IndyCar: The scary statistic Alex Palou's rivals can't afford to ignore

After Team Penske's Josef Newgarden became the first driver to win back-to-back Indy 500s since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002, Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou has built up a championship lead in an attempt to become the first back-to-back IndyCar champion since Dario Franchitti won three titles in a row from 2009 to 2011.

The two-time series champion owns a 59-point lead over Andretti Global's Colton Herta with four races remaining on the 17-race calendar, including one at Portland International Raceway, the first two races at the Milwaukee Mile since 2015 the following weekend, and the first race at Nashville Superspeedway since 2008 two weeks later.

Additional championship rivals within 100 points of Palou include teammate Scott Dixon, Team Penske teammates Will Power and Scott McLaughlin, and Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward. They find themselves 65, 66, 73, and 98 points behind the 27-year-old Spaniard, respectively.

Much has been made about the strength of some of these drivers, specifically the Team Penske drivers, on oval tracks relative to Palou, who still hasn't won an oval race in his five-year IndyCar career, despite having notched 11 road and street course victories.

With three of the season's final four races being oval races, there is an ongoing narrative that the championship is still wide open.

Maybe that is true; it's never over until it's over, and anything can happen in a series as competitive as IndyCar is.

But it's not like Palou is a slouch on ovals, as we've touched on many times before. He has three top five finishes and a DNF in four oval races this year, and without the poor pit stop that led to the unfortunate crash at Iowa Speedway, he would probably have all top five results and be sitting third in the oval standings behind McLaughlin and Team Penske's Josef Newgarden.

Additionally, over the course of any four-race stretch this season, he has not lost more than 32 points to any driver. That particular four-race stretch, from the first race at Iowa through this past Saturday night's race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, included three oval events, and despite the DNF, he scored 114 points, 32 points shy of McLaughlin's 146.

McLaughlin had a DNF in there as well, but he also had a win and two other podium finishes to make up that ground on Palou. During that stretch, the driver of the No. 10 Honda was also outscored by Herta by 21 points, Dixon by six, and Newgarden by 17.

In fact, Palou hasn't lost more than 59 points to any single driver over the course of a four-race stretch in two years.

Last year, his worst four-race stretch, relative to a competitor, came at the end of the season, when Dixon outscored him by 46 races in the season's final four races.

The six-time series champion needed three wins and another podium finish to do it, as Palou became a two-time champion and finished the season without a single finish lower than eighth place, something no driver had pulled off over the course of a 17-race season in more than a century.

In 2022, from the second race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course through the race at Portland International Raceway, McLaughlin outscored Palou by 67. He needed finishes of first, second, third, and fourth place to do it.

From the first race at the Indy road course through the race at Road America that year, Palou was also outscored by 79 by then-teammate Marcus Ericsson, who ironically took him out at the latter en route to a second place finish. He also won the Indy 500 during that stretch.

We did take the liberty of not including the 2022 Indy 500 as a double points race in this calculation, simply because of the fact that that is not how modern Indy 500s are scored and the fact that there are no longer any double points races on the schedule, much less during the 2024 season's final four events.

In 2021, when Palou won his first championship, he did have a four-race stretch during which he was outscored by Ericsson by 60 points and Newgarden by 76. That stretch lasted from the race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course through the race at Gateway, and it included Palou being taken out at the Indy road course by an engine failure and then at Gateway in a wreck caused by Ed Carpenter Racing's Rinus VeeKay.

We are 63 races and nearly four seasons into Palou's tenure at Chip Ganassi's team, and that amounts to only three total four-race stretches since joining Chip Ganassi Racing during which Palou has been outscored by more than 59 points by any driver, and each of them required something out of the ordinary to make it happen.

And no driver still within striking distance of Palou has ever made up his respective gap to Palou over the course of any four-race stretch since Palou took over behind the wheel of the No. 10 Honda in 2021.

Herta hasn't made up 59, Dixon' hasn't made up 65, Power hasn't made up 66, McLaughlin hasn't made up 73, and O'Ward hasn't made up 98 on Palou during any four-race stretch since the 2021 season started.

It doesn't mean it can't happen, but it does mean that it is going to take an effort of gargantuan proportions – and perhaps some misfortune on the side of the No. 10 team – to keep Palou from becoming the first repeat IndyCar champion since 2010 and the first three-time champion since Dixon won his third title in 2013.

Tune in to USA Network at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, August 25 for the live broadcast of the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland from Portland International Raceway, where Palou is a two-time and reigning winner. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action!