I might be completely off. For all I know, we’re celebrating a third Josef Newgarden championship or a seventh Scott Dixon title come September. We could even be looking at a first Astor Cup for Colton Herta or Alexander Rossi. But my gut has a tendency of telling me things that are true. And it is telling me that Pato O’Ward will win his first NTT IndyCar Series championship in 2021.

Let me explain. First of all, we’re talking Pato here. Wonderkid from Monterrey. 2018 Indy Lights champion. Veteran of thousands of miles in IMSA. And, last year, fourth overall in his first full year of IndyCar. Sure, Scott Dixon was impressive, Newgarden put up a good title fight and Colton Herta did well to avoid the general Andretti malaise. But Pato was the man that impressed me last year.

Second, he is lead driver for Arrow McLaren SP. The team hasn’t given him that moniker officially, but let’s be honest: he is. Arrow McLaren SP is a team with Ambitions, with a capital A. Last month it introduced aero rake testing in IndyCar, something it borrowed from its sister team in F1. It has ample backing, its organization is tighter than a snare drum and early season testing indicates that the traditional top three in IndyCar has become a top four.

Third, there is just something about Pato. During a recent media call, he played it cool. “The biggest thing this year for us is race wins. We want to get that first one out of the way and then start racking up as many as we can,” he said. “I don’t think we should change too much of what we did last year. I am happy with how everybody worked and how we achieved really strong results last year. Now we just need to take that next step, which is winning races.”

Cool Hand Pato, alright. Happy to just win some races. But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? Another quote from that media session: “In the off-season I rewatched all the races where we were in contention and I think we missed opportunities.” It’s a beautiful image: Pato sitting in the couch with his TiVO remote, endlessly reviewing that last-lap battle with Rosenqvist at Road America and that ropey pitstop at Mid-Ohio.

It also shows his determination. After a winter of steaming over chances missed, Pato says “we can now see where we were weak and try to improve”. He speaks of Arrow McLaren SP as “a tight-knit family” and notes that after one full season working together, “the engineers now know what I like, which gives us the opportunity to fight for those wins and podiums”. And then allows that, by the end of the season, “we can be in contention to challenge for the championship”.

So yes, I know that the safe money is to bet on Dixon, Newgarden or one of the Andretti boys. Just like we were all convinced that Penske and Al Unser Jr would whistle their way to another title in the 1995 CART Series after total domination in 1994. And then a young sophomore driver from Canada popped up and secured the title for himself, leaving the traditional powerhouse in his wake.

Remember where you heard it first.