Colton Herta is the early PointsBet favorite for the Grand Prix of Long Beach for the September 26 race on the 1.97-mile street course (3 p.m. ET, NBC).
Herta is the most recent winner in IndyCar after dominating last week at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. He led 91 of the 95 laps from the pole. Herta is listed at +425.
That was Herta’s second win of the season with his other victory coming in Round 2 at St. Petersburg.
One way to view American Odds is to move the decimal point two positions to the left. That will let a bettor know what they will make on a $1 bet, so the return on investment this week for Herta is $4.25. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +300 is the same as 3/1.
Herta narrowly edges points’ leader Alex Palou this week, who showed a line of +440 on Thursday. Palou scored his third win of the season two weeks ago at Portland and finished second to Herta at Laguna Seca. Last week’s runner-up finish helped Palou extend his lead over second-place Pato O’Ward in the championship standings.
O’Ward finished strong at Laguna Seca with a fifth-place finish, but is running out of time to mount a charge on Palou with only one round remaining. O’Ward is ranked third this week with a line of +525.
The next three drivers, veterans Scott Dixon, Will Power and Josef Newgarden, all have odds of +850.
After finishing in the top five in three consecutive races, Dixon went off the rails with a 17th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. In the last four races, he has only one top-10, which was a third at Portland two weeks ago.
Power has also struggled recently with two top-fives in his last six attempts. One of these was a victory on the Indy Road course and another was a third-place finish on the oval at Gateway, but those strong runs barely bring his average finish to 13.7 during that span. Last week, he was 26th at Laguna Seca.
On the other hand, Newgarden brings momentum with him to the track in the form of six consecutive top-10s that include wins a Mid-Ohio and Gateway. Those are his only two victories this season, but he also has three other runner-up finishes.
The most recent winner at Long Beach after last year’s cancelation because of COVID-19, Alexander Rossi has seventh-best odds of +900. Rossi started from the pole in 2019 on this course and led 80 of 85 laps.
No other driver in the field has odds better than 18/1.
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