For a third consecutive race, Colton Herta is the PointsBet Sportsbook favorite for the GMR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming on Peacock, the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com). Practice begins Friday 9:30 a.m. on the Peacock Premium. For a full schedule of events , click here.
Herta is favored despite finishing 22nd at Long Beach and 12th at Barber Motorsports Park, but his line is marginally longer this week at +560. He was +550 ahead of the Barber race and +475 before Long Beach. Herta has been solid on the Indy road course with three top-fives in his last four races there. His best finish was a second-place run in the second half of 2020’s doubleheader.
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 this week for Herta is $5.60. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +300 is the same as 3/1.
The winner of two of the last three IndyCar races, Josef Newgarden is posted at +600 - the same line he had prior to Barber before finishing 14th. Newgarden won Race 1 on the Indy road course in 2020 and scored back-to-back fourth-place finishes there in his next two starts. He was eighth in the most recent race on this track. Prior to this string of four consecutive top-10s, he failed to finish that well in six starts.
The driver with the longest active streak of top-10s, Alex Palou is ranked third with a line of +650. His streak of six consecutive results seventh or better dates back to his 2021 win at Portland International Raceway and includes five podiums.
Last week’s winner, Patricio O’Ward is ranked fourth at +675. His Barber win comes on the heels of a fifth-place finish at Long Beach. His last two seasons on the Indy road course have produced a mixed bag of results with a pair of top-fives and two results of 15th or worse.
Scott Dixon rounds out the top five with a line of +775. Along with Palou and Will Power, he is one of three drivers who swept the top 10 this year with best results of fifth on the Texas Motor Speedway oval and sixth last week at Barber.
Power is ranked just outside the top five this week at +850 despite being the most recent winner on this track last August. He also has four wins previously (2015, 2017, 2018, and 2020). All five of his wins came from the front row, which will be a critical indicator this week.
Previous Betting Lines
Round 1: St Petersburg: Colton Herta favored
Round 2: Texas: Scott Dixon favored
Round 3: Long Beach: Herta favored for second street race
Round 4: Barber: Herta still favored, but line gets longer
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