Portland International Raceway (Portland, Ore.) — Alex Palou knew the race on Sunday was pivotal in his quest for a fourth consecutive INDYCAR title and fifth overall.
He certainly wouldn’t lose the title at Portland, but he for sure could squash the hopes of many.
The Chip Ganassi driver did just that.
Palou led 60 of the final 80 laps. The 20 he didn’t lead were the result of various pit strategies — to increase his points lead from 83 points over David Malukas to 110 over Kyle Kirkwood (fifth) and 118 over Malukas (12th).
Five races remain in the 2026 season.
“It would take an immense amount of misfortune by them to not close out the championship and actually fight for it at the end and that’s just to fight for it,” Kirkwood told me after the race. “They’re doing everything right. … They’re doing a hell of a job, but they’re making our lives hell.
“We’re just going to keep doing what we can do.”
Here are my takeaways:
1. Palou Punishing Opponents
Alex Palou’s win at Portland all but ensures he will win his fifth INDYCAR title.
With two new tracks in the next two weeks at Markham (Ontario, Canada) and Washington, D.C., Palou knew the race Sunday was pivotal.
A win is worth 10 more points than a second-place finish.
So Palou leaves Portland feeling really good.
“I’m more comfortable than when we came here,” Palou said in his post-race news conference. “This was one of those weekends where we wanted to do good.
“We want to do good every single weekend. But we don’t know what’s going to happen at Markham. New track for everyone, new track for me. We don’t know what’s going to happen at D.C. There’s still a lot of points to play. It was important to maximize.”
2. Kirkwood Happy With Fifth
Kyle Kirkwood feels generally good about his fifth-place finish at Portland.
Kirkwood might have lost much sight of Palou in the championship battle. But overall, the Andretti Global driver was happy with fifth — considering he had finished 20th a year ago at Portland.
“I’m going to take that,” Kirkwood told me. “I’m not happy to see Palou win. I don’t think anybody is except for himself and his crew. … But I’m happy with fifth.
“We finished 20th here and that was on merit with no issues. Today, we had issues. We had a tire going down, we had to pit earlier than what we wanted to. We had a couple of little hiccups in pit lane and we still salvaged a fifth.”
3. Power’s Pit-Road Miscue
Will Power’s huge miscue impacted his day.
Will Power didn’t hear his team call him to pit, so he pitted a lap later than the team wanted for his final pit stop. On that last lap before pitting, he lost a little bit of time trying to pass the lapped car of Sting Ray Robb.
“I just didn’t hear [the team instructions] clear sufficient,” Energy stated in his post-race information convention. “Usually the strategists will repeat it a number of instances. I by no means heard it once more.
“Heard in [Turn] 10. I used to be ready, ready [to hear again]. Was {that a} name or not? I believe I missed a pit name there. … [And then] I completely acquired held up massively.”
Each Energy and second-place Felix Rosenqvist bemoaned the way in which the lapped vehicles race, though they indicated it wasn’t what allowed Palou to win.
4. VeeKay Finishes Fourth Once more
Rinus VeeKay’s good tempo wasn’t sufficient to get him on the rostrum.
Rinus VeeKay completed fourth for the third time within the final 5 races. He made the Quick Six in qualifying, simply as he did at Mid-Ohio, the newest road-course race earlier than Portland.
The Juncos Holling Racing driver is exhibiting that the velocity in qualifying is translating into the race.
“INDYCAR has turn into a track-position sequence, particularly with the hybrid” VeeKay informed me and different reporters after the race. “It was particularly powerful with Kyle Kirkwood on [soft tires] there firstly of the race, actually respiration down my neck.
“I had actually good tempo, but it surely wasn’t sufficient to maneuver a lot additional ahead.”
4 ½. What’s Subsequent: Markham
With latest years of constructing building within the space by the Toronto Exposition Heart for the World Cup, INDYCAR ended up transferring its Toronto race to the suburb of Markham.
The brand new house for INDYCAR in Ontario is a 2.19-mile, 12-turn avenue course. The monitor needs to be good in comparison with different avenue programs as the town has repaved the streets of the circuit.
