LEXINGTON, Ohio — Alex Palou entered the fifth floor of the tower at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Friday, with a black shirt to go with his black fire suit and car, despite the summer heat. After his sixth win of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season at Road America, the driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda holds a commanding 93-point lead over Kyle Kirkwood. Given that his three worst finishes, this season, are second, eighth and 25th, even with eight races to go, one might assume the INDYCAR championship is realistically out of reach.
Palou, however, disagrees.
“I mean, we’ve seen that, was it, yeah, Detroit and Gateway, we lost suddenly a huge amount of points, I would say, like almost 16, like two races,” he said.
After winning the Indianapolis 500, Palou held a 112-point lead over Pato O’Ward. Then he wrecked out at the Detroit Grand Prix and was a non-factor in the Bommarito 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
At that point, his points lead shrank to just 73 points.
“And that could happen again,” he said. “Could happen even more. And we’ve seen, like a win here gives you so much of difference, unless you finish second, and then it’s only like 10 points.”
Of course, if Kirkwood wants to cut into Palou’s lead, he might require a career-best finish at Mid-Ohio. As he’s not finished better than eighth in three previous starts.
Palou got off to an ideal start, Friday, when he clocked in third fastest in first practice with a time of 1:06.0409. Of course, his two championship rivals, Kirkwood and O’Ward, ran faster times than him.
