,000 donation to charity of the team and driver's choosing. However, the first driver to win a race on a road course, street course and an oval will earn $1,000,000 for charity. 

Palou won on the IMS road course, Road America and Mid-Ohio, and his street course victory was at Detroit. Those four victories means $40,000 has been donated to the American Legion. Palou is the only driver to have won on multiple track disciplines this season. 

History tells us not completing the challenge would be the surprise. 

In seven of the previous eight seasons, a driver has won a race on all three track disciplines. Last season, it took Josef Newgarden eight races to win on all three disciplines. That was the earliest a driver had won on all three disciplines since 2015. In the other six seasons it happened, it took on average 13.8333 races for a driver to win on the third and final discipline. 

Only twice in the previous seven occasions has a driver who won on all three disciplines won the championship. Scott Dixon did it in 2015 when his only three victories were at Long Beach, Texas and Sonoma. Newgarden has won on all three disciplines three times total, but his first time was during his 2017 championship season. The American won at Barber Motorsports Park, Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Gateway.

Driver Changes

The end of the season is near but that has not stopped teams from making driver changes this close to the finish.

Just after the IMS road course race, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing announced Jack Harvey was relieved of his duties with the organization, and Conor Daly will drive the #30 Honda at Gateway. Harvey was 22nd in the championship after the first 14 races. His best finish was 13th at Long Beach. Daly ran the first seven races this season with Ed Carpenter Racing before driving three rounds in the #60 Honda for Meyer Shank Racing for the injured Simon Pagenaud. 

Not a change from the most recent round, but still someone different, Linus Lundqvist will continue in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda at Gateway, the first oval start for Lundqvist. After hitting the barrier at Nashville and finishing 25th on debut, the Swede rebounded to finish 12th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course two weeks ago. Lundqvist was second in last year's Gateway Indy Lights race behind Matthew Brabham. 

One previously scheduled driver change was at Chip Ganassi Racing. With this being the final oval race of the season, this will also be Takuma Sato's final start of the 2023 season. Sato has two top ten finishes and two finishes outside the top twenty between the four oval races. Sato's 65 points earned combined with Marcus Armstrong's 179 points from the road and street course races has the #11 Honda ranked 14th in the entrants' championship, only two points behind the #6 McLaren Chevrolet and within nine points of the #28 Andretti Autosport Honda. The #11 Honda is ahead of RLLR's #15 Honda, both Ed Carpenter Racing entries as well as both entries from Dale Coyne Racing, Juncos Hollinger Racing, Meyer Shank Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing. 

Ed Carpenter returns for his final round as a driver this season in the additional #33 Chevrolet. Carpenter's best finish was 13th at Texas, but he has finished 20th or worse in his last three starts. Carpenter has not finished in the top ten in his last ten starts. He had a top five finish in four consecutive seasons prior to this current two-year slump. 

Road to Indy

Two Road to Indy series are competing this weekend, but they are competing at two different circuits. 

At Gateway, Indy Lights has its final oval race of the season and only four races remain in that season. 

Sixteen drivers are mathematically alive for the Indy Lights champion with 216 points remaining on the table. 

Christian Rasmussen maintains the championship lead with 362 points, 33 points ahead of Hunter McElera, who won the most recent race from the IMS road course. After three finishes outside the top ten in the last four races, Nolan Siegel has dropped to third, 55 points behind Rasmussen. Three consecutive top five finishes has Jacob Abel 57 points back in fourth. 

Louis Foster is 93 points back in fifth while Reece Gold is 102 points back. James Roe, Jr. picked up his career best finish of second at the IMS road course, and Roe, Jr. is a point behind Gold in the championship. Danial Frost sits on 233 points in eighth, 12 points ahead of Kyffin Simpson with Ernie Francis, Jr. rounding out the top ten on 200 points. Simpson will not be at Gateway due to European Le Mans Series commitments at Aragón. 

Rasmus Lindh is in 11th on 194 points, 11 points clear of Jamie Chadwick. Christian Bogle is a point behind Chadwick with Jagger Jones on 179 points. Enaam Ahmed and Matteo Nannini are both still mathematically alive for the championship, but neither is entered this weekend. 

Last year, Matthew Brabham won at Gateway ahead of Linus Lundqvist and Benjamin Pedersen. This year, Brabham will drive the #75 Juncos Hollinger Racing entry at Gateway. It will be Brabham's third start this season. 

Frost was fourth in this race a year ago, the best finisher of the returning entries ahead of McElrea. Rasmussen was 12th after an accident.

Indy Lights will race at 3:35 p.m. ET on Saturday August 26. The race is scheduled for 75 laps.

While IndyCar and Indy Lights will race at Gateway, USF Pro 2000 will race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas this weekend. This is the penultimate weekend of the USF Pro 2000 season, a doubleheader, before the Portland triple-header finale the following weekend. 

Eleven drivers are mathematically alive for the championship, but Myles Rowe can claim the championship if he leaves Austin with a championship lead of 66 points or greater. Rowe has 299 points and he is 81 points ahead of Kiko Porto. 

Rowe has won five times this season while Porto has yet to win this season. Salvador de Alba's only victory this season was at Indianapolis Raceway Park, and de Alba is 84 pants behind Rowe. Michael d'Orlando is the only other driver with multiple victories this season, he has won three times, but d'Orlando has funding concerns over whether he will be able to finish this season. He is entered this weekend, and D'Orlando is 93 points behind Rowe, tied with Joel Granfors, but Granfors has only one victory. 

Francesco Pizzi is 98 points behind Rowe with Liri Zendeli 110 points back. Jace Denmark is 116 points behind his Pabst Racing teammate Rowe. Jonathan Browne is 130 points back in ninth while Jack William Miller is 141 points off the top. Reece Ushijima is still mathematically alive, but Ushijima is not entered this weekend. 

There are a few drivers making their USF Pro 2000 debuts this weekend. Nikita Johnson will drive for VRD Racing and Mac Clark will drive for DEForce Racing. Johnson and Clark are ranked third and fourth respectively in the U.S. F2000 championship this season.

USF Pro 2000 will race at 6:20 p.m. ET on Saturday August 26 and at 9:00 a.m. ET on Sunday August 27. Both races are scheduled for 15 laps. 

Fast Facts

This will be the ninth IndyCar race on August 27 and the first since Graham Rahal won at Texas in 2016, which was the infamous race that was started in June but the final 177 laps were run on August 27. 

The last time a race was scheduled for August 27 was the 2006 Sonoma race, which was Marco Andretti's first career victory. Champ Car started a race at Montreal that day, but only six laps were completed before rain delayed the finish. That Montreal race was completed the following day, which Sébastien Bourdais won.

This August 27 is also the 45th anniversary of Mario Andretti's final Formula One victory, which came at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

The average starting position for a Gateway winner is 4.0714 with a median of third. 

Nine consecutive Gateway races have been won from a top five starting position. 

The average starting position for an oval winner this season is 7.75. 

The pole-sitter has only one two of 14 Gateway races. 

The pole-sitter has not won in 16 consecutive IndyCar oval races. The last oval race won from pole position was the second Iowa race in 2020, which Josef Newgarden won.

Chevrolet has won seven consecutive oval races. This is tied for the longest oval winning streak since Chevrolet won seven consecutive oval races from Milwaukee 2012 to Iowa 2013. Those were Chevrolet's first seven oval victories after it returned to IndyCar competition.

Since the introduction of the universal aero kit ahead of the 2018 season Chevrolet has won 19 of 29 oval races. 

Chevrolet has won five of seven Gateway races since 2017. Team Penske is responsible for every Chevrolet victory at Gateway, beginning with Gil de Ferran's victory in the 2002 Gateway race.

Gateway has never hosted a first career victory. 

Only two of the 17 first-time winners in the DW12-era had their first career victory come on an oval  (Alexander Rossi and Patricio O'Ward).

The average number of lead changes in a Gateway race is 9.1428 with a median of ten.

Eight of 14 Gateway races have had at least ten lead changes. 

The average number of cautions in a Gateway race is 4.214 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 38.0714 with median of 32 laps. 

Four of the last seven Gateway races have had exactly two caution periods. The other three races have had five, five and six cautions respectively. 

Predictions

Josef Newgarden completes the sweep but he wins from the second row and leads at least 135 laps. Scott Dixon remains mathematically alive for the championship and Álex Palou does finish in the top ten. Scott McLaughlin will lead at least 75 laps. Colton Herta gets his best Gateway finish since 2020. At least one top five starter finishes outside the top fifteen. No Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing car finishes on the lead lap. Linus Lundqvist will be the top finishing rookie and top finishing Meyer Shank Racing driver. David Malukas has a spell running in the top five but he does not finish in the top five. There will not be a mid-race rain delay that forces this race to be completed after sunset. No cars will be disqualified. Sleeper: Kyle Kirkwood.