STEAM CORNERS, Ohio — Pato O’Ward may have been credited with a win earlier this year at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg after Josef Newgarden was disqualified, but on Sunday, the young driver from Monterey, Mexico was finally first to the checkered flag in an NTT IndyCar Series race for the first time since 2022.
O’Ward made the race-winning pass on the track as Palou pulled out of pit lane after his final stop. It proved to be the decisive moment for O’Ward to win Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, the first time O’Ward finished first to the checkered flag since Iowa Speedway two years ago.
But he had to hold off a charging Palou, who was able to cut into O’Ward’s lead by two car lengths. O’Ward had to contend with Chip Ganassi Racing rookie driver Kyffin Simpson, who was in front of O’Ward’s Chevrolet while Palou, another CGR driver, was closing in from behind.
Palou dropped two wheels off the track in one of the turns with four laps to go and that momentarily dropped him back, but he was quickly able to regain control and set his sights on O’Ward.
It was down to 0.324 seconds with four laps to go.
With two laps to go, Palou still had time left on his push-to-pass as well as regenerating the hybrid assist unit.
O’Ward remained in front as the white flag waved and Palou hit the throttle, but it was not enough to wrest the victory away from the Arrow McLaren driver.
He became the third IndyCar driver with multiple victories this season (Palou and Scott Dixon) and the first to win on both a street course and a road course in 2024.
“Long time coming,” O’Ward said. “Long time coming. Let’s enjoy this.”
O’Ward’s No. 5 Chevrolet finished 0.4993-of-a-second ahead of Palou’s No. 10 Honda. Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske was third in the No. 3 Chevrolet, 16.1558 seconds behind the winner.
“That was a hard-fought race,” O’Ward said. “We were really, really strong on the Reds and Palou was really, really strong on the Blacks. We had to wait to get him on the pit stop sequence.
“It’s been a while. I know we ‘won St. Pete’ but this was a proper win today.
“I felt very comfortable with the car going into this weekend. Hats off to Arrow McLaren. They gave me a rocket.
“Iowa repave, we’ll see what it has in store for us.”
Palou won at Mid-Ohio last year but finished second in 2024.
“A shame,” Palou said. “It was a good race. The car was amazing. We couldn’t make the alternate tires last. Pato started catching us, then we had a slow stop, and I couldn’t engage first gear.
“Great race, good solid day.”
Palou increased his championship lead to 48 points. Team Penske’s Will Power is second in the points. O’Ward is third, 70 points behind.
“Hopefully, we’ll be in the lead of the championship at the end of season,” added Palou.
With the victory, McLaren took its 24th win in IndyCar Series competition and its sixth since rejoining the series in 2020. It was the first time the team won at Mid-Ohio.
Colton Herta of Andretti Global was fourth in the No. 26 Honda with his teammate, Marcus Ericsson rounding out the top five.
The race was run from start to finish without a yellow flag, but the start of the race was delayed until the second lap because of a glitch in Scott Dixon’s hybrid engine.
Dixon’s car died on the pace lap and was left stranded on track. He was towed back to the garage with a last-place finish.
It was a side-by-side restart on the backstretch down from the keyhole on lap 3 with Dixon out of competition. Palou got a great start from the pole.
“It was kinda weird, there were no alarms but when I looked down, something started discharging the capacitor immediately at an excessive rate,” Dixon said. “Some kind of failure there with the power side of the hybrid. Definitely not a great way to start up for the first time. Didn’t even make the warmup lap.
“A lot of unknowns right now. Honda and everybody else will try to figure out what the issue is and try to get it refired to at least go back out.”
Lundgaard and Rasmussen raced side-by-side, wheel-to-wheel in some fierce racing on lap 4.
Teams on the three-stop strategy started to make early pit stops in an attempt to gain an advantage over the teams that elected to conserve fuel and energy.
Dixon’s Honda returned to the track on lap 25 after the hybrid was recharged.
Palou, the leader, pitted on lap 30. That put Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske in the lead until he pitted after 31 laps.
After pit stops were complete, Palou led O’Ward by 4.894 seconds.
Palou was the leader at the halfway, lap 40, four seconds ahead of O’Ward and 11 seconds over McLaughlin.
O’Ward was able to cut into Palou’s lead, chopping it to 0.4 seconds before O’Ward dove onto pit lane on lap 54. Palou stayed on track to complete another circuit before coming onto pit lane after 56 laps.
Palou had a momentary bobble trying to leave the pits and with O’Ward’s Chevrolet charging at full speed, he passed Palou leaving the pits to take the lead.
With 10 laps to go, however, Palou had cut O’Ward’s lead to 0.8 seconds as O’Ward’s Chevrolet was in the dirty air of traffic.
This was the first race for IndyCar’s Hybrid Engine.
Six of the final eight races for the IndyCar Series will be on the ovals beginning with next weekend’s Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa.