The NTT INDYCAR SERIES season reaches its halfway point following Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline at World Wide Technology Raceway. If there is to be a challenge to Alex Palou’s championship throne, this is the event that could ignite it.

Short ovals have not been Palou’s forte, although he won last year’s second race at Iowa Speedway. Palou’s other oval win came in last year’s Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.

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The driver of the No. 10 HRC Chip Ganassi Racing Honda enters this two-day show with a 62-point lead over Kyle Kirkwood. If Palou adds to the gap this weekend, he will strengthen his odds to capture his record-tying fourth consecutive series title and fifth in six years.

Among races still to come this season, Palou has won three of the past five events at Road America (site of the June 21 race), and he has won one career victory at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (July 5) and two each at Portland International Raceway (Aug. 9) and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (Sept. 6). He has won the past two at the latter.

Palou’s average finish in seven career WWTR races is 10.7, and his best result is fourth in 2024. If a challenger is to make a run at him this season, this weekend would be a good place to start.

Kyle Kirkwood

Kirkwood Would Be Good Place To Start

Kirkwood won last year’s race at WWTR (photo, above), and it remains the only series victory that didn’t come on a street circuit. He led only eight laps, but five of them with the right ones – the last five of the race.

Kirkwood’s second-place finish in last weekend’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear pushed him back to second in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES standings, but he trails Palou by more than a full race’s worth of points.

WWTR is the only track remaining on this year’s schedule where the driver of Andretti Global’s No. 27 Sam’s Club Honda has won a series race, so this would be a good place to make hay. Additionally, only two street races remain, and those are the types of tracks that have best suited Andretti Global in recent years. Five of Kirkwood’s six series wins have come on such circuits.

Josef Newgarden

Newgarden Is Gateway’s INDYCAR King

Josef Newgarden (No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet) leads all drivers with five series wins on this short oval, the most recent coming in 2024. He has led 27.2 percent of the WWTR laps since joining Team Penske in 2017. He also captured a pole on this track.

While Newgarden excels at Gateway (photo, above, front), he has been consistently good across INDYCAR’s ovals, especially the shorter ones. He has six wins at Iowa Speedway, two at Phoenix Raceway (including this year) and one at Nasvhille Superspeedway (site of the July 19 race).

Newgarden has 33 career series wins – that ranks 10th all-time -- and remarkably the past 10 have come on ovals (at six different tracks).

The question this week is, how is Newgarden’s injured foot? This track will not put as much strain on it compared to Detroit’s street circuit, but it’s still something to watch as drivers do brake.

Malukas Is One To Watch

David Malukas has had some of his best series races battling Team Penske drivers at WWTR, and now he’s one of them.

Malukas split Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin in a late-race battle in 2022 while driving for Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD Motorsports, and he returned the next year to follow Newgarden and Pato O’Ward to the finish line. Until last year’s second-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, those were his only two top-three results.

Driving the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, Malukas finished third on the Phoenix short oval and had a string of six consecutive top-seven finishes stopped last weekend in Detroit (he finished 18th in large part because of hard wall contact in qualifying that forced him to start last in the 25-car field).

Malukas is among those drivers trying to become the 15th in this field of 25 to win a series race in their career.

Felix Rosenqvist

Rossi, Rasmussen, Rosenqvist Also Strong

Given the depth of this field, it would be difficult to rule out anyone for a shot at victory lane.

Alexander Rossi (No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet), Christian Rasmussen (No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet) and Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian, photo, above) are among the drivers with oval victories in their careers. McLaughlin is another in the No. 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet, having won last year at Iowa and Milwaukee. Rasmussen won the other Milwaukee race in 2025.

Four of O’Ward’s nine career series race wins have come on oval tracks, and the driver of the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet has four second-place finishes at WWTR.

Among drivers with career series victories, Christian Lundgaard (No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet) and Rinus VeeKay (No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet) are looking to win on an oval for the first time. The other 12 former winners already have at least one.

Busy Schedule Continues

NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers and teams have seriously been on the go the past month, with 16 of the 31 days reserved for on-track action (one day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was rained out).

This is a rare two-day show, with practice, qualifying and another practice highlighting Saturday’s lineup. The first session is set for 12:30 p.m. ET (FS1) with pursuit of the NTT P1 Award at 4:30 p.m. (FS2) and the high-line session kickstarting the final practice at 8 p.m. (FS1).

Broadcasts of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline begin Saturday at 9 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX One, INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls).