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Tag: Will Power

  • A power loss changed everything: How Palou secured his fourth IndyCar title

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    Alex Palou wrapped up his fourth IndyCar championship in the last five seasons on Sunday at Portland International Raceway when title contender Pato O’Ward lost power early in the race.

    O’Ward started from the pole and was the only driver mathematically eligible to beat Palou for the championship. Palou went into Sunday with a cozy 121-point lead over O’Ward in the standings and so long as he left Portland up by 108 points, he’d clinch the championship in the first race of a three consecutive weekends to close the season.

    The Astor Cup became his just 22 laps into the race on the Portland road course when O’Ward had an electronic issue on his Arrow McLaren Chevrolet and had to make an unplanned pit stop. He returned to the track down nine laps from the leaders.

    Palou finished third, O’Ward finished 25th and Palou has the title cemented with two races remaining in the IndyCar season and an insurmountable 151-point lead.

    Palou was feisty in the closing portion of the race and raced unnecessarily aggressive at times — even driving off course with four laps remaining and drag-racing Christian Lundgaard for position.

    “We’re here to win. That’s why we’re here. We’ve said it many times. When we come here, although we have that big goal of winning the championship, our priority is always to win races and win every single weekend,” insisted Palou. “Even though could have been OK to stay third, we wanted to win.”

    Palou has won all four of his championships for Chip Ganassi Racing and ran away with this one, his third consecutive, by storming out of the gate with a win in the first two races of the year to set the pace for Ganassi to win its 17th IndyCar title in 30 years. The 17 championships tie Penske Racing.

    Twelve of Ganassi’s IndyCar titles have come in the last 17 years, starting with Scott Dixon’s brilliant 2008 season in which he put together a run similar to the one Palou had this year. Dixon in 2008 won six races, including the Indianapolis 500, six poles and the first of his six championships.

    Ganassi has many times before dressed-down drivers for putting themselves in unnecessary positions, but this time had no qualms with Palou racing hard for a race win rather than sitting back and coasting to to the title.

    “It depends on the situation, the driver. Like Alex said, we go into this race with that 10 car team, every race, we want to win the race, OK? That’s how we got to this point,” said Ganassi. “We didn’t change anything today. You can’t play God.”

    But Ganassi admitted Palou did cause a brief scare with his determination to race hard in the final laps.

    “When he was fighting for second or third, I was fine with it,” said Ganassi. “I got to say my heart skipped a beat when he went off there, but other than that I was all for it.”

    Only A.J. Foyt (seven) and Dixon (six) have more championships than Palou, who broke through this season by winning on ovals to finally show he’s the complete package. That was clear years ago, and he is embroiled in a $30 million breach of contract civil suit with Arrow McLaren for not honoring a deal to join that team.

    He’s instead stayed loyal to Ganassi and this year, Palou won five of the first six races, including the Indianapolis 500 that had eluded him in five previous tries. That win at the Brickyard cemented the Spaniard’s path to another championship and he’s been untouchable since.

    Palou went into Portland with a series-high eight wins, five poles, 11 top-five finishes in 14 races, 563 laps led and a 1.2 average finish. He padded those number on Sunday.

    Palou joined Dario Franchitti, Sebastien Bourdais and Ted Horn as the only drivers in series history to win three consecutive titles. But, with two more races this season, Palou has a chance to tie the IndyCar record for victories in a season set at 10 by Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser in 1970.

    He lost his chance to break the most wins in a season record Sunday when Will Power won at Portland. It was the first victory of the season for the Penske fleet, which has been in a slump all year and did not get its first win until the 15th of 17 races.

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    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

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  • No favorite among NASCAR championship 4 ahead of finale

    No favorite among NASCAR championship 4 ahead of finale

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    AVONDALE, Ariz. — The long and unpredictable NASCAR season comes to an end Sunday with a championship race fitting for a year that saw unprecedented parity and never a clear title favorite.

    Sure, Chase Elliott led the standings for most of the season while winning a career-high five races and the regular-season title. But everything is equal this year, the first for NASCAR’s new Next Gen car that successfully leveled the playing field.

    The Cup Series celebrated 19 different winners — 21 if the non-points races are counted — and five drivers were first-time victors. Momentum was fleeting and shifted throughout the garage weekly and the end result is a unique final four in the winner-take-all finale at Phoenix Raceway.

    Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain will race for the championship for the first time in their careers, while Elliott and Joey Logano are seeking their second titles. Logano won in 2018 and Elliott won in 2020 in the first of back-to-back Hendrick Motorsports championships.

    Kyle Larson won last year but was eliminated in the second round, leaving Elliott as Hendrick’s only shot to make it three Cup titles in a row. And experience may matter: Logano won the pole in Saturday qualifying, while Elliott was fourth.

    “We’ve been the favorite to win since the beginning of the year, if you ask me,” said Logano of Team Penske. His Ford won the first Next Gen race, the exhibition at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in January.

    “That’s the way I go to a racetrack and if I don’t go to a racetrack like that, then I shouldn’t show up,” Logano continued. “So I’ve always said what everyone thinks about favorites and odds and all that garbage. I don’t care. I know what my odds should be, and I know what I feel like they are. We’ve proven (in qualifying) we’ve got a good horse and we’re ready to rock and roll.”

    The odds according to FanDuel Sportsbook, by the way, favor Elliott to win the title. Logano is trying to give Roger Penske a Cup title in the same season the organization won the IndyCar championship with Will Power.

    Chastain qualified 25th, worst of the title contenders, and Bell has struggled since Joe Gibbs Racing unloaded his Toyota and will start 17th. But Bell has been down before in these playoffs and won twice to avoid elimination and make it to his first title race.

    “I feel like I’ve got the best team out of the four. I definitely like our chances,” Bell insisted.

    If it takes a victory to win, Bell proved he can do it twice, including last week’s dramatic win at Martinsville to save his season. And since the winner-take-all format was established in 2014, the champion has won the final race to claim the Cup.

    The Next Gen has shown how many drivers can win each week, and even though Elliott tapered off a bit in the playoffs, he too likes his chances.

    “When I sit back and I look at this weekend and the way this format is and the way the final four works (with one race), if you’re in, you have a shot,” Elliott said.

    So that includes Chastain, who shot to fame last Sunday with a wall-riding final half lap that gained him five positions and leapfrog nemesis Denny Hamlin by two points for the final spot in the championship race. The video-game style move has been celebrated globally in motorsports but not so much in the NASCAR garage.

    His fellow drivers believe what Chastain did in deliberately crashing into the wall, taking his hands off the wheel and flooring it while letting the wall guide his Chevrolet, is a dangerous move. While entertaining, they’ve argued it could have gone terribly wrong and injured someone, including spectators.

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    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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