DETROIT – Sitting with a 20-point lead heading into a three-race stretch that he swept a year ago on his way to his second IndyCar title in three years, Alex Palou appeared an overwhelming favorite for yet another Astor Cup entering the Detroit Grand Prix weekend.

And then something outlandish happened: The No. 10 DHL Honda and its driver had some bad luck.

For the first time since he and team owner Chip Ganassi settled their lawsuit over his driving services – all the way back in September 2022 – Palou finished outside the top-10 in Sunday’s 100-lapper on the streets of Detroit. Caught out when Josef Newgarden spun immediately in front of him barreling into Turn 3 off the race’s 7^th restart, the defending champion and then-points leader fell from a ho-hum 7^th to 16^th by the checkered flag.

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With his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon on his way to yet another fuel strategy masterclass out front, Palou saw the six-time champ not only erase Palou’s 20-point lead but create an 18-point cushion of his own just past the one-third mark in the season.

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This is a particularly strong stretch of tracks for Dixon: six top-5 finishes in the last eight at Road America (including two wins); defending race-winner at Laguna Seca; and six career wins at Mid-Ohio. But also for Palou: wins at Road American and Mid-Ohio a year ago (and six podiums in 10 combined starts) and podium finishes in all three appearances at Laguna Seca. The Ganassi duo is seemingly setup for success over the next month.

Team Penske’s Will Power, the 2022 series champ, is their closest competitor in the points battle (185 points vs. 198 for Palou and 216 for Dixon), with Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward 25 more points back in 4^th (160) and his teammate Alexander Rossi an additional 10 back in 5^th (150). Completing a crowded top-10 include Kyle Kirkwood (6th, 148 points), Colton Herta (7th, 147 points), Scott McLaughlin (8th, 141 points), Felix Rosenqvist (9th, 140) and Josef Newgarden (10th, 128)

Here are some thoughts on the championship battle with six races over the next seven weekends – coming off three in the last four.

Why Ganassi is the favorite to win the IndyCar title

With four wins over the seven total events IndyCar has held this year (including the non-points $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club) and a successful track record over the next three race weekends, it’s hard not to see Chip Ganassi Racing as the favorite in this year’s title fight.

Power has shown he can register podiums and top-6s with the best of them but the two-time champion has just two victories over his last 57 starts.

Up against a Ganassi duo that have combined to win eight of IndyCar’s last 11 events, and already with a 31-point gap to the front, that’s a tough uphill battle. Power’s three runner-up finishes this year – tied for most podium finishes with Palou and Dixon – are no doubt impressive, as are his four front-row starts in six points races, but this level of performance is unlikely to get it done.

O’Ward’s chaotic three-race stretch from Long Beach to the Sonsio Grand Prix -- a best-finish of 13^th -- still points to a driver and team not nearly performing at a championship-caliber level often enough to contend with Ganassis. Rossi and Kirkwood have become the series’ top-10 kings, with just one combined points-paying finish worse than 11^th this year. They both, unfortunately, are yet to stand on a podium, either.

Why Ganassi's road to IndyCar title could be tough

Despite the favorable road ahead in the short-term, a Ganassi championship in 2024 will still likely require a change of form on the short- and medium-sized ovals where the team has won just once in three years (Dixon, World Wide Technology Raceway in 2023).

It’s something that Palou is eager to see come to fruition, as he continues to wait for his first career oval victory.

“I feel even more confident (on the ovals) now that I have a podium at Iowa and Texas (both in 2023),” Palou said Friday in Detroit. “I’m feeling confident, and hopefully we can go and win one. That would be amazing.”

Dixon, for what it’s worth, was less-than-thrilled about the way the end-of-season schedule plays out, including the addition of a doubleheader at the Milwaukee Mile and the season-finale at Nashville Superspeedway.

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“Yeah, it’s funny that you have the owner of the series who’s very good on short (ovals), and we’ve added (three) of them,” he said.

Wild cards still waiting on road to title

With Dixon as the first repeat points-paying race winner of the year through six events, Power said he sees this year shaping up similarly to his own 2022 title campaign, where so many of his closest competitors – Newgarden (2^nd), McLaughlin (4^th), Palou (5^th), Marcus Ericsson (6^th) and O’Ward (7^th) had four or more finishes outside the top-10.

Power’s teammates, the only drivers to win more than two races that year, both logged a pair of finishes outside the top-20.

Whether one win could be enough to hoist the Astor Cup come mid-September, Power wasn’t certain. The year he did so, he too had four finishes outside the top-10, but the other 13 inside the top-6 (including nine podiums). In a field so deep with talent – including five championship-caliber drivers among Penske and Ganassi alone – and wild cards like so many ovals and the introduction of the hybrid system starting at Mid-Ohio, Power doubts someone will run away and hide like Palou did a year ago.

So far, the first six races of 2024 have delivered five different victors.

What impact will the hybrid engine have on the championship race?

And that offers the opportunity to have a break-through performance for one of the six drivers in the top-10 yet to win an IndyCar championship. Like we saw with Palou in 2021, a hot summer stretch that includes even a couple wins, along with consistency at the rest, can see an unlikely contender break free from a crowded pack and add their name to the history books.

All those in the top-10 have won IndyCar races in their careers, and yet five of them have won two or fewer races since the start of 2022 – six if you take away O’Ward’s 2024 St. Pete victory by way of Newgarden’s DQ.

And like Palou, five drivers in this group haven't won on an oval in their IndyCar careers: Palou, Kirkwood, Herta, McLaughlin and Rosenqvist. Barring multi-win stretches by Palou or Dixon before we get to mid-July, this championship race is likely to still be open for nearly this entire pool of candidates, and one win or more by anyone in the latter half will only make the list of strong contenders deeper.

With the introduction of the hybrid July 7 at Mid-Ohio for the final nine races of the year, there will no doubt be some luck involved in this year’s champion. This type of technology doesn’t come online without some hiccups. Which team and driver(s) best master this new technology, too, will give the championship race a definite pendulum swing – with tacticians at the top in Dixon, Palou and Power seemingly most likely.

“We don’t have to change much to get back into it,” Herta said ahead of his up-and-down Detroit weekend. “We’ve been running well into the top-10 basically every race and in the top-5 for most, so we just have to get back to that."

Added Palou: “Everything just keeps changing every year and every race. We have different tires this year and changes to the car’s weight. We’ve been making changes to our setups at every track. We may be starting with a better base than some teams and drivers, but we have a lot of work to make sure it all works.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What you need to know about the IndyCar title race