While not the woodshed whooping he put on the field at Barber, Sunday, Alex Palou continued his dominant run, this season, with a victory at The Brickyard.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing overtook Graham Rahal in Turn 7 on Lap 58 and never looked back to win the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s crazy,” he said. “I’m sad that it’s going to end at some point, and it’s going to be tough in my career to feel as good as I feel now. I know that, and that makes me sad, but happy at the same time.
“It’s amazing. It’s amazing. I know I’m with the best team out here, and they give me the best tools they have, the best people to fight for races every single weekend, and it feels sweet.”
It’s his 15th career victory in 86 career NTT INDYCAR Series starts
Pato O’Ward brought his car home second and Will Power rounded out the podium.
“We fought hard today,” O’Ward said. “Started eighth, and I was pretty happy with the balance of my car. Just missed it there in qualifying with the issues that we had in a straight line, but Ian fixed it. It was good to have good pace.”
“It was just a solid day,” Power said. “Didn’t pass anyone on track. It was the same as Barber. Didn’t pass a single car. Just spent the whole day sort of like in a good pit stop strategy and speed and sort of overcut there at the end. Got us a couple of positions. Yeah, it was a very uneventful day. It was eventful in the car catching and driving hard the whole day, but as far as chopping through the field or anything. I mean, when you start seventh, obviously it’s not like you’re able to pass a lot of people. But, yeah, it’s a very stout field. People don’t make mistakes. Even the person who finishes last — I don’t know who finished last, but I know when I lapped Abel, he stuck behind me at the same pace, exactly the same space. Hardly dropped off.
“It’s just a stout field with great teams and drivers. Maybe we need to try a lock-out push-to-pass system where you get within a second and it locks the guy out in front and create passing like that, but it’s cool to see. I’m not sure what it looks like on TV, but yeah, I think this was the first step, try something with tires, but I think you need to do something more.”
Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon rounded out the top-five
Graham Rahal (led a race high of 49 laps), Kyle Kirkwood, Marcus Armstrong, Rinus VeeKay and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top-10.
Race summary
Prior to the start, Kyffin Simpson stalled on pit road. He didn’t get underway before the green flag and took his car to the garage. Josef Newgarden came down pit road prior to the race, due to radio issues. As a result, he dropped to the rear of the field on the start.
Alex Palou led the field to green at 4:55 p.m. ET. Graham Rahal overtook him on the outside into Turn 1 for the race lead.
VeeKay kickstarted a round of green flag stops on Lap 15 (he took Firestone reds). Palou pit from second on Lap 18 and took used Firestone blacks. Devlin DeFrancesco pit from second on Lap 19 and took new Firestone blacks. Palou cycled out in front. Rahal pit from the lead on Lap 20, took Firestone blacks and exited pit road ahead of Palou.
Following the cycle of stops, Rahal and Palou traded laps of running faster than the other. While the gap held steady at roughly 0.6 seconds. By Lap 34, however, Palou cut the gap to under half a second, thanks to the lapped car of Jacob Abel. By Lap 35, the gap closed to roughly 0.3 seconds. This forced Rahal to burn up his Push-to-Pass.
VeeKay kicked off another round of green flag stops on Lap 37. Both Rahal and Palou pit on Lap 41 (Rahal took used Firestone reds, while Palou took new Firestone blacks). Rahal beat him out of pit road.
Palou didn’t wait for the final stop to make his move on Rahal. Coming down Hulman Boulevard on Lap 58, Palou pulled to his inside and overtook him into Turn 7 for the race lead. Two laps later, Palou pulled to a three-second lead.
Rahal pit from second on Lap 62 for new Firestone blacks, but a slow stop costs him time on track. Palou pit from the lead on Lap 65. He took new Firestone reds.
David Malukas’ car stalled in the grass off of Turn 8, which brought out a caution and ended a streak of 408 consecutive laps without one. This evaporated a 10-second lead by Palou.
The race restarted with 13 laps to go and Palou drove on to victory.
What else happened
Callum Illot hit Conor Daly and spun him in Turn 12 on Lap 1.
On Lap 6, Malukas made contact with Marcus Ericsson and turned him in Turn 12.
Rosenqvist pulled inside of VeeKay in Turn 7 on Lap 25, made contact and spun out.
Nuts and bolts
The race lasted one hour and 48 minutes, at an average speed of 115.163 mph. There were seven lead changes among four different drivers and one caution for two laps.
Palou leaves with a 97-point lead over Kyle Kirkwood.
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES returns to action on May 25, with the Indianapolis 500.
