The NTT INDYCAR SERIES has reached its season midpoint, a perfect time to assess who’s up and who’s down after five consecutive on-track weekends.

To be fair, every driver in the field has lost ground to reigning series champion Alex Palou, who is solidly on track to capture his record-tying fourth consecutive season title and fifth in six years. Only two drivers in INDYCAR SERIES history have five or more series championships. A.J. Foyt won seven, and Scott Dixon has six.

After this season’s fourth race, Palou trailed Kyle Kirkwood by two points. But Palou has won three of the past six races (and four consecutive poles) to build a 49-point lead, with Kirkwood the only driver within a race’s worth of points.

Aside from the swap of positions at the top of the standings, most of the drivers are in the same position as they were after that busy opening month (four races in five March weekends). David Malukas and Christian Lundgaard are still third and fourth, respectively, although they, like the frontrunners, have flipped spots.

Interestingly, the two Marcus drivers – Ericsson and Armstrong – were separated by a single point after the fourth race. Today, they have the same number of points (196).

Three Up

Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing: We touched above on the series points leader, but Palou deserves the largest shoutout in this reflection. If grades were only based on race results, he’d have a solid A. But then factor in qualifying. Palou has won four consecutive poles, and they have come on a permanent road course (at Indianapolis Motor Speedway), a superspeedway (Indy’s oval), a temporary street circuit (Detroit) and a short oval (World Wide Technology Raceway). Anecdotally, that’s one of the sport’s all-time feats. Last year, Palou won six of the first nine races, including the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, to charge to a 93-point lead. After nine races this year, he has four wins and a 49-point lead, so maybe he’s slipping. (That’s a joke.) But he remains the best this sport has to offer until proven otherwise.

Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian: Winning Indy is only part of Rosenqvist’s climb. His season got off to a rocky start, with a second-place finish in the fifth race (the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach) his only top-11 result. But he has improved greatly over the past five races, earning three top-six finishes, and that stretch has enabled him to make the largest recent jump in the standings. Once as low as 14th, Rosenqvist stands eighth and is heading to a track (Road America) where he won in 2020. The Swede might not win the championship this year, but Indy (photo, top) gave him the biggest win of his career.

Rinus VeeKay, Juncos Hollinger Racing: VeeKay has scored big for one of the sport’s smaller teams, finishing sixth at Indy and fourth at WWTR in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline. With four finishes this year in the top half of the 25-car field, including each of the past three races, VeeKay has jumped from 16th in the standings after the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park to occupy the 13th position. Consider this: He is only one spot behind Dixon, and he is only 21 points out of 10th place. No Juncos Hollinger Racing driver has finished in the top 15 of the standings since it became a full-time team in 2022. In 2023, Callum Ilott finished 16th for the Indianapolis-based organization.

Three Down

Alexander Rossi, ECR: It’s been a painful stretch for the 2016 winner of the “500.” After qualifying in the second spot for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” Rossi lost control of his car in the post-qualifying practice and slammed the Turn 2 wall. Injuries to his right foot and left hand didn’t prevent him from racing at Indy, but the backup car wasn’t the same, and he finished 30th due to a retirement related to mechanical failure (for the second consecutive year). An average finish of 22.5 over the past four races has dropped Rossi three positions in the standings, from 11th to 14th. The six laps he led at Indy are his only markers in that ledger.

Will Power, Andretti Global: Surely things will get better for the two-time series champion in his new digs. Since finishing third in the season’s third race, the inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, Power has only one top-10 finish, and that came in Sunday’s race at WWTR (he was eighth after starting 21st). As a result, his standing in points has veered from as high as 11th to as low as 22nd. He was 13th after the Barber race, but now he’s 17th. Fortunately, some of his best tracks, including Portland International Raceway where he won last year, are still to come on the schedule.

Scott Dixon

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing: The six-time series champion was tracking well enough through the first six races, with five top-eight finishes. His point total ranked sixth heading into the “500,” where he started 10th. But the results haven’t been as fruitful in recent weeks even as he has led 32 laps in two of the past three races (Indy and WWTR). Consecutive finishes of 15th, 24th and 12th have dropped him to 12th in the standings. The last time Dixon finished outside the top six in the standings was 2005, when he was 13th. He has finished fourth or higher in 18 of the past 20 seasons.