With three races remaining in the NTT IndyCar Series season, Scott Dixon has a commanding lead and history on his side entering Friday’s opener of the Harvest GP at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The five-time series champion leads defending champ Josef Newgarden by 72 points.
Since 2014, the points leader with three races left has won the championship in five of the past six years, including Dixon in ’18.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver has led the championship standings following every round after opening 2020 with three consecutive victories. Dixon also led the points by 78 points with three races remaining when he won the title in 2008.
Dixon, Newgarden, Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta, Will Power, Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato are championship eligible.
Anyone outside 108 points of the lead after Indy will be eliminated heading into the Oct. 25 season finale at St. Petersburg, Florida.
Here is the IndyCar Harvest GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course schedule for Friday (all times are ET), including details and start times:
Indianapolis Motor Speedway TV schedule for Friday
—IndyCar Harvest GP Race 1: 3:30 p.m., USA Network, NBC Sports Gold and streaming on the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com); Leigh Diffey is the lead announcer for IndyCar on NBCSN this weekend with analysts Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy.
IndyCar Harvest GP, Race 1 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway start times, information
COMMAND TO START ENGINES: 3:53 p.m.
GREEN FLAG: 4 p.m.
DISTANCE: The race is 85 laps (207.35 miles) around Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s a 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course in Indianapolis.
TIRE ALLOTMENT: Nine sets primary, five sets alternate (A 10th set of primary tires is available to any car fielding a rookie.) Teams must use one set of primary and one set of alternate tires in the race.
PUSH TO PASS: 200 seconds of total time with a maximum time of 20 seconds per activation.
FORECAST: According to Wunderground.com, it’s expected to be 57 degrees with a 0% chance of rain at the green flag.
QUALIFYING: 6:20 p.m. Thursday (NBC Sports Gold)
ENTRY LIST: Click here for the 25 drivers racing this weekend at Indianapolis
