WEST ALLIS, Wisconsin — For nearly 20 years, the NTT IndyCar Series could boast a season-long championship that wasn’t decided until the final race, usually in the final laps.
That was before Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing said, “Hold my steering wheel.”
Palou never verbally said that, but he has certainly displayed it on the race tracks in the IndyCar Series.
In 2023, Palou became the first driver to clinch the championship before the final race of the season since Sebastien Bourdais won the Champ Car Series title in 2007 and Dan Wheldon won the IndyCar title in 2005.
Bourdais clinched the title in Australia with one race left in the season. Wheldon cliched the ’05 IndyCar championship by completing a single practice lap at the next-to-last race of the season at Watkins Glen International. He would go on to finish fifth in the race, sixth in the season finale at California Speedway and won a series high six races that season.
Prior to 2023, the last driver to clinch an IndyCar championship before the final race of the season in a combined series was Al Unser, Jr. in the 1994 CART season. Unser won eight of the 16 races that season and Team Penske won 12 of the 16 races on the schedule. Unser clinched it with two to go at Road America.
Palou could repeat history this weekend in IndyCar’s Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s. It’s IndyCar’s first race at the Milwaukee Mile since 2015 when Bourdais was the winner.
If Palou leaves Sunday’s second race with a 55-point lead, he will become the first back-to-back IndyCar champion since Dario Franchitti won three-straight championships from 2009 to 2011.
Palou enters the weekend with a 54-point lead over Team Penske’s Will Power. Each driver is attempting to win the IndyCar Championship for the third time in their careers.
Power scored a series-high third victory last Sunday in the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland. That gives Power the tiebreaker if neither driver wins another race this season and both finish in a points tie, because Palou has two wins in 2024.
Each IndyCar Series race has a maximum of 54 points available to a driver if they win the race, win the pole, lead one lap and lead the most laps.
Because the final three races of the season will be on oval tracks, Power has an edge as the Team Penske driver has 44 wins in his career with 10 of those victories on oval tracks.
Palou has never won a race on an oval. All 11 of his victories have come on street and road courses.
Power’s last oval victory came in the July 14 Hy-Vee OneStep 250 presented by Gatorade at Iowa Speedway. Palou finished second, the best oval finish of his career.
Power has been in IndyCar since 2005, but didn’t win an oval race until the second race of the Firestone Twin 275 at Texas Motor Speedway in 2011.
Since that time, he has accumulated 10 IndyCar wins on ovals, including an impressive win at the Milwaukee Mile in 2014 when Power started on the pole and led 229 laps in a 250-lap race.
Power also has three wins in seven races at the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway and he won the Indianapolis 500 in 2018.
The final race of the season is the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway, IndyCar’s first race on that oval since Scott Dixon won in 2008.
When it was announced as the season-finale, Nashville was set to determine the championship. But if Palou gets out of Milwaukee 55 points ahead of Power, the championship will be over.
IndyCar won’t have an official championship celebration if Palou clinches at Milwaukee this weekend, saving that for after the race at the oval in Lebanon, Tennessee, on September 15.
Power’s Team Penske teammate, Josef Newgarden, tried to wind up Palou after Sunday’s race at Portland when Palou was reminded of Power’s oval record.
“It’s so bleak, you might as well not go,” Newgarden told Palou with a laugh.
“Look, this guy is excellent,” Newgarden said of Palou. “I don’t have a crystal ball. I think Alex is pretty damn good at what he does.
“He never raced at Milwaukee. OK, he hasn’t raced a lot of places and proves pretty well.
“Speaking logically, ovals have been our strong suit for the last multiple seasons. Alex is a great competitor. So, difficult to understand how this stuff goes.
“IndyCar, as soon as you try to predict it, it does something different. I think he’s one of the most formidable opponents that you can find in racing across the world, regardless of if it’s IndyCar or something else.”
Palou, who finished second to Power last week at Portland, is intent on scoring a victory on an oval, perhaps as early as this weekend.
“I would prefer if it was the last couple races at the Indy Road Course, Laguna and Road America, but that’s not the case,” Palou said. “I actually loved Milwaukee. Never been to Nashville, never seen it.
“Only on iRacing.”
Palou has had some real-life experience at Milwaukee from testing at the track earlier this year.
He is the coolest driver in the paddock, seemingly never gets rattled on the track, and is confident, but not cocky, as he is on the cusp of another championship.
“We have Milwaukee,” Palou continued with Newgarden sitting next to him. “When we tested there, I thought we had a great car. I think we’re going to surprise Josef a lot because we going to have so much speed that they’re not going to be ready for.
“Apart of that, I’m looking forward. It’s a great chance for me to win an oval race, having three now at the end. The calendar was released before we started the championship, so I knew that this was going to be the last couple of races and wasn’t the best-case scenario for us.
“Our job was to try to do as much work as possible heading into those races.
“I think we’ve done that. But yeah, the most difficult part of the year comes now, the next three weeks.
“Hopefully next week, I can win an oval race.”
Working in Team Penske’s favor, however, is every oval race in 2024 has been won by a Team Penske driver. Newgarden scored the team’s most recent victory was on an oval in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway on August 17.
Power rebounded from a crash on a late-race restart in that contest to whip the field last Sunday at Portland International Raceway, leading 101 laps in the 110-lap race.
Palou was asked if Penske’s oval prowess concerns him over the final three races of the season.
“No,” he said. “I’m not 100% comfortable. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to do.
“But as I said, it could be a lot worse. I could be with only one point of difference, then I would have to obviously beat him on those tracks, or I could be sitting second or third.
“I like where we’re sitting. I like the opportunity we have in front of us.
“As I said, I felt really good at Milwaukee. Maybe we can surprise Penske. Who knows?
“Maybe we show up and suddenly nobody can catch us.”
Power isn’t going away quietly. He believes he has an edge, especially with back-to-back oval races beginning Saturday evening and again on Sunday afternoon at the Milwaukee Mile.
“I would say if he (Palou) had finished ahead of us (at Portland), it would almost be over,” Power said. “It just kept it alive.
“Ultimately, one DNF for him, one win for me, we’re right there. Certainly within 20 points. That makes it very possible it could happen.
“I said going into this race (Portland) we simply have to win. We simply have to at least finish ahead of him, but ultimately win to keep this thing alive. That’s what we did.
“It’s going to be the same every week. It’s going to be the same every race from here out. Just got no choice but to be ahead of him or it’s over.”
Power expects all three Team Penske drivers, including Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin, to be racing for the win at Milwaukee. Power is hoping to catch a break, though, from his teammates if they look at the big picture of bringing another championship back to Team Penske.
“I think if we have the cars to win, and we want to win the championship, yes, that’s probably what we should do with three to go,” Power explained. “We should probably be looking at how can we get the 12 car (Power’s) in the best possible position.
“Really, that’s our only chance.
“We got three really good drivers — four, really, if you include Santino Ferrucci (the AJ Foyt Racing driver that is part of a technical alliance with Team Penske) that are capable of running at the front.
“That can take up a lot of positions. I’m the head of that group, we win the race, that starts to make things look possible.
“We’ll talk about that when we get to Milwaukee, see if that’s a possibility.”
There is little doubt that Palou has proven his greatness in IndyCar since he won his first series championship in 2021, scored his second championship in 2023 and is on the verge of a third title in four seasons in 2024.
He has the ingredients to become a generational star in IndyCar.
But at 43, Power is proving he is far from finished.
When David Malukas was hired at AJ Foyt Racing with a multi-year deal that begins in 2025, there was speculation that he was being groomed to replace Power at Team Penske.
Power’s contract runs out at the end of 2025, but he has no plans of retiring.
“I want to continue,” Power said emphatically. “I’m not retiring.
“I’m not.
“I’m just simply not retiring.
“I know people probably like to spread that around, rumors or whatever, in the hope that they can take my seat.
“Yeah, I’m staying here for a while. I’ll get better every year, man. I get better every year. I feel like that.”
Power is hoping that determination prevents Palou from leaving Milwaukee as the champion and takes this title fight all the way to Nashville.