INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Palou enters the Sonsio Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway having won three of the four NTT IndyCar Series races this season and won the past two runnings of the GP on the IMS road course.
Still the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, whose won three championships in the past four years, knows that all hot streaks come to an end.
“Yeah, I know it’s going to end. You know it’s a wave, and you don’t know how long that’s going to be,” he said on Wednesday at IMS. “Is it going to be this is the end, or is it going to be like 5 more races? You hope to be 5 more, 15 more, but you know the chances of that happening are pretty low.
“Yeah, I think, at least in the 10 car and myself, we’ve been focusing on just trying to be the best we can every single weekend. I would say a part of Barber that from the beginning we had a ton of speed, we got pole, we started up front, and we led quite a lot of the race. The other weekends, we didn’t feel like we were as strong, right?
“Yeah, we’re starting here Indy road course with the mindset to, first of all, see what kind of speed do we have in the car, and then see if we can continue with the good results. Yeah, we know it’s going to end at some point.”
• Pato O’Ward will participate in the opening practice session during the Oct. 24-26 Mexico City Grand Prix at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
O’Ward, a Mexican native, will wheel the McLaren MCL39, which is handled in Formula 1 competition by series point leaders Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
“I’m excited to be jumping back in the car for FP1 at my home race in Mexico this year,” O’Ward said. “The Mexico City fans were unbelievable last time out, and it was a great feeling being able to extract everything from the program that the team had planned. I’m looking forward to going again this year, working with Zak (Brown), Andrea (Stella) and the whole team.”
The opportunity is part of Ward’s role in the team’s reserve driver pool.
• Dale Coyne Racing rookie driver will sport a throwback paint scheme on his No. 51 Honda for the 109th Indianapolis 500.
Adorned with Miller High Life colors, the paint scheme pays tribute to Danny Sullivan’s spin-and-win victory in the 1985 Indianapolis 500.
• Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood enters the month of May third in the standings and is the only driver to win a race other than point leader Alex Palou.
“I would say we’ve had an OK start,” Kirkwood said Wednesday. “Of course, the Long Beach is a huge highlight for us, and that kind of catapulted us pretty far forward in the championship.
If I’m being honest, I’d say Thermal, Barber, and here in recent years have not been our best track.
“It’s nice to get those ones out of the way because I think, as you look forward in the season, we’ve got a lot of really good tracks ahead for us.”
• Over the years the first lap of the Sonsio Grand Prix has become one of the hairiest moments of the season in the IndyCar Series. Scott McLaughlin talked about how to prepare for the first lap.
“Just hope you don’t have contact. You just go in there — you’ve got to trust your instincts,” the Team Penske driver said. “I think we all do.”
“It funnels there, but it funnels everywhere. I think we know that we need to make passes early to move forward in the race. I think you see that in exchanges and whatnot,” he added. “Yeah, just try and get through there unscathed. I didn’t last year. I spun out Felix, I think, so it wasn’t a good thing.”
• First-year Arrow McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard enters the month of May second in points with three podium finishes in four races.
“I would say I’m as excited as I would be or have been,” Lundgaard said. “I think we have good momentum right now, and I think we’ve had good momentum leaving Barber in the prior years. I don’t think anything’s really changed from my perspective from a mindset.
“We’ve got to go out and do the best that we can and execute,” he added. “I was vocal in the offseason about I just wanted to be competitive at every single event, and we have been so far, and it’s just continuing that.”
• Meyer Shank Racing wheelman Felix Rosenqvist talked about the challenging nature of his season to this point.
“It seems like every weekend is a completely new challenge this year,” he said. “I think the package seems very different as well. It seems like some teams and drivers struggle a lot on certain tracks, and it’s just been amplified this year, I think.
“You just have to reset and start fresh almost every weekend, it feels like. It’s super tough. Right now, it’s super tough even to be in the top 10 now. You need a pretty damn good weekend. So keep it rolling. We’ve been off to a good start. This track I normally like, so I think we’re looking pretty good.”
• Alex Palou and Alexander Rossi were fastest in the two practice groups, respectively, Friday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A second practice and qualifying will be held later in the day.
• Fox Sports Films announced a new documentary, “IndyCar: Anything To Win.” With exclusive interviews from the biggest stars of IndyCar racing, it debuts May 18 on FOX.
