LONG BEACH, Calif. — Alex Palou seems to find new ways to win races as the four-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion at Chip Ganassi Racing scored his first win in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Meantime, Felix Rosenqvist discovered yet another way to suffer heartbreak in a race appeared to have in firm control.
Just when it appeared Rosenqvist was on a Sunday drive to Victory Lane at Long Beach, a piece of carbon fiber debris on the track brought out the only yellow flag in the race. It ended a 214-consecutive lap streak of green flag racing at Long Beach dating all the way back to 2024.
At the time of the yellow flag on Lap 57, Rosenqvist’s Meyer Shank Racing Honda lead Palou by 2.5 seconds. When the pits opened on Lap 59, every driver in the race pitted for the final 30 laps. Rosenqvist’s crew got the No. 60 in and out of the pits in 8.4 seconds – a rather flawless pit stop.
But Palou’s Chip Ganassi Racing crew did a 7.9-second pit stop and he was able to beat Rosenqvist off pit road.
One lap later, the race went green and Palou drove away to his third win of the season, by 3.9663-seconds over Rosenqvist.
It was Palou’s third win of the season, his 11th victory in the past two years and the 22nd win of his career. It was also Palou’s first win at Long Beach.
Palou led the final 32 laps of the race to drive into Victory Lane.
“Let’s, go,” Palou radioed his Chip Ganassi Racing crew on the cooldown lap.
In victory lane, Palou could talk about being “King on the streets at Long Beach.”
“It’s huge,” Palou said. “Super proud of everybody on the crew. It was that yellow, that pit stop, where all the boys on the crew were able to execute perfectly.
“Incredible to finally win here at Long Beach. I think we would have been really close. Felix was doing a hell of a job. He was doing more mileage than us and going really fast so it would have been really tough to beat him.
“And yeah, we did.”
Meantime, Rosenqvist led 51 laps of the 90-lap contest and continues to suffer frustration in a search for a second career NTT IndyCar Series victory.
The decisive moment of the race came on pit road, not on the race track.
“End of the day, it’s great after a tough start of the year,” Rosenqvist said. “We came back here, tried to bounce back. A little bit of a bittersweet day. We lost a little bit on the stop.
“It sucks, that’s how it goes. End of the day, we have to celebrate P2, lots of points, podium, that’s where we want to be.”
Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing started sixth and finished third.
“Great way to end the weekend,” Dixon said. “Congrats to Alex, but you have to feel a little sad for Felix. He controlled most of the race.
“But it’s nice to get the PNC Bank Honda back on the podium, man.”
Palou regained the NTT IndyCar Series Championship lead. He has a 19-point advance over Kyle Kirkwood, who finished fourth in the No. 27 Honda for Andretti Global.
Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren rounded out the top five.
It was a packed crowd on a sunshine-splashed day in Southern California who witnessed a fairly clean race without any incidents.
Josef Newgarden of Team Penske had 16 on track passes, but most of that was going off strategy by pitting early in an attempt to win the race on one extra pit stop. But that strategy was foiled when Newgarden flat-spotted his tires when he passed Marcus Armstrong on Lap 41.
There were four leads changes among four drivers, mostly during green flag pit stop exchanges.
