IndyCar Series 2025 drivers championship, Rookie of the Year, Leaders Circle standings after Portland
Here's where the drivers and teams stand in the season-long points, Rookie of the Year and Leaders Circle races.
Report from Portland: Power snaps Team Penske drought as Palou clinches championship
(Through 15 of 17 races; Alex Palou has clinched the season championship)
By virtue of finishing two spots ahead, 13th versus 15th, of his neck-and-neck IndyCar Rookie of the Year rival, Louis Foster tacked on another couple points onto what had been a four-point lead over Robert Shwartzman entering this weekend at Portland.
IndyCar's Leaders Circle program pays eligible teams just over $1 million the following season in guarantees. To qualify for one of the 22 spots, the entry must be associated with one of IndyCar's 25 charters — teams are allowed to have a maximum of three. Only Prema Racing's two cars remain unchartered. The 25 chartered cars are then ranked by entrant points and, at the end of this season, the top 22 eligible entries will be paid $1.2 million or more by Penske Entertainment throughout the 2026 season.
Here are the cars around the bubble after IndyCar's Portland race:
20. Andretti Global No. 28, 208 points
21. Arrow McLaren No. 6, 195 points
22. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing No. 45, 189 points
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23. Juncos Hollinger Racing No. 77, 160 points
24. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing No. 30, 145 points
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Fox Sports
2 hours ago
- Fox Sports
In His Own Words: Alex Palou On What Each Win Meant In Title Run
NTT INDYCAR SERIES In His Own Words: Alex Palou On What Each Win Meant In Title Run Published Aug. 11, 2025 2:44 p.m. ET share facebook x reddit link PORTLAND, Ore. — Alex Palou's remarkable season has included the most victories by a driver in 18 years. A driver earns at least 51 points for a victory. So in some ways, they all count relatively the same. But what role did his victories (and maybe his non-victories) play into his fourth series title, clinched after 15 races of the 17-race schedule? Palou sat down with me following his championship-clinching run Sunday at Portland International Raceway to give me almost an immediate oral history of the season's major turning points. Win No. 1: St. Pete (Season Opener) Palou: That was one of the most important wins of the year. It was a place that we struggled in the past, and we knew that by pushing really hard there and trying to improve a couple of stuff that we had, we're going to be able to fight for the win. Getting that win there just kind of allowed everybody to believe that we were a little bit better than everybody else, that we were a little bit more prepared than everybody else, and we wanted to take advantage of that and try and get more wins and try to get more good results. Alex Palou opened the season on a winning note at St. Petersburg. Win No. 2: Thermal (Race 2) Palou: When we went from St. Pete to Thermal, that was amazing. We had to fight for both of those races so hard, but it was amazing to get two wins in a row, which I've never had in my entire career at the start of the season. And it felt amazing. ... It felt more like, OK we won the first two, it's looking very good to fight for the championship again. But there's no chance that I would have even thought about getting eight wins in one year. Like zero chance. ADVERTISEMENT Win No. 3: Barber (Race 4) Palou: It was the first weekend of May. We forget about the wins very easy. Not only us, but everybody. You have to because you cannot allow yourself to try and enjoy them. You need to keep on working towards more, because if you don't do it, otherwise somebody else will catch you. Barber, for us, was a good way of starting the month of May, giving everybody a big boost of energy. Because the month of May, it's very tough for everybody, especially mechanics, the engineers. They spend so many days out of home, and it felt amazing to give them that little bit of fuel that they needed to try and go for May. Win No. 4: Indianapolis Grand Prix (Race 5) Palou: It was a very fast race. We knew we had an amazing car there, and honestly, the pace that we had was amazing. It was just so good, we were able to manage a little bit. But, again, it kind of gave us a huge boost for the month of May. It kind of pushed us to work more and try to get the 500. Win No. 5: Indianapolis 500 (Race 6) Palou: The 500 is a completely different race. You spend so much time there and you know it's so hard that even though you won the week before or the two weeks before, it just doesn't feel like you can carry that momentum. It's like everybody starts from zero. The 500, it's always separate. Even if you've won zero or five races before that, you don't care. You just want to go there and you want to win. And that's the way we felt this year. Winning the 500 is super special. It's amazing. It puts yourself in a very cool group of other drivers. But our season is so long, you cannot rely only on one race [to make your season]. What I like is going to every single weekend, fighting for the wins, getting wins, getting good results. So I don't think I would have been happy struggling for six months and only being happy one week. That [first oval win] kind of allowed me to believe that I could win on ovals, that I had everything I needed to win more on other ovals. It kind of allowed me to have even more confidence in myself and the team. It's just like every single race that we did this year, it kind of gave us more confidence. Alex Palou broke through to capture his first Indy 500 victory. Win No. 6: Road America (Race 9) Palou: (In this race, Palou argued with his strategist over what to do). We always have those talks. Even today here at Portland, there was a strategy that was we could have done the other thing and just follow everybody else. But it's fun. It's what keeps this thing interesting. It's what keeps our relationship so good. But Road America, again, was a high boost of confidence of how good we were on road courses this year and another win to add to the amazing, magical season. Win No. 7: Iowa (Race 12) Palou: I needed that. I needed that very badly. I wanted that. I didn't need to. I wanted it. The fact that we won at the 500 felt amazing and that we could take the oval win, but I think it's a very different oval compared to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Iowa. 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He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. share
New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
Watkins Glen takeaways: The trouble with appreciating greatness, win-and-in drivers and more
Álex Palou smiled as he popped into the frame of a Zoom call, then took a few bites of a post-championship snack before answering some questions from The Athletic. A couple hours earlier, Palou had finished third at Portland International Raceway to clinch the IndyCar series title — his fourth in five years — with two races still remaining this season. Advertisement So we had to know: With the championship wrapped, what was Palou's motivation to keep racing hard in the final two events? The question was a bit tongue-in-cheek. NASCAR has been embroiled in a debate over how its championship is decided, with roughly half of the fan base pushing for a return to a full-season points format. But others within NASCAR are fearful of a driver clinching early and rendering the final races irrelevant, which seems to be the problem IndyCar is faced with now. Earlier this weekend, Palou decisively said he is not interested in any talk of playoffs in IndyCar. 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Yahoo
3 hours ago
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Mystics' Sonia Citron sends Paige Bueckers a Rookie of the Year warning
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