Palou Hopes To Keep All-Important Momentum At Mid-Ohio

Source: Justin Casterline / Getty

LEXINGTON, Ohio. — Alex Palou may be the hottest driver in motorsports at the moment having won three of the last four races in the NTT IndyCar Series.

“We have momentum,” Palou said. ” Momentum in motorsports matters a lot for driver confidence, team confidence, and mechanic confidence. Once you get the win you keep asking for more and more and it keeps getting better and better.”

Palou’s win at Road America two weeks ago leaped him even further ahead of the rest of the field. He currently sits 84 points up on Marcus Ericsson who is in second and 91 points ahead of Josef Newgarden in third.

Though his record this year would certainly indicate Palou is one of the top talents in the world right now, he doesn’t feel quite the same.

“Obviously I rate myself very high, I have to say. Otherwise, yeah, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Palou said. “I still think there’s a lot of things that I can improve as a driver, that I want to improve as a driver. I rate myself high, but not too high.”

Palou is bringing his confidence to Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series will tackle the Honda Indy 200 on Sunday. Mid-Ohio is where Palou first tested an Indy car when he was first coming into the series.

He is keeping himself in check, per se, knowing that even though he has won three races so far, there is still plenty of season left to go.

“We saw last year, for example, that Will Power won the championship by winning only one race but always being consistent,” said Palou. “Then Newgarden won five races and wasn’t able to get the championship. The point is that it’s very tough to have a points lead in IndyCar because somebody can just get a roll like we’re having.”

That’s why he said he doesn’t plan to become more conservative over the back half of the season in trying to protect his points lead. He said the best way to score points is to win races and that is what he intends to do.