indycar race review: portland

Lap one chaos at Portland International Raceway is as reliable as anything on planet Earth, so it should be no surprise that fortunes changed for our championship contenders immediately during Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland.  Where there were surprises however are in the who and when, and ultimately who escaped Indycar’s annual visit to the Pacific Northwest with their hopes for 2024’s Astor Cup intact.

An Unexpected Polesitter and More Penalties

Possibly the biggest surprise of the weekend came in qualifying when AJ Foyt’s Santino Ferrucci put the No. 14 Chevy up front with his first career pole.  Ferrucci, who doesn’t currently have a seat anywhere for 2025, needed to remind prospective employers that his polarizing personality does also come with a smattering of talent behind the wheel.

Will Power completed the outside of row one, with championship leader Alex Palou qualified P3. Other championship hopefuls Colton Herta and Scott Dixon started P8 and P9 respectively.

More engine penalties were on tap for several Honda teams as the No. 15 of Graham Rahal, No. 27 of Kyle Kirkwood, No. 66 of David Malukas, and No. 4 of Kyffin Simpson all started six positions in arrears of their respective qualifying efforts.  In addition to the four Honda machines, Chevrolet/Ilmor checked off their first unapproved engine change penalty of the season post-qualifying when a new power unit had to be fitted to the No. 3 Penske of Scott McLaughlin.

“Well That Was Quick”

Starting from the second position, Will Power flexed some of that veteran muscle and wasted no time driving around the No. 14 of Santino Ferrucci before the two cars had even cleared the Festival Chicane for the first time.  Despite Ferrucci starting from the front it felt all but inevitable that he would have to cede that position at some point, but seeing it happen before turn three was a bit of a surprise.

Shockingly, the entire 28-car field made it through turn one unscathed – unfortunately for Scott Dixon his notorious lap-one-luck at Portland would only last a few more corners before finally running out. 

Dixon’s troubles began coming into turn six.  After going wheel-to-wheel with Kyle Kirkwood and being pushed off course, Dixon rejoined the racing line before getting fully back up to speed and squeezed a fast-approaching Pietro Fittipaldi to the inside of turn eight.  Fittipaldi’s car then launched off of the apex curb and nerfed Dixon into the wall, abruptly ending not only the race but any hope the No. 9 team had for gaining valuable championship points.

As Scott Dixon’s mangled race car slid to a stop he got on the radio and relayed the message “Well that was quick” back to the timing stand.  We feel you Scott, we feel you.

Confusingly, the No. 30 of Pietro Fittipaldi was issued a penalty for avoidable contact.  Scott Dixon himself placed blame for the incident squarely on the No. 27 of Kyle Kirkwood, even telling Indycar Radio “It should be fun to go back out there and wreck the 27” while also denying that Fittipaldi was at fault.

Return of The Hate Cauldron

Re-debuting during NBC’s pre-race coverage, the infamous Hate Cauldron emerged to recap all of the on-track heat from recent weeks – Will Power’s outbursts and Josef Newgarden’s questionable restart tactics from St Louis, Power and Scott McLaughlin’s contact from Toronto, Romain Grosjean and Santino Ferrucci’s antics from Detroit – but would have plenty of new ingredients before the checkered flag.

After becoming the latest victim of race control’s selective penalties Pietro Fittipaldi decided to go full heel by spinning Conor Daly on lap 24 to incur his second (albeit deserved) avoidable contact penalty of the day.  After completing the drive through for said penalty, Fittipaldi then found himself directly in front of the battle for the lead between Will Power and Alex Palou – backing Power up to a charging Palou and nearly costing Power the lead of the race.  2024 has been a miserable season for Fittipaldi and the No. 30 crew and it’s looking increasingly likely a follow-up campaign at RLL will not be in the cards for the Brazilian.

Not to be outdone, Kyle Kirkwood put in his own bid for the Menace of the Race award by not only hip-checking Scott Dixon on lap one, but also earning a blocking penalty for moves against the No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing entry of Toby Sowery. 

Kirkwood and fellow IndyNXT-alum Sowery were also responsible for what might have been the coolest moment of the race, with both cars dog-fighting for position and going wheel-to-wheel cleanly for nearly an entire lap.  Sowery also made another former IndyNXT driver look like an absolute chump when he and Nolan Siegel dueled on lap 61, with Siegel blowing a brake zone and taking a trip off course to sample the drag strip at PIR.  Toby Sowery looked as impressive in a DCR car as anyone else this season and put on a remarkable performance in what is expected to be his final outing of the season.

With respect to the commendable efforts of Pietro Fittipaldi and Kyle Kirkwood, the Menace of the Race award winner was cemented on lap 63 when Romain Grosjean – who up until that point was well on his way to a top five finish – managed to throw everything away in the span of a single corner.  Grosjean spun by himself coming into the Festival Chicane, stalled the car, then re-fired using the hybrid unit.  Grosjean then rejoined the track directly in front of the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet of Christian Rasmussen, making contact and seriously damaging that car. 

The contact between the Nos. 77 and 20 ended with Grosjean’s car spun out again in the runoff just left of the corner, where he rejoined again directly in front of the No. 51 of Toby Sowery.  Luckily Sowery faired better than Rasmussen and avoided any contact, but Grosjean’s lap of terror wasn’t over yet.  The No. 77 attempted to get back up to speed for the third time, but with a flat rear tire left the track at speed and took an extended look at PIR’s landscaping before making it back to pit lane. 

All of this just laps after Grosjean was checked up by Josef Newgarden coming out of turn two and ran a charging Colton Herta off of the track to avoid losing a position.  Grosjean was issued a drive through penalty for what race control dubbed “unsafe behavior” and ultimately came home three laps down in 27th position.

Controlled Chaos

Even with a healthy amount of contact, the only caution period came from Scott Dixon’s lap-one crash, which resulted in the race’s only retirement.  28 cars started the race and 27 took the checkered flag, which really underscores not only how well the hybrid-restart worked for spins on track but also just how tough the ancient Dallara DW12 continues to be.

In truth, the one driver who needed a boring day got one as Will Power did his absolute best to put the unmitigated disaster of World Wide Technology Raceway behind him.  Power was quiet on the radio and perfect in his execution of passing traffic on track, showing the kind of temperament and driving skill that earned him his spot as one of Indycar’s elite.  When Will Power finally decides to call time on his driving career, this is the kind of drive he’ll be best remembered for.

Alex Palou made the kind of measured, clean, and drama-free drive that he’s becoming so well known for and brought the car home in second place.  By contrast, Colton Herta’s race looked more like a bare-knuckle boxing match – the No. 28 survived contact with Romain Grosjean, a pit stop stall, a subsequent penalty for restarting via hybrid power on pit lane, and a risky second stint that stretched longer than most other drivers on the same strategy to salvage a fourth place finish.

A Power Play for the Astor Cup

A week ago I would’ve written Will Power’s chance at another driver’s championship off and considered Scott Dixon a clear favorite.  What a difference a week makes.

Power’s points haul from PIR puts him in second place, just 54 points back from leader Alex Palou.  Colton Herta slips back to third with a 67 point deficit, and Scott Dixon plummets to fifth behind Scott McLaughlin.

There are still plenty of unknowns in the final three rounds of 2024, but with two races worth of points on offer the double-header weekend at Milwaukee could very well decide the championship.

Alex Palou may still have a full race weekend advantage in points, but it’s hard to say that the remaining rounds favor anyone more than Will Power.  Of the three drivers at the sharp end of the championship, only Power has ever raced at Milwaukee before – with a win in 2014 no less – and unbelievably is the only one among them that has any oval wins in an Indycar.

Alex Palou simply needs to finish ahead of Herta and Power to maintain his lead – something much easier said than done in short-oval Indycar racing.  Colton Herta would likely need to break through and take the first oval win of his Indycar career and hope for some bad luck to hit Alex Palou to even stay in the hunt.  Will Power has the momentum going into the Milwaukee Mile, but will his demeanor and luck hold up for three more short-oval races?  Not to mention for Power or Herta to make any ground on Palou they’ll need to conquer an even bigger obstacle – beating short-oval ace Josef Newgarden.  Add in the Scotts, Dixon and McLaughlin, that are still mathematically in contention and could play spoiler for their teammates, and you have a recipe for a spicy weekend in the Midwest.