LEXINGTON, Ohio — With six laps to go, Alex Palou had the race in check. He dominated all day long and came out ahead of Scott Dixon on his final stop of the race. Dixon believed “it would’ve been tough” to catch Palou in the closing laps.
“He had better tires, more fuel,” he said. “It was going to be a tough situation. That’s where I was kind of shocked that he didn’t pull away like I thought he would have. I thought he would have been probably a second a lap quicker just because of the scenario that we were in with the heavy save, and I don’t know, what did he pit, maybe 10 laps to go or eight laps to go. We had to run 30 laps on a set of tires.”
Then Dixon saw dust.
“I was like, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a lap car or something,’ because there’s been some times in these sessions where the dust has actually been lingering in the air,” he said.
Then he realized it was his teammate, Palou.
“Hate to say it, but pleasantly surprised when I saw that he was rejoining the track,” he said.
Dixon overtook Palou exiting Turn 9 for the race lead and held on to win the Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
“Yeah, as soon as I saw the caution at the start, which we had been talking about, I was like, man, the two-stop is on,” he said. “We worked pretty hard this morning in the warmup on fuel mileage and making sure we got the car balance kind of where we needed it.
“First stint was pretty easy. Second stint we actually got into a bit of trouble on the soft tires with the left front. I don’t know if it was that tire, but 10 laps in I could see it starting to come apart, and I knew that we were kind of locked in on the two-stopper so that was going to be pretty difficult, so we pushed and kind of used the average on the black tires and used them a little bit more once we got to the final stop.
“The final stop actually they didn’t take any of the front wing out, so it was so loose for that last stint. I was just really looking at the corner and the car would turn itself, which, one, is really physical, but two, it’s really hard to push extremely hard because you start to lock rears, especially into 4 and into 2 and also into 9 where ultimately that got Alex.
“We were hoping that we were going to clear him, but obviously they were super fast today and pushing really hard on the three-stopper. Maybe earlier on in the stint I should have pushed a little bit harder, but just wasn’t sure what was going to happen with that left front on the reds.
“He made the mistake, so kudos for us and the team, everybody on the No. 9, everybody at HRC to get the mileage we had today. I don’t know how many others were on the two-stopper. I don’t know whether the next highest wound up, but the — six, so that was really good. So congrats to Felix, as well.
“But yeah, tough day. It was nice to have that flip on Alex after what happened on St. Pete this year. Yeah, good finish, but I can’t thank the team enough. Mike and everybody on the crew, the pit stops were fantastic and ultimately the strategy worked out well.”
It’s his 59th career NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory, his first of the 2025 season and seventh at Mid-Ohio.
Despite leading 75 laps, Palou’s mistake in Turn 9 cost him his seventh victory of the season and the points leader came home to a runner-up finish.
“Big mistake, man,” he said. “Big mistake. Yeah, nothing in particular happened. Just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out.
“Yeah, lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race.
“But yeah, man, it’s not over until it’s over, until you see the checkered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car.
“Yeah, just lost it.”
Christian Lundgaard rounded out the podium in third.
“Yeah, we saw Mr. Perfect here make a mistake,” he said. “You don’t see that very often. I think the day was pretty good. Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did.
“This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. I think obviously Dixon kind of proved that.
“This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do, and we decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result, but at the end of the day, we’re on the podium.
“I nearly went off the same lap, same corner as he did. I don’t know what I was looking at, trying to see the 10 car. But yeah, still on the podium, so that’s good.”
Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward rounded out the top-five.
Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood, Rinus VeeKay and Kyffin Simpson — who served a drive-through penalty — rounded out the top-10.
Scott Dixon capitalizes on Alex Palou’s mistake to win at Mid-Ohio
Race summary
Palou led the field to green at 1:23 p.m. ET. Caution flew immediately when Josef Newgarden locked up, snapped towards the wall, spun out and came to a stop in the Turn 4 gravel trap.
Back to green on Lap 6, the field settled into a green flag racing rhythm. Scott McLaughlin and O’Ward kicked off a cycle of green flag stops on Lap 12. By Lap 19, Palou lost pace on his Firestone reds, while Herta in fifth ran faster on his Firestone blacks. Lundgaard pit from second on Lap 24. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 27. Simpson pit from the lead on Lap 29. Dixon pit from the lead on Lap 30 and Palou cycled back to the lead on Lap 31.
Caution flew on Lap 31 for Christian Rasmussen. Whose car stalled on track. Louis Foster and a few others pitted under this caution.
Back to green on Lap 36, green flag stops commenced again on Lap 43. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 56. Dixon pit from the lead on Lap 61 and Palou cycled back to the lead on Lap 62.Palou pit from the lead on Lap 72. Herta pit from the lead with 16 laps to go. Palou cycled back to the lead with 15 laps to go and lost the lead when he ran wide and into the grass in Turn 9. Dixon overtook him exiting Turn 9 and drove onto victory.
Scott Dixon capitalizes on Alex Palou’s mistake to win at Mid-Ohio
What else happened
Will Power lost an engine on Lap 12.
Simpson ran over the foot of one of VeeKay’s crew members while exiting pit road on Lap 61. He received a drive-through penalty, as a result.
Scott Dixon capitalizes on Alex Palou’s mistake to win at Mid-Ohio
Nuts and bolts
The race lasted one hour, 49 minutes and 41 seconds, at an average speed of 111.166 mph. There were eight lead changes among four different drivers and two cautions for eight laps.
Palou leaves Mid-Ohio with a 113-point lead over Kirkwood.
The NTT INDYCAR Series returns to action, Saturday and next Sunday, at Iowa Speedway for a double-header race weekend.
