Alex Palou sealed a fourth IndyCar championship after his only challenger Pato O’Ward lost power in his Arrow McLaren car early in the Portland round.
O’Ward needed to outscore Palou by at least 14 points to keep the championship open to the penultimate round of the season at Milwaukee.
He started from pole after an engine penalty for his team-mate Christian Lundgaard and led comfortably in the opening stages.
O’Ward pitted from the lead on lap 17 of 100 while Palou elected to stay out from his fourth-place position, setting up a thrilling duel between the two for the race win.
But O’Ward lost power on lap 22 and pitted, with McLaren saying “a wire connected to the DI [direct injection] box malfunctioned”.
He rejoined 10 laps down after the wiring loom and DI box were replaced, but with no realistic hope of pulling off the points swing needed to delay Palou’s coronation.
O’Ward needed to leave this race with a gap of 107 points or fewer to have any (admittedly remote) chance of overturning Palou, who has obliterated the field this season with eight race wins including the Indianapolis 500.
ALEX PALOU CLINCHES THE 2025 INDYCAR CHAMPIONSHIP! pic.twitter.com/SfRfEqiJ2b
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) August 10, 2025
Palou won his first championship in his maiden season at Ganassi in 2021. His title defence the following year was compromised by a legal fight with his Ganassi team, which was eventually resolved as he rebounded to take the 2023 title and last year’s too.
He follows only Ted Horn (1946-48), Sebastien Bourdais (2004-07) and Dario Franchitti (2009-11) in winning three titles in a row in any form of IndyCar racing, and Horn and Franchitti to have done so and also achieved a career Indy 500 win.
O'Ward is still on course for a career-best second in the championship as he entered the race with a 77-point buffer to Scott Dixon in third place.
While Portland ultimately hasn't provided the result, Lundgaard's pole and O'Ward leading was monumental for the Arrow McLaren team, which struggled exponentially at this track last year, and has clearly made an enormous step forward.
At Laguna Seca last time out McLaren bettered its previous record for number of IndyCar podiums in a season since its 2020 comeback.
What else happened in the race?
After O’Ward’s exit Christian Lundgaard took up the mantle on his strategy while Will Power stayed out ahead of Palou and gapped him by 11 seconds before his next stop. That made it seem like it was a two-car race on the two strategies.
But with Lundgaard and Palou saving a fresh set of soft tyres for the end, the three converged, partly helped by the lap-down Marcus Ericsson holding Power up and partly as Palou erased a five-second gap to Lundgaard early in the final stint, with the fact that he had less fuel saving to do after stopping later up his sleeve.
Lundgaard survived a desperately late Palou lunge at Turn 7 with 14 to go, and with four to go the order was decided when Palou was shoved off by Christian Lundgaard at Turn 6 - harsh but comfortably within the rules in current IndyCar seemingly - and Palou made an amazing save to avoid destroying his car.
👀 What a save by Alex Palou! pic.twitter.com/Z9pgSNPckQ
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) August 10, 2025
"If I was in his position, I would have done the same exact thing," said Palou.
"It doesn't feel good when they do it to you, but I was going around the outside, so..."
Lundgaard added: "I don't think there's much to say. He goes around the outside. There is a curb, then there's gravel (smiles)."
This battle released Power to take a second win in a row at Portland after winning last year’s race, and it ends Penske’s winless season so far in 2025.
It also came as Power waits for news on if his team will renew his contract for next year, despite being comfortably the most consistent of the team’s drivers this season.
He was taken out on the first lap at St Pete, a tyre failure at Gateway, a fire in his car at Mid-Ohio and engine failure at Iowa, all out of his control and meant he only had two third places to show on his podium record this year.
Lundgaard is now tied second with O’Ward in IndyCar for the second highest number of podiums this season with second, and Palou's third is his worst finish on a road course this season. Yes, you read that correctly.
Graham Rahal and Alexander Rossi rounded out the top five, while Callum Ilott equalled Prema Racing’s best IndyCar result which he managed the week before at Laguna Seca.
