INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Palou went two-in-a-row in the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, winning the road course race for the second consecutive year.
The driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing started on the pole but was passed on the opening lap by Christian Lundgaard. Palou would later battle back to regain the lead later in the race, leading 39 laps of the 85-lap race to score his first NTT IndyCar Series win since the Grand Prix of Portland on Sept. 3 at Portland (Ore.) Raceway.
“It wasn’t a great start from my side,” Palou admitted. “I did a mistake, overshot the braking a little bit and just locked and lost that place, went into the grass a little bit. It wasn’t my best start, but I was just looking forward to getting that back and trying to get the lead back.
“But then we lost another place I think on the first stint with Power. We were on the blacks, the primaries at that time. But honestly, our pace was a lot better than I thought on the primaries. We were able to stay with them. They pitted early. We overcut them both, and from that point, we stayed on the lead.
“I would say that today the hard part was done by my crew, the No. 10 crew, my engineers, and my mechanics on giving that first position back. And I just had to control from the lead.”
Palou defeated Team Penske’s Will Power by 6.6106 seconds.
For Power, it was his second-straight podium finish since he was penalized for having push-to-pass software on his car that allowed him to use it on starts and restarts at the March 10 Firestone Grand Prix.
Power did not use the push-to-pass illegally, so he drew a penalty while race-winner and teammate Josef Newgarden and teammate and third-place finisher Scott McLaughlin were both disqualified.
“Anytime you’re finishing on the podium, it’s a good day,” Power said. “It really is. It’s a tough series. But yes, it is frustrating seeing that it’s right there for you even on a restart. We’re pretty determined. You can only do what you can do. It’s just only so much risk you can take without having a bad day if it doesn’t come off.
“Yep, definitely on my mind often to try and win a race, but also fighting for a championship is nice. We’ll see. If you keep knocking on the door like that, I just know eventually you’re going to get a win.”
Lundgaard was third followed by Chip Ganassi Racing drivers Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong.
“Happy to be disappointed I would say,” Lundgaard said of his third-place finish. “I think that’s becoming an expression in the RLL engineering truck. Sometimes we’re just happy to be disappointed.
“I’m proud of the team. We qualified well at Barber, and I think considering how we handled Long Beach in terms of strategy trying to get too much out of what I think we could have hurt us on the pure result. Going into Barber, it was a pure strategy of just get through the race and make sure that we get a good result, and coming here, there was a minimum, which was a podium.
“We got it, but I wanted it to be a win.”
Starting on the pole, Palou led the field to green, but it was Lundgaard who took the lead in Turn 7 on the opening lap.
Lundgaard would lead the first 18 laps of the race before making his first pit stop. After the first round of pit stops, Lundgaard was back in front by 1.7355 seconds over Power on lap 23.
On lap 40, Power had a last-second call to pit road. One lap later, leader Lundgaard pitted. That set up the blend as Lundgaard was able to dive off pit road. Power was blocked by Marcus Ericsson, and that allowed Lundgaard to stay ahead of his biggest challenger.
Nobody told Palou, because he came off pit lane ahead of Lundgaard and that set up a battle between the two for the virtual lead, although it was Alexander Rossi up front. After the pit stops cycled through, Palou was the leader by 3.0167 seconds ahead of Lundgaard. He was followed by Power, Dixon, and Armstrong.
On lap 60, Herta pitted for the final time. Newgarden, who was struggling with handling on his car, pitted with 25 laps to go with a set of “sticker” Red tires on the car.
The top three drives in the race all pitted on lap 62. Palou had a better angle on pit road. Lundgaard’s crew put on sticker Reds and Power’s crew did used tires. Power jumped out in front of Lundgaard on pit lane to take the position.
The strategy changed, however, when the first yellow flag of the race waved on lap 65 for a stalled car on course. It belonged to Luca Ghiotto of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR. Palou had a great restart on lap 65 as Power attempt to use the draft to get by the leader in Turn 1. But Palou was able to maintain position as the fighting for position became fiercer.
“He got a really good restart,” Palou said of Power. “He had a shorter first gear, as I said, than we did, so his jump was actually a little bit better than mine, and on top of that, he had my tow. I just saw it coming, and I had to defend. I didn’t want to give the lead back. I thought it was the best thing that we could have done at that moment.”
Further back in the field, Jack Harvey ran into the side of Newgarden as they banged off each other. But nobody could catch Palou as he takes over the points lead by 12 points over Power heading into the 108th Indianapolis 500 on May 26.
“I love winning,” Palou said. “Every race is important. That’s what I think about every day I wake up. But the 500 would mean — I don’t know what it would mean, honestly. I think it’s so big, it has so much history behind it, has so much potential, and it separates the drivers from just normal drivers to legends, everybody that has won it.
“Yeah, it would be amazing to win it.”