By a margin of less than 50 points, Scott Dixon is the early PointsBet Detroit GP favorite over Josef Newgarden. Dixon and Newgarden are the two most recent winners at The Raceway at Belle Isle with each of them taking one of the two races of the 2019 doubleheader. This race was not run last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Detroit GP will run Saturday (2 p.m. ET, NBC) and Sunday (12 p.m. ET, NBC).
Dixon is one of six different winners in the first six races in the 2021 NTT IndyCar season. His win came on the oval of Texas Motor Speedway in the midst of a four race streak of top-fives. In the last two races, he finished ninth in the GMR Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and 17th in the Indy 500.
Dixon’s opening line for the first race of the Detroit GP doubleheader is +480.
One way to view American Odds is to move the decimal point two positions to the left. That will let a bettor know what they will make on a $1 bet, so the return on investment for this week for Dixon is $4.80. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +300 is the same as 3/1.
Newgarden is not far behind. His line of +525 makes him the second favorite for the week. Newgarden has not yet won in 2021, but came close on the street course at St. Petersburg, Fla. He followed that up with a fourth-place finish on the next road course in Indy.
Three drivers share the distinction of being ranked third with a line of +900.
Will Power is coming off a disappointing Indy 500 where he struggled to qualify and then fell three laps off the pace to finish 30th. In fact, after finishing second in the Round 1 at Barber Motorsports Park, his results have declined and he has not cracked the top 10 in his last four attempts.
Patricio O’Ward is also listed at 9/1. He has top-fives in four of his six attempts this year, including a victory in the second race of the Texas doubleheader. Only one of these top-fives came on a road course. He was fourth at Barber.
Rounding out the list of drivers with +900 odds is Colton Herta. He won the race at St. Petersburg, but that is his only top-10 on road courses. Last week, he finished 16th in the Indy 500.
Rinus VeeKay is ranked just outside the top five in sixth with a +1200. VeeKay won the most recent race on a road course with his GMR Grand Prix victory after finishing sixth at Barber and ninth at St. Petersburg.
Alex Palou has the only other road course victory, which came at Barber. He is listed with +2000 odds at PointsBet for the Detroit GP.
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