THERMAL, Calif. (Sunday, March 23, 2025) – Perfect Palou, yet again.
Alex Palou once again made the impossible possible, completing a late dash from a nine-second deficit to pass pole sitter Pato O’Ward and drive away to win The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix on Sunday, staying perfect in two NTT INDYCAR SERIES races this season.
Palou earned his 13th career victory in the No. 10 DHL Honda Chip Ganassi Racing car, beating O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to the finish by 10.1854 seconds. Christian Lundgaard finished third in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet as the team captured two of the three podium positions for the first time since May 2023.
“What an amazing weekend,” said Palou, who started third. “We had a really fast car since practice, and everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing on the 10 car executed perfectly. We knew it was aggressive to start with the used reds (alternate tires), and we knew that we were looking toward the end of the race with that 10 car, and we did it.”
Two events into the 17-race season, Palou leads second-place O’Ward by 39 points in the championship standings.
“It’s tough seeing this guy beat us all every single event,” Lundgaard said. “We’ve got to find a way to stop him.”
Colton Herta finished fourth in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda fielded by Andretti Global, while Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top five in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda of Meyer Shank Racing.
Palou rallied from a nine-second deficit with 15 laps remaining in the 65-lap race, the first caution-free NTT INDYCAR SERIES event since October 2020. He selected the more grippy, faster Firestone Firehawk alternate compound tires during his last pit stop at the end of Lap 49. O’Ward made his final stop at the end of Lap 50, taking Firestone Firehawk primary compound tires.
Three-time and two-time reigning series champion Palou passed O’Ward for good on Lap 56, diving under his rival entering Turn 7 on the abrasive 17-turn, 3.067-mile natural terrain road course. Palou’s superior tire grip allowed him to rocket away from the field. His lead blossomed to three seconds on Lap 58, mushrooming to six seconds by Lap 61.
The winning move was set up by the Chip Ganassi Racing team’s decision to take alternate tires on Palou’s last stop. That helped him pass Lundgaard for second place on Lap 50 – one lap after Palou’s final stop – after a spirited joust over multiple corners.
Then Palou set sail for O’Ward and reeled him in with astonishing pace, pulling to within 4.9 seconds by Lap 52 and 1.3 seconds by Lap 53 as O’Ward coped with slower traffic and less grip from his tires.
“We took a gamble; it didn’t work out for us,” O’Ward said. “We had used our new reds (alternate tires) at the start because we didn’t really quite know what the deg (tire degradation) was going to be like. The blacks (primary tires) really kind of took a turn for the negative at the end of the race, and that was it. We didn’t stand a fighting chance.”
Palou became the first driver to win the first two races of the season since CGR teammate Scott Dixon opened 2020 with three consecutive victories en route to his sixth championship. Palou’s titles have come in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
NTT P1 Award winner O’Ward controlled most of the race from the pole. He led 51 of the first 55 laps, surrendering the top spot only during pit stops.
But O’Ward and 25 other drivers left Southern California empty-handed after another masterpiece of tactics and temerity by Palou and strategist Barry Wanser. In the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding on March 2, Palou and Wanser made the quick shift to alternate tires early in the race and then Palou executed flawless, blazing in and out laps surrounding his last pit stop to ensure victory.
The next race is the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, April 13 (4:30 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). A Spanish-language telecast will be available on FOX Deportes.
