No surprise IndyCar title contenders dominate Gateway grid

Power and Ericsson will lead the field to the green in this evening’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500, pursued by Power’s Penske-Chevrolet teammates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin, followed by Ericsson’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammates Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, while in seventh will be Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet’s Pato O’Ward. Although not quite in championship order, this septet are the top seven in the points race, and are covered by just 60 points.

“I think it shows how competitive this series is,” said Ericsson, this year’s Indy 500 winner. “All the top guys are up there. It's going to be tough to battle it out, try and beat the guy next to me here [Power]. It's going to be very tough.

“But we're going to give it our best shot. I think we have three cars up there so we know we have a good package as well. Just try to do our best, race our race, see what we got.

“Yeah, everyone's at the front, so... It's pretty typical of IndyCar, right?” said Power, who matched Mario Andretti’s all-time record for pole positions, with 67. “It's just going to go down to the last race.

“The way I see it, even on points right now, it's that close, it can just flip. It's going to be about who can finish ahead of who. Simple as that.”

Power later added: “It just shows no one's letting up, no one will until the end. Yep, pretty tight battle… It will be very interesting to see how it unfolds. All you can do is just do your best. Do your best. Can't control some things, so see what happens.”

Ericsson pointed out that with so many drivers still in championship contention with three races to go, it was important for his #8 Ganassi team to just go for a second win, rather than cover the strategies of his title rivals.

“I think if it was one or two cars fighting for it with three to go, you could start racing that guy,” he said. “But now we are five or even seven cars fighting for the championship, it's not really possible to cover six other cars.

“We need to focus on ourselves. We need to try and win the race because we're going to be in a position to fight for that, so that's going to be the goal. But we know it's tough competition out there. We need to race our race. I think that's important.”

Power was one of nine drivers who took part in the “high-line” practice session at 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway to lay down rubber and clean off the second and third grooves, the ultimate purpose being to improve the racing. It’s a ploy that appeared to work at Texas Motor Speedway back in March.

“I think it will be a bit better than Texas because [WWTR] hasn't got the coating,” said Power, who won here in 2018. “The race would be so good if we could do that, people actually run there in the first 20 laps. It will just be a completely different race to what it was. Hoping it works…The second lane has actually got more grip up there because it's not polished. It just needs rubber.”