LEXINGTON, Ohio – Providing nothing completely random happens in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 (3 p.m. ET, CNBC) from the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, the top seven in the Verizon IndyCar Series’ championship will be dicing among themselves for the win from the top seven spots on the grid.
In points, the order is Scott Dixon on 423, then Helio Castroneves on 420, Simon Pagenaud on 404, Josef Newgarden on 400, Will Power and Graham Rahal both on 359, then Takuma Sato on 351.
With five races remaining and the last race of the season at Sonoma a double points race, there’s still a maximum 320 points on offer the rest of the way – so at 72 points separating the top seven, that’s a realistic situation where they could all be in the title frame these final five races.
Fittingly, they start in the top seven for Sunday’s race at Mid-Ohio, but not in points order.
Power rolls off from his 49th career pole, while Newgarden has his first front row start not just of the season, but also with Team Penske.
Sato and Rahal turn in career-best Mid-Ohio starts from third and fourth, while Castroneves is fifth and Dixon sixth. Pagenaud was the only one of the top seven in points to miss the Firestone Fast Six, but from seventh, will start from the same position Newgarden has won twice this year at Barber and Toronto.
Quotes from six of the top seven drivers about their respective title situations are below, after they made the Firestone Fast Six:
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Dixon: “I think you try to get as many points as you can during the season. We haven’t done a very good job of that with many tracks. I think we wish we had little more of a points cushion. Not really thinking about points right now. We’re in a good spot. The only time that leading the championship really counts is at the end of the year. We’ll see how we get through these next four races and see how Sonoma plays out.”
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Newgarden: “I think I’m not thinking about what the gap is to Dixon. I think I’m more thinking about how can we have a consistent day. Ultimately that’s going to be the most important thing, is having a clean day with no incidences. Not necessarily points, but making sure we have a top five, hopefully a podium. If you’re really lucky, then you get a win. That’s all you have to work on. Generally the points take care of themselves as the year goes on.”
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Sato: “Obviously we love to win as much as everyone does. Third place means a lot of opportunity. It’s not necessarily to win the race. But I think certainly aiming for the winning. But I think if we can get a podium finish tomorrow, that would be super result for the team. We do the best we can. We have to.”
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Rahal: “We’ve got to go win this thing. It’s as simple as that. We’re going to try the best that we can. Hopefully the two of us can get through clean and go racing, all of us can, and we’ll go from there. For us, the only way we’re going to catch them, obviously the last race is double points, but the only way we’re going to catch Dix and these two over here, same for Will, we got to win races. I mean, that’s what it comes down to, so… Hopefully we’ll go out there tomorrow and have a strong one.”
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Power: “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, as a team, yes. But individually, a lot of competition in the team. Very good problem to have.”
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Castroneves: “We’re battling for the championship ourselves. You can use a little bit your teammates in case something’s not going well. You can still take advantage of that and collect a bit more points.
“But that’s the name of the game. As Will mentioned, it’s a very good problem for our team to have. We’re going to obviously try to finish 1-2-3-4 in the championship.”