Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou drove a mistake-free race on the streets of Toronto after starting from the front row, and after leading the most laps, he looked poised to win at Exhibition Place for the first time in his IndyCar career. But the number of cautions, and the timing of them, left him unable to finish any higher than 12th.
It was his worst result in an issue-free race since he placed 12th in the 2022 race at Portland International Raceway.
The three-time and two-time reigning series champion entered the weekend with a 129-point lead over Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward. He needed to extend his lead to 162 points by next weekend at Laguna Seca to clinch his fourth title with not one, not two, but three races remaining on the calendar.
Instead, O'Ward capitalized on Palou's rare "mid" result, taking the checkered flag ahead of Dale Coyne Racing's Rinus VeeKay at a track that had statistically been one of his worst. He cut 30 points out of Palou's lead, which now sits at 99 points.
Alex Palou can't clinch IndyCar title at Laguna Seca
There are 54 points on the table for any given driver each weekend: 50 for winning, one for leading at least one lap, two for leading the most laps, and one for starting on pole. A driver can make up as many as 49 points over any other driver, as drivers who start the race are guaranteed to score at least five points.
Palou has already clinched the wins tiebreaker over O'Ward with four races remaining, as he leads seven to two in that category. So he would need to be 162 points ahead of O'Ward after Laguna Seca to clinch the title ahead of the season's final three races at Portland International Raceway, the Milwaukee Mile, and Nashville Superspeedway.
If we assume both drivers compete in each of the three season-ending races, Palou only needs to be 147 points ahead, which is possible after Laguna Seca. But as we've seen the last two weekends, with Nolan Siegel sidelined for a race at Iowa Speedway and Santino Ferrucci out at Toronto, there are never any guarantees.
With four races remaining and 216 points left on the table, 99 points is still a massive deficit for O'Ward to overcome. The fact that some fans have gone as far as using the word "only" in front of the 99 is misleading, to say the very least.
Over the last four races, the first four-race streak of top five finishes of his IndyCar career, O'Ward has won twice, the most he's ever won during a four-race stretch, and he still only outscored Palou by 12.
It may not be 129, but let's not pretend that 99 is miniscule.
O'Ward did win at Milwaukee last year and placed second at Nashville. But Palou is also a two-time Laguna Seca winner and a two-time Portland winner after winning at the former and placing second at the latter a year ago.
While Zak Brown has said he believes in miracles regarding O'Ward's championship challenge, we are still a long way away from being able to consider O'Ward a true threat.
Palou losing 99 points to anybody over any four-race stretch is unheard of since he joined Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021, even during stretches with multiple DNFs. Simply put, it hasn't happened.
His worst four-race stretch, relative to another driver, came in 2022, and that was only a 79-point loss. Even excluding the Indy 500's now-outdated double points format, he scored 80 points from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race through the race at Road America. Marcus Ericsson scored a series-best 159.
And even with back-to-back DNFs at the Indy road course and Gateway in 2021, nobody outscored him by more than 76 points during any of the three four-race stretches which included both of those two races.
If Brown really does believe in miracles, maybe he'll try to sign Palou for a third time.
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