IndyCar: Would the ‘hunter’ rather be the ‘hunted’?

Pato O’Ward trails Alex Palou by 39 points in the championship standings with six races remaining in the 2021 IndyCar season.

As we get ready for the first IndyCar race in over a month on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday, August 8, all eyes are turning to the championship battle between young stars Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing and Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP.

Those two drivers sit ahead of the winners of the last four championships in third and fourth place in the standings: Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden.

Palou and O’Ward are the only two drivers to win multiple races this season, despite the fact that both entered the year without a single victory in their respective careers. Both are in their second full seasons of competition, with Palou in his first at Chip Ganassi Racing.

A total of 39 points separate the top two contenders with 10 of 16 races on this year’s schedule in the books.

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While Dixon and Newgarden are both well within striking distance of the top two, O’Ward is focused on his role as the “hunter” in his battle with Palou.

Despite the fact that 39 points is a margin that is tough to make up on any given driver, much less the championship leader, in a single race, he is embracing his role as the hunter. In fact, he would rather be the hunter than the hunted at this point in the year.

“I like where we’re at,” O’Ward told Beyond the Flag. “I think we have a good bunch of tracks that we are going to be strong at. And I think we’re all ready to maximize the weekends, maximize qualifying, execute, and just keep doing what we have been doing, but just better.”

O’Ward, who earned his first career victory at Texas Motor Speedway and added his second on the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, has an average starting position of 9.9, which ranks ninth among all drivers. His average finish of 6.7, however, ranks third.

“A couple more wins wouldn’t be bad, and I think that should put us in the right place to be in contention when we get to Long Beach,” he continued. “But I enjoy being the hunter. We’re not far back. I know we can catch him, and I have a great group behind me to be able to accomplish some good races the rest of the year.”

Even for an aggressive driver such as O’Ward, he still feels that extra pressure and extra adrenaline in situations such as those he experienced leading up to both of his victories: needing to make a pass for the lead in the closing laps.

While it may help some to simply focus on the task at hand and treat it like any other pass, O’Ward has approached those situations knowing that something greater is at stake.

“I don’t think [my adrenaline] gets higher than when I felt in Detroit,” he admitted. “It just feels so good whenever you actually get it done. It just feels very rewarding, because every win that we’ve had this year has been truly earned. It hasn’t been, ‘Oh, because someone crashed,’ or ‘Oh,  because someone else didn’t have a good strategy like we did.’ We had to fight our way towards the front to win both Texas and Detroit. And I feel like that just makes the wins so sweet.”

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix of Nashville is the next race on the 2021 IndyCar schedule, and it is scheduled to take place on Sunday, August 8. NBC Sports Network is set to broadcast the race live from the streets of Nashville, Tennessee beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET. Will O’Ward close the gap to Palou in the 11th race of the season?