Peerless Alex Palou Marches into May with Cruise to Barber Victory
INDYCAR
The march through May is underway for Alex Palou after his dominant victory Sunday in the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst on Barber Motorsports Park.
Palou earned his third victory in four races this season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, driving his No. 10 HRC Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to a 16.0035-second victory over Christian Lundgaard in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. It was the widest margin of victory in a series race since Scott Dixon won by 22.2256 seconds in August 2023 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
SEE: Race Results
'It was a perfect day, a perfect weekend,' Palou said. 'The car was amazing, super fast. I had a ton of fun.
'I was a bit lonely there, but I loved it. It was an amazing day.'
It was the 14th victory of Palou's career, coming on the same circuit where he scored his first win, in 2021 with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Palou led 81 of 90 laps today from the pole and increased his lead in the series standings to 60 points over Lundgaard entering two races this month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Sonsio Grand Prix on Saturday, May 10 on the road course and the 109th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on Sunday, May 25.
Three-time and two-time reigning series champion Palou has won the last two Sonsio Grands Prix, while he seeks his first career Indianapolis 500 victory.
2023 and 2024 Barber winner Scott McLaughlin completed the podium finishers, third in the No. 3 Good Ranchers Team Penske Chevrolet.
Rinus VeeKay placed fourth in the No. 18 askROI Honda, as he has led Dale Coyne Racing to its best start to a season since 2020. This was VeeKay's best result since finishing fourth in July 2022 at Iowa Speedway for Ed Carpenter Racing.
Two-time series champion Will Power rounded out the top five finishers in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, his third consecutive top-six result this season.
Checkout time came early for Palou. He jumped to the lead at the green flag and never surrendered it except for cycling through his three pit stops.
McLaughlin stayed close on the first two trips around the 17-turn, 2.3-mile natural-terrain road course, but Palou built a gap of 1.1 seconds after just three laps. And the margin continued to grow, aided by the third consecutive race without a caution period. The last stretch of three straight INDYCAR SERIES races without a yellow flag came in 1986, when consecutive events at Portland, the Meadowlands and Cleveland ran caution-free.
'When the guy is on top of his game, you just can do the best you can, in that regard,' McLaughlin said of Palou. 'I feel like week in and week out, we can challenge him. But if he keeps executing like this, all we can do is execute, as well.
'Props to his team. But it's a long season. It's way too early to be even worrying about points. We've just got to keep being there, and if we're there, we'll be OK.'
Palou surrendered a 4.888-second lead to Lundgaard when he made his final pit stop at the end of Lap 65. But his Chip Ganassi Racing crew was flawless on that and his two earlier stops, and Palou jumped back to the lead for good on Lap 68 after Lundgaard and then Alexander Rossi in the No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet pitted from the lead.
From there, Palou was under no threat. He padded his lead to 7.139 seconds by the end of Lap 73 and cruised to the checkered. The ease of Palou's victory was illustrated by the amount of Push-to-Pass time he had remaining compared to his fellow podium finishers: Palou had 63 unused seconds of overtake assist at the finish, while Lundgaard had 15 and McLaughlin 25.
Along the way to victory, Palou also passed a significant milestone to burnish his growing legend within the sport, leading his 1,000th career lap in the series. Palou reached that mark in his 85th career start, 14 races sooner than his iconic teammate, six-time series champion Dixon, reached 1,000 laps led.
Practice on the IMS road course for the Sonsio Grand Prix starts at 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, May 9, followed by another practice at 1:10 p.m. and NTT P1 Award qualifying at 4:35 p.m. on a full Friday of action. FS2 will cover the first two practices live, while qualifying will be broadcast on FS1. The FOX Sports app and INDYCAR Radio Network will provide live coverage of all three sessions.
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