Will Palou clinch his fourth IndyCar title at Portland?

It's not a question of if Alex Palou will win his fourth IndyCar championship this season, only a matter of when. His first opportunity at clinching a third consecutive title and fourth in five years comes Sunday at Portland International Raceway, Round 15 of the 17-race schedule. A run of utter dominance not seen since Scott Dixon in 2006 has put Palou in need of leaving Portland with a 108-point lead over Pato O'Ward, the only driver still mathematically eligible to beat him for the title. Palou is a comfortable 121 points ahead of O'Ward headed into the race. Even so, Palou is adamant a fourth Astor Cup does not yet belong to him. "Everybody here is saying we've already won," Palou said. "Although we have a lot of points, we still need to win it. If somebody else is mathematically alive, it's still alive, so we don't want anybody to be mathematically alive for the points." Whatever you say, Alex. O'Ward is already resigned that it will take a total collapse from Palou over the final three races of the season for him to have even an outside chance at snatching the championship away from the most dominant driver of the last five years. Although no one besides Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Dixon has had a season so strong in nearly two decades, Palou has easily surpassed all of his peers' previous domination. It started with back-to-back wins to start the IndyCar season — remember, Josef Newgarden bristled when asked what it would take to dethrone Palou with a curt, "It's Round 1, dude. Let's see how it goes." Well, here's how it went: Palou won five of the first six races, which included the Indianapolis 500 that had eluded him in five previous tries. That win at the Brickyard cemented his path to another championship and he's been untouchable since. Palou goes into Portland with a series-high eight wins, five poles, 11 top-five finishes in 14 races, 563 laps led and a 1.2 average finish. Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion considered the best driver of his generation and one of open-wheel's all-time greats, has only one win this season and no answer as to why he can't keep pace with teammate Palou. "I don't know — sometimes you just have years like that and it just flows and it's not even a confidence thing," Dixon said. So now Palou controls his own fate and it starts at the Portland track where he has two wins and finished second last season. If O'Ward wins Sunday and picks up the maximum points, Palou would still win the championship by finishing second and leading a single lap. Palou can clinch the title by finishing fourth or better, maybe even eighth depending on various factors involving O'Ward and bonus points. So history basically awaits starting this weekend, when Palou will attempt to join Dario Franchitti, Sebastien Bourdais and Ted Horn as the only drivers in series history to win three consecutive titles. But, the more impressive mark is that Palou, with two wins in the final three races, can tie the IndyCar record for victories in a season set at 10 by A.J. Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser in 1970. A sweep of the rest of the schedule would make him IndyCar's winningest driver in a season. Ironically, Palou entered the season with 11 career wins and can now double that mark in 2025. "I cannot really comprehend everything that's happening, not only this year, but if I look back at ever since I started in IndyCar, my dream was just to be a professional race car driver, and I never thought about records or anything like that," Palou said. "I never thought that I would be around those names, and I think obviously this season in particular has been a little bit crazy. "I almost matched the wins that I had in three years, or in four years actually. It's amazing to be there," he continued. "I owe everything to my team and everybody that is behind me, like my personal team and my racing team. It's not that I'm not conscious about what's going on. It's just that I cannot really believe it, and I'm just riding the wave and enjoying every single second of it and having fun." ___ AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing