Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou is on the verge of having as many championships as all other active full-time IndyCar drivers not named Scott Dixon combined, and for the past few months, it has felt like it's only a matter of time.
Now, mathematically speaking, time is indeed running out for everybody driving anything other than the No. 10 Honda.
Palou, the three-time and two-time reigning series champion who has led this year's championship since winning the season opener in St. Petersburg, won the Indy 500, and has already won a modern era record seven races through the first 12 races of the 17-race season, currently owns a 129-point lead in the standings over Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward.
For some perspective, O'Ward has just one win, and he has only finished ahead of Palou in two other races. And even on the weekend O'Ward won, Palou collected the most total points.
Alex Palou can clinch the IndyCar title next week
Race winners can score up to 54 points in a single race. A win itself is worth 50, effectively 51 since the race winner needs to lead at least one lap (barring a disqualification, like we saw last year when O'Ward won a race without leading a lap). Polesitters score an additional point, and the driver who leads the most laps scores an additional two.
All drivers who show up and compete are guaranteed to score five points, so no driver can make up more than 49 points on any given driver over a race weekend.
This means that at the end of the current Toronto race weekend, there will be 216 points left on the table (196 assuming all drivers compete in each of the final four races). So Palou cannot mathematically clinch the title this weekend, even if he leaves with a 177-point lead (not 178, as pole went to Andretti Global's Colton Herta) over O'Ward.
But after next weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, where Palou has dominated two of the last three years and posted an average finish of 1.75 in four career starts, there will only be 162 points left on the table for each driver, 147 assuming all drivers compete each weekend.
Palou has already clinched the wins tiebreaker over everyone except Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood, who has won three races this year. So he would clinch the championship by being 163 points ahead of Kirkwood and 162 points ahead of everybody else after next weekend.
Kirkwood is currently 180 points behind, and even by winning in Toronto and Laguna Seca, he would not be guaranteed to close to within 163 points of Palou.
The only caveat is the fact that, depending on how Toronto goes, Palou might not actually be able to clinch at Laguna Seca once next weekend's race actually rolls around. For example, should O'Ward win and Palou record a DNF in Toronto, his championship lead would be in the 80s, in which case it would be mathematically impossible to extend it to 162 by next weekend.
But by adding more to his lead over the next two weekends, there is a very real chance that the 28-year-old Spaniard is a four-time IndyCar champion even before the month of July wraps up.
When Palou won the 2023 championship, he became the first driver to clinch the title with one race to go since 2005. If he pulls this off next weekend, he would clinch it with three races to go, which feels more like a Formula 1 stat than a stat you'd find in an open-wheel spec series widely considered the most competitive form of motorsport on the planet.
Sunday's Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto is set to be shown live on Fox from Exhibition Place starting at 12:00 p.m. ET. Be sure to catch it all with a free trial of FuboTV now!