Today’s question: What’s your biggest surprise about the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season after seven of 17 races?

Curt Cavin: I thought Alex Palou might lead this championship effectively wire to wire, but I could not have imagined him being 112 points clear six races into the season and still 90 points up after being knocked into the tire barrier in the seventh race. Palou is crafting an all-timer of a season, and he can become the first Indy 500 winner since Dario Franchitti in 2010 to also take home the series championship. (For comparison, Franchitti won that year’s title by five points.) Palou’s cushion is so cushy that he could stay home each of the next two races and likely still have the lead. Yes, there are five oval races among the 10 remaining races, and Palou hasn’t won at any of those tracks. But there are also four permanent road courses to come, and he has combined to win seven series races on those circuits. I’ll set the over/under for his final points advantage at 60. The over seems safe to me.

Eric Smith: My surprise is Scott Dixon and how quiet he’s been. The six-time series champion is seventh in points, 138 back of his series-leading Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Alex Palou. While it’s unfair to compare anyone to Palou, especially on the run he’s having, Dixon must at least be in the conversation. They’re teammates, and for years we compared what Palou was doing to Dixon. Ultimately, Dixon is on his fourth-longest winless drought of his career at 18 races and has just two victories in his last 24 tries. My biggest takeaway is that Dixon has just three podium finishes during this winless streak, has been the top CGR finisher twice and has 15 laps led, seven this season. That’s after enduring his worst points finish last year (sixth) since 2017. Now, Dixon can certainly go on a run and march toward a record-tying seventh championship, but he’s going to have to leap ahead of not just Palou, but six other drivers, to make it happen.

Arni Sribhen: If you look at the top 10 in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers’ standings, you shouldn’t be surprised to see two drivers from each of the series “Big Four” teams – Chip Ganassi Racing, Team Penske, Andretti Global and Arrow McLaren. But that the other two spots are occupied by the duo from Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian certainly might be. MSR is the top-performing two-car effort in the series with Felix Rosenqvist sitting sixth in the championship and Marcus Armstrong lying in 10th. Sure, there’s a technical alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing, but MSR had one with Andretti Global over the past few years. And the cars are 100 percent prepared and maintained by the MSR crew in Pataskala, Ohio. The team – especially primary co-owners Jim Meyer and Mike Shank – deserve the credit for stepping up their game in the first half of the season.

Paul Kelly: I didn’t have the three Team Penske drivers at fifth (Will Power), eighth (Scott McLaughlin) and 12th (Josef Newgarden) in the standings on my bingo card after seven races this season. Most teams would be content with those results, but this is Penske, a team that has defined excellence in North American open-wheel racing for more than 50 years. Sure, the technical violations during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 and subsequent dismissal of leading team executives Tim Cindric, Ron Ruzewski and Kyle Moyer took wind from the team’s sails last month, but the team only had three podium finishes this season before the “500” – all third places, one each by Newgarden, McLaughlin and Power. There are many opportunities to right the ship in the next 10 races, which include five oval races, a Penske specialty. Plus, the team has enough depth in its engineering and management roster to compensate for the departure of the management trio. But Penske drivers have won just one NTT INDYCAR SERIES title since 2019 – Power in 2022. That’s the longest dry spell since the team went without a title from 2007-13, a period of dominance by Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Global, which ironically appear to be teams a rung above Penske on the series superiority ladder this season.