Could this be the week things start getting tight?
Pato O’Ward’s victory in Sunday’s (July 20) Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto created a 30-point swing in the championship fight. Alex Palou heads to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in one week (July 27) with a 99-point lead over O’Ward.
It’s possible that at the season’s end, this was the moment that everyone cites as when things began to change. The win itself is an example of a bold strategy that a team executes in an aggressive attempt to control its own destiny.
At the same time, it might be a flash of good fortune and luck that is short-lived.
That does seem more likely the case. If not for poorly timed yellows, Palou was in control of winning his eighth race, therefore adding 53 points (three additional for leading both a lap and the most) to his championship total and preventing anyone from cutting into that. However, his strategy failed to work out as eventually the field got on the same tire stint and yellows packed the field, eliminating any advantage.
Even as the laps ticked by during the final stint, Palou climbed from 16th to 12th, regaining four valuable points to add to his buffer. While not a day in which he reigned destruction down on the paddock’s morale, his historic season can’t always be podiums and wins.
This time, the racing luck sided with someone else.
Not only was O’Ward able to chip away a bit at Palou, but he extended his split over third in the points by 30.
The man chasing O’Ward is now Kyle Kirkwood, who didn’t quite have the front-running day as expected, but had a stellar run when compared to his abysmal Iowa weekend. His sixth-place result moved him one point ahead of Scott Dixon, who lost one point in his pursuit of Palou, trailing by 174 now.
One-time Toronto winner Christian Lundgaard didn’t capitalize on a type of track he is good on, faltering after a run-in during the last stint with Will Power. He still holds fifth, but due to Felix Rosenqvist‘s lap 87 DNF, Lundgaard heads to the second-to-last permanent road course of the year with an eight-point gap to sixth – a six-point swing.
Seventh through ninth had no changes in ranking, but Colton Herta broke a tie with Power for eighth and took 18 points off Marcus Armstrong, who sits just five ahead. Herta earned his third pole in a row at Toronto, snatching the valuable championship point, then led from the start. While the win wasn’t in the offering, a 34-point, fourth-place finish was a good day. With the series heading to Herta’s best track, he could be in position to break the Meyer Shank Racing hold on sixth and seventh if things fall his way after next weekend.
Power’s flag-carrying effort for Team Penske was only good enough for 11th at the finish. Like Herta, though, he was able to close with Armstrong, but only marginally, sitting 20 points behind.
The most unfortunate shake-up in the top 10 was in the 10th spot, where David Malukas climbed over his teammate Santino Ferrucci, who didn’t start the race. During the morning warm-up in slick conditions from rain, Ferrucci crashed his No. 14 A. J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet, and Team Principal Larry Foyt decided not to tax the crew in the limited time they had to fix it. Malukas’ stellar drive over his last stint after pitting on lap 74 was the real show in the sprint to the finish. He gassed it from 15th to ninth, setting his fastest lap on the 84th circuit and is just four points behind Power for ninth in the championship.
Dale Coyne’s strategy calls helped Rinus VeeKay finish second, his first podium since a third at Barber in 2022. The 41 points moved him to 11th, seven out of the top 10.
The Team Penske duo of Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden, who DNF’d, saw their gains made at Iowa lost. Newgarden fell back two positions, to 16th, while McLaughlin, who was 10th after Iowa Race 1, continued a slide to 13th.
Kyffin Simpson’s first career IndyCar podium shot him like lightning up the championship, moving to 14th.
While it seems that the title chase has tightened up, a 99-point spread for Palou as he heads to a track where he is the defending winner makes this feel like a small blip in the run to his fourth championship.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and frequent editions of Inside IndyCar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.