BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alex Palou whooped the field to win at Barber.
Well, there’s a right-rear caveat to that.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda pitted from the lead with 25 laps to go and exited 27 seconds behind Christian Lundgaard. Compounding the matter, he exited pit lane in heavy lap traffic. The ball fell in Lundgaard’s court, provided his team executed a flawless stop.
He rolled a d1.
Lundgaard pitted with 22 to go, and had trouble with the right-rear tire that held him in his box for 17 seconds. As a result, Palou cycled back to the lead with ease and won the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix.
“I’m glad the 13th pole didn’t affect the result,” Palou said. “That was on my mind (smiling). Apart of that, everything was great.
“No, it was a very tough race. I guess you guys cannot really see it from outside, but we struggle quite a lot. We had to run a used set of primaries in our third stint, which we never, ever do that. We did that during practice two. I mean, it’s the one that we used in practice two. We just did that because we thought it was going to be a red race.
“Yeah, Lundgaard was getting very close. Rahal was getting very close. I think we got lucky there with the pit exchange that they lost some pace or some time.
“Yeah, I’m glad everything worked out for us in the 10 car.”
It’s his 21st career victory in his 102nd NTT INDYCAR SERIES start and third at Barber Motorsports Park.
After his botched stop, Lundgaard used his push-to-pass to close the gap to and pounce on Graham Rahal in Turn 5 to finish runner-up. Rahal’s winless drought went from 144 races to 145, as he held off a hard-charging David Malukas to round out the podium.
“I think we had a race-winning car today,” Lundgaard said. “Obviously it’s frustrating, the past many few races, we’ve produced such great race cars on Sunday. We’ve been lacking on Saturday. It’s just frustrating.
“Obviously, you win races on Sunday, so that’s when you need to have a good car. I think we need to put ourselves in better positions. I think even with the pace and how the race panned out today, we had the car to win the race, we had the pace, we had the track position at the time.
“I’m not really sure what happened in the pit stop. I’m not sure I can really comment too much on it. Again, it’s unfortunate. Obviously came out behind Graham there on the last stint and just wanted to really get that second place for the team, as well. It wasn’t just for me. This is where we were. At least with a bubble on pit road, let’s get the same result, not worse. We had the pace. Got by Graham. That was nice.”
“(The podium is) a great reward for the guys and gals,” Rahal said. “Everybody has worked so hard to be back here. Heard all the noise and BS that we get to hear all the time.
“All weekend the car was in really good shape, very, very competitive, very comfortable. The race is actually the most challenging it was. It was extremely stable. In the race, as you guys could see, I was losing the rear a lot, no matter what I felt like I could do on tire degradation. That’s been our Achilles’ heel so far this year. We’ve got some work to do.
“No, I mean, I’m super happy for everybody on the 15. Great pit stops, great strategy with Bryan. We’ll carry this momentum into the break here a little bit and get ready for Long Beach.
“It’s a good relief this early in the year to have a good result. Now our job is to go analyze and figure out why. What changes did we make to put our car so much further into the window than most other road course races and how can we take that to the GP and Indy in particular?
“I mean, we were quicker than David all day. He did make a good charge at the end. I wasn’t so worried about him. I think I could have held Christian off. His strength was my weakness. Everywhere else we could pull him a little bit. I was dying in turn two and three. That was the best part of the track he had. Unfortunately those two just didn’t blend very well.
“We did the best that we could. That’s life. He was obviously on a charge, and we had done a few more laps than him on those tires. I knew it was going to be a battle till the end. That’s the way it goes.”
Malukas and Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top-five.
Marcus Armstrong, Scott Dixon, Santino Ferrucci, Marcus Ericsson, and Josef Newgarden rounded out the top-10.
RACE SUMMARY
Palou led the field to green at 1:22 p.m. ET. The field settled into a green flag rhythm. By Lap 5, Palou pulled to a 1.3-second lead over Malukas. By Lap 11, he stretched the lead out to 1.9 seconds. Ericsson kicked off a cycle of green flag pit stops on Lap 14, for the drivers on a three-stop strategy. Several other cars hit pit lane while Palou stayed on track. By Lap 20, all but 10 cars hit pit road. Palou pitted from the lead on Lap 26, and switched to Firestone reds.
Palou exited the pit lane with a 4.2-second gap to Rahal. By Lap 33, Rahal closed the gap down to 3.7 seconds. Mick Schumacher kicked off the second round of green flag stops on Lap 39. Palou pitted from the lead on Lap 44, and switched to used Firestone blacks. Rahal pitted from the lead on Lap 45, and put on new Firestone reds. Lundgaard pitted from the lead on Lap 50. He took Firestone reds and cycled out ahead of Rahal. Palou, meanwhile, cycled back to the lead.
With 26 laps to go, Lundgaard cut the lead down to 3.1 seconds. Palou pitted from the lead with 25 to go. He took used Firestone blacks. Palou dealt with lap traffic, which Lundgaard could’ve capitalized on. When he pitted with 22 to go, however, his crew couldn’t tighten up the right-rear tire, and Palou cycled back to the lead.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED
Rinus VeeKay spun in Turn 5 on Lap 35, but got the car rolling.
NUTS AND BOLTS
The race lasted one hour, 45 minutes, and 59 seconds, at an average speed of 117.210 mph. There were five lead changes among three different drivers and zero cautions.
Kirkwood leaves Barber Motorsports Park with a two-point lead over Palou.
The NTT INDYCAR Series returns to action on April 19, on the streets of Long Beach, California.
