IndyCar

Palou continues IndyCar domination after Herta fades

by Jack Benyon
5 min read

McLaren Formula 1 junior Alex Palou won his third IndyCar race from the last four at Road America as the Chip Ganassi Racing driver continues to destroy the competition.

He is now 74 points ahead in the championship.

After winning the last race in Detroit most drivers got a break, but Palou went to the Hungaroring to test McLaren’s F1 car before returning to qualify third for this weekend despite crashing in second practice.

The track was resurfaced before the event, creating a very rapid pace but going off-line was particularly painful as we saw a spate of off-track moments.

Palou had to wait patiently for the win as Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta dominated the race until the last stint.

Herta maintained the lead through the first two stints despite multiple cautions, but he was jumped by Josef Newgarden and Palou on the penultimate pitstop of the race.

At the subsequent restart both Palou and Herta jumped Newgarden and then Herta passed Palou which gave him the net lead before pitting one lap before everybody else, giving him the undercut to put him out two seconds clear of Palou, with the benefit of a quicker pitstop and out lap.

Team Penske’s Will Power, who pitted three more times in the 50-lap race than Palou, was way off strategy having taken advantage of multiple cautions to fill his fuel tank and trend forwards each time, then went on a long stint on the soft tyres for the end of the race.

On Saturday he had been crashed into by Scott Dixon in practice, shoved him afterwards, and then a late red flag ruined his qualifying as he managed 22nd. He subsequently called Romain Grosjean a “piece of crap” for a block in practice and slated the track too.

Power finished 13th after his late pitstop.

Herta assumed the lead after Power’s stop but had to save fuel and Palou zeroed in.

Palou was through with seven laps to go with an incredible outside of Turn 1 move for the win, establishing one of the biggest championship leads at this stage of the season in memory.

Indianapolis 500 winner Newgarden followed Palou past Herta, to erode Marcus Ericsson’s second place margin in the championship to seven points having started fourth. It was a strong comeback after the Penske driver had fallen back on the penultimate restart.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward needed a strong race after two crashes in as many races and then was punted wide at Turn 1 on lap one by Kyle Kirkwood, but remained focused and drove back through the field to complete the podium.

Ganassi driver Dixon pulled off the most brilliant comeback from 23rd in qualifying, when he struggled in a back-up car after the Power crash destroyed his main chassis.

In the race he started on the quickly degraded softs and ditched them after the Kirkwood caution at the start, which allowed him to stay on the favourable hard tyre for the rest of the race. He made the most of the opportunity with brilliant moves through the field.

Herta snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory, falling to fifth due to an apparent need to heavily conserve fuel in a result which sums up his rollercoaster season, while Ericsson’s sixth did not tell the story of his day.

He could have been right with Dixon but emerged behind a McLaren fist fight after the last pitstops which held him up. He had to fight back through, costing him precious time. He’d also gone off strategy running the soft tyres in the second stint.

Christian Lundgaard defied the odds to make his softs work for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in the penultimate stint to finish seventh ahead of 18th-place starter Scott McLaughlin and Kirkwood.

Kirkwood – despite his lap one spin and then having to be pushed back into his pit box to avoid an unsafe release from Rinus VeeKay – somehow raced back into the top 10 in a result typical of his trouble-strewn but rapid season to date.

In the last stint he passed Alexander Rossi, who had struggled earlier on the softs.

Agustin Canapino was the top rookie and ran as high as 14th early on.

Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong had been fighting for the win until his team had him stay out under the caution before the second stint which meant he had to pit under green flag conditions on a track over four miles in length.

He went off track late in the race and finished 24th.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 10 1h50m04.664s 1m43.449s 3 51
2 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +4.561s 1m43.775s 3 40
3 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +6.754s 1m44.102s 3 35
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +6.971s 1m44.163s 4 32
5 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 55 33 +10.932s 1m43.935s 3 34
6 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +11.52s 1m43.59s 3 28
7 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +15.883s 1m44.065s 3 26
8 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +16.282s 1m43.742s 3 24
9 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +17.548s 1m44.293s 4 22
10 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +19.637s 1m43.919s 3 20
11 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +21.473s 1m44.446s 3 19
12 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +22.105s 1m44.093s 4 18
13 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 7 +25.669s 1m42.892s 7 18
14 Simon Pagenaud Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +31.429s 1m44.078s 3 16
15 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +33.623s 1m43.835s 4 15
16 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +34.3s 1m44.17s 3 14
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +42.466s 1m44.507s 4 13
18 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +42.953s 1m44.782s 3 12
19 Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +44.8s 1m44.781s 4 11
20 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +49.089s 1m44.662s 4 10
21 Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 55 0 +51.976s 1m45.176s 4 9
22 Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +1m09.665s 1m44.558s 4 8
23 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 55 0 +1m23.64s 1m44.224s 4 7
24 Marcus Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 54 5 +1 lap 1m43.376s 4 7
25 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 54 0 +1 lap 1m43.239s 5 5
26 Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 54 0 +1 lap 1m43.821s 7 5
David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 31 0 DNF 1m44.893s 2 5
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