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Bob Pockrass
FOX Motorsports Insider
PORTLAND, Ore. — Alex Palou joked that he went “looking for mushrooms” during the final qualifying session Saturday at Portland International Raceway.
Hey, the way he has cruised through the season, he deserved some time to go off the grid.
Palou didn’t make that off-course excursion on purpose and will start fifth Sunday, as he attempts to clinch the 2025 INDYCAR title with two races remaining. The driver he is battling, Pato O’Ward, will start from the pole.
Alex Palou will start from fifth at Portland.
But O’Ward didn’t technically win the pole Saturday. His Arrow McLaren teammate, Christian Lundgaard, won the pole with the fastest time in the final round of qualifying but has a six-spot grid penalty for an engine change earlier in the Portland weekend.
That means O’Ward doesn’t get the one bonus point for the pole and remains 121 points behind Palou in the standings. If Palou leaves Portland with a 108-point lead, he clinches the title. If he leads by 98 points, all he has to do is start the final two races at Milwaukee and Nashville to capture his fourth (and third consecutive) championship.
“The guy’s pretty much won it already,” said O’Ward, not trying to worry about what he views as the inevitable. “I know they’re making a big deal out of this. … He has got to have the worst luck he’s ever had in his career, just like the best luck he’s had in his career this year in order for us to keep this alive.”
Palou has won two of the last four races on the 1.964-mile road course, located just north of downtown Portland, where temperatures are expected to be in the low-90s for the race. It will be about 10 degrees warmer than Friday and Saturday.
“Nobody knows what the track and the tires are going to do,” Palou said. “Not yet. … [The track] goes to vary tomorrow.
“As of as we speak, yeah, I believe we have now an important automobile. I am unable to wait.”
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver appeared to have a automobile able to successful the pole till going off observe and having the nostril of his automobile bump right into a tire barrier. The automobile didn’t have vital harm.
“I’m blissful that we had tempo,” Palou mentioned. “Clearly not blissful that I went in search of mushrooms there. … I attempted slightly bit too laborious and simply misplaced the automobile.”
O’Ward was additionally blissful together with his efficiency at a observe the place he struggled a 12 months in the past. He was good however not nice within the two practices previous to qualifying.
Pato O’Ward will lead the sector in INDYCAR’s race at Portland.
“In apply, I wasn’t feeling super-confident simply because I used to be actually battling the automobile,” O’Ward mentioned. “I used to be struggling to get a lap collectively.”
Whereas it might have been good to chop a degree off Palou’s lead by incomes the bonus level for successful the pole, O’Ward had no sick will towards his teammate beating him for the highest spot.
“I am tremendous pumped to see each vehicles [No.] 1, 2,” O’Ward mentioned. “I simply missed it there in [the final round] slightly bit.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent many years masking motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seashore) Information-Journal. Observe him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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