Here's how Alex Palou can claim his fourth IndyCar title at Portland
Alex Palou is inches away from taking his fourth title. Here's how he could do it in Portland.
Despite various challengers trying to take it to Alex Palou this season, the Spaniard's impressive eight wins in 2025 has put him within grasp of the 2025 title.
Ahead of his nearest competitor Pato O'Ward by 121 points, the McLaren driver is now the only driver who mathematically can catch the Chip Ganassi driver.
However, the maths are not in O'Ward's favour who will need to be within 107 points of the leader to keep the fight alive following Portland.
On a virtual news conference earlier this week, Palou shared: "Everybody here is saying we've already won. Although we've got a lot of points, we still need to win it.
"If somebody else is mathematically alive, its still alive, so we don't want anybody to be mathematically alive for the points."
A driver can earn a maximum of 54 points in a race. This is 50 from the race win, one point for pole, one point for leading a lap, and two points for leading the most laps.
A sliding scale down the grid sees points divided up to the remaining 27 drivers starting at 40 points for second, 35 for third and so on.
If Palou makes it nine race wins in Portland then he will walk away with the title no matter where O'Ward finishes.
This is simply because he is already above the 107 point threshold.
For the championship fight, if you can still call it that, to continue, O'Ward will need to finish ahead of Palou who will need to decrease the gap by 14 points.
If O'Ward takes the maximum 54 points, the fight will just be kept alive if Palou finishes second with no extra points.
However, if O'Ward wins but Palou gets fastest lap or any of the other bonus points, it's game over for the Mexican driver.
At no point this season as O'Ward scored maximum points Palou only has to look back to the last race.
Looking at a situation where neither win, if O'Ward finishes second, all Palou needs is a fourth or better without any of the bonus points available.
IndyCar drivers both get five points just for starting so in the unlikely situation that Palou retires, O'Ward would need to finish 14th or higher.
In this situation, Palou will leave with at least 98 points still in the lead which secures he can take the title just by starting Milwaukee and Nashville.
If Palou doesn't start, this would allow O'Ward to finish as low as 21st.
"There's loads of reasons to be excited, but first of all, it's a place that I love, that we've done really well in the past," Palou continued.
"It just feels like with such a magical season, we can still finish even better.
"I'm excited to go there and see how our car feels. It's been feeling amazing this year everywhere we've been, especially road courses.
"We won the championship there in 2023, which having two championships at the same place would be amazing,"
