BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alex Palou felt inevitable.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda led 81 of 90 laps on his way to his third NTT IndyCar Series victory of the 2025 season at Barber Motorsports Park.
“Amazing. Amazing weekend,” he said. “It was a perfect day today for me, for the 10 car, and for the Honda Honda 10 car. Yeah, I mean, everything worked really well for us since yesterday. Getting the pole was a huge milestone for us, to start up front, try to make profit of the good performance that we had this weekend. Then we were a bit worried about the strategy, right? We’ve always seen here that it could go either way, two stop or three stop, depending on yellows or normal tire mileage and fuel mileage. We tried to open the gap early on. When I saw that we had a really good car balance, yeah, I was just getting happier and happier towards the end of the race.”
It’s his 14th career victory in 85 career IndyCar starts.
Christian Lundgaard brought his car home runner-up and two-time defending race winner Scott McLaughlin rounded out the podium.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Lundgaard said. “I think the progression we made since the Sebring test earlier this year, it’s been moving forward and going in the right direction. The team has been doing an awesome job. The pace in the car is there, and it’s just about execution. We didn’t really execute in qualifying yesterday, so we were frustrated and wanted to make up for it. We did today.”
“I think we were just third place today,” McLaughlin said. “Didn’t quite have the pace from the get-go really. From lap two I tried to push Alex. He just had a lot of speed. Yeah, I just didn’t feel I had much grip. But the car was still okay. It was still pretty fast. Just wasn’t as quick as the front guys, front two. Hey, it’s good points. We got to just keep keeping on and being at the front as much as we can. That was a solid race for us from the pace we had. If you want to build a championship campaign, that’s how you have to do it.”
Rinus VeeKay overcame a slow final stop to finish fourth and Will Power rounded out the top-five.
Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi, Nolan Siegel and Josef Newgarden rounded out the top-10.
Race summary
Palou led the field to green at 1:47 p.m. McLaughlin pressed the attack as early as Lap 2. By Lap 4, however, Palou pulled out to a 1.131 second lead. McLaughlin said he “just didn’t have enough pace.”
“I mean, at the end of the day I pushed him, then sort of settled into a rhythm,” he said. “Ideally I wanted to stay in that two-second bracket. Alex just had really good speed there, yeah.”
By Lap 8, the lead grew to 3.429 seconds.
Marcus Ericsson kicked off a cycle of green flag stops on Lap 10, and changed onto Firestone reds. Lundgaard pit from sixth on Lap 18 for Firestone reds. McLaughlin and Power pit from the top-six on Lap 19. McLaughlin took Firestone blacks, while Power took reds. Herta pit from second on Lap 22 for used Firestone reds. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 23. He took scuffed Firestone blacks. Marcus Armstrong pit from the lead on Lap 26 and Palou cycled back to the lead.
Even on used blacks, Palou pulled out to a 6.819 second lead over Herta by Lap 35.
Scott Dixon and others kicked off the second round of green flag stops on Lap 39. Power pit from fourth on Lap 42 for used Firestone reds. Herta pit from second on Lap 46. He took used Firestone reds, but stalled on pit road. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 47. He cycled back to the lead on Lap 50, when Armstrong pit.
The final round of green flag stops kicked off on Lap 65. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 66, deviating from his overcut strategy for most of the race.
“I guess it’s just to be safe if there’s any yellows or if there’s any issues,” he said. “We were I believe good on the guy behind with Lundgaard and McLaughlin. I assumed that it was easy to make it on fuel, so yeah that’s why we did it. Just I think to prevent anything happening and throwing out a win.”
McLaughlin pit from the lead on Lap 67. When Rossi pit from the lead on Lap 69, Palou cycled back to the lead.
What else happened
Lundgaard made a power pass on McLaughlin on the outside in Turn 16 and inside of Turn 17 on Lap 43.
“Yeah, I mean, ultimately you’re just trying to get by,” Lundgaard said. “It’s a pit sequence. It’s the one real opportunity you have, ’cause as soon as everybody settles in, you need to rely on people making a mistake and you can’t do that.
“It was about doing it when it counted. I was close enough to Scottie. I think we all know as soon as we get to the high speed on cold new tires, we’ll kind of bottom out. I pitted a couple of laps before, so I’d gone through that. When I caught Scott there, I knew game was on. I knew he was going to work for it, but always clean racing with Scott.”
Louis Foster went off track in Turn 17 and pulled out on track in front of Robert Shwartzman and race leader Palou.
Nuts and bolts
The race lasted one hour, 46 minutes and 33 seconds, at an average speed of 116.562 mph. There were six lead changes among three different drivers and zero cautions for the third race in a row. The first time this occurred in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES since 1986.
Palou leaves with a 60-point lead over Lundgaard.
The NTT INDYCAR Series returns to action, Saturday, on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
