INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Palou’s first Indianapolis Grand Prix title fueled his second IndyCar Series title run.
He’s hoping another dominant victory on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course produces a similar result — perhaps even a more monumental win in two weeks.
The Spaniard beat his top his top two challengers off pit row on his final stop Saturday and outmaneuvered three-time race winner Will Power on the race’s only restart to beat Power to the yard of bricks by 6.6106 seconds.
Christian Lundgaard finished third, more than eight seconds behind Palou on the 14-turn 2.439-mile course.
“It’s tough but it’s one of those races that you’re not really limited on the tires, so you can just go hard,” he said. “I would say last year we had a lot more advantage last year than this year, but I would still say the fact we can go 100%, pushing every single lap, maybe that’s why we see a bigger differences.”
For Palou, it was another milestone moment in his fifth IndyCar season.
The 27-year-old led a race-high 39 of 85 laps and captured his 10th career win, his first official win this season and his first win since becoming a father in December. Naturally, he also wished his wife, Esther, a happy Mother’s Day.
Palou did win March’s exhibition all-star race, giving Chip Ganassi Racing three wins in the last four IndyCar events, and he became the first back-to-back Indy GP winner since Power in 2017 and 2018.
The victory also put Palou atop the season standings, 12 points ahead of Power, with the season’s biggest race up next.
Power earned his 31st career runner-up finish, which is sixth all-time. But the Australian with Team Penske still hasn’t won a race since June 2022.
But he was at a significant disadvantage with two team members — strategist Ron Ruzewski and engineer Robbie Atkinson — each serving a two race suspension for a cheating scandal. And yet David Faustino, who made the calls Saturday, still had Power racing near the front until Power’s used red tires wore down during the race’s final stint.
“Just didn’t quite have enough on that restart,” Power said. “I had to lift coming into the last corner, just had too much push. Had to lift, otherwise it would have been an interesting battle into Turn 1. I didn’t know whether to go for the inside or the outside but he made it very clear he was going to blow up the inside, so I kind of went the outside.”
It marked the second straight year Palou dominated the race, though he didn’t come close…
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