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Fox Sports
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Fox Sports
INDYCAR Power Rankings: Santino Ferrucci enters the chat
Is there a new No. 1 considering Alex Palou didn't win at the Detroit Grand Prix? Yeah, right. Palou has won five of the first seven races and remains atop these power rankings. INDYCAR now heads into a weekend off before a June 15 night race at World Wide Technology Raceway, commonly known as Gateway (outside of St. Louis). Dropped out: Felix Rosenqvist (Last Week: 5), Marcu Ericsson (LW: 9) On the verge: Marcus Ericsson, Felix Rosenqvist, Alexander Rossi 10. Santino Ferrucci (LW: Not Ranked) Ferrucci's second-place finish gave the A.J. Foyt Racing driver back-to-back top fives, vaulting him to 10th in the standings. He started the race 21st, so to execute the strategy well enough and hold on to second was impressive. 9. Josef Newgarden (LW: NR) Newgarden had a horrible qualifying, as he started 24th and was able to race his way to ninth. That's not what the Team Penske driver wanted, but at least he entered the weekend knowing he had a decent race. 8. Scott Dixon (LW: 8) Dixon finished 11th at Detroit after starting 16th. And that was thanks in part to a six-spot grid penalty for already being on his fifth engine with none of his previous four engines meeting the mileage minimum. The Ganassi driver, who was the defending Detroit race winner, is seventh in the standings. 7. Scott McLaughlin (LW: 6) Working his way back to 12th after a stop-and-go penalty for avoidable contact when he turned Nolan Siegel, McLaughlin can at least feel a little better than he did after the Indy 500 when he didn't complete a lap. He is eighth in the standings. 6. Colton Herta (LW: 10) Herta won the Detroit pole and said he needed to have a solid Sunday. He did, as he finished third. The Andretti driver finally has a podium this season, and he has four finishes of seventh or better. 5. Will Power (LW: 7) Power placed fourth with a fine drive at Detroit and moved up to fifth in the standings. The Penske driver has five finishes of sixth or better this year. 4. Christian Lundgaard (LW: 4) Lundgaard started fourth and finished eighth at Detroit. The McLaren driver was probably hoping for more, considering where he started. He sits fourth in the standings. 3. Pato O'Ward (LW: 2) O'Ward finished one spot ahead of his Arrow McLaren teammate Lundgaard as he finished seventh. He remained second in the series standings but did miss an opportunity to potentially gain significant points on Palou. 2. Kyle Kirkwood (LW: 3) Kirkwood picked up his second win of the season. He had a great weekend, minus the push from Power in practice Friday. He arguably had the best car and the best strategy and the best execution on the way to the win. He moved to third in the series standings. 1. Alex Palou (LW: 1) A 25th-place finish after being wrecked by David Malukas ended Palou's incredible start of five wins and one second-place finish. Malukas got a stop-and-go for avoidable contact, but that was little consolation to the Ganassi driver, whose race was ruined. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. recommended Get more from NTT INDYCAR SERIES Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Indianapolis Star
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
'We should beat him': Kyle Kirkwood's win gives Andretti Global confidence it can beat Alex Palou
DETROIT — Kyle Kirkwood started to crack a wide smile, but the Andretti Global driver quickly caught himself. A driver sailing into the wall on a late-race restart while trailing the car that would eventually finish third isn't a laughing matter, but then again, being on the wrong side of the better part of three months of Alex Palou's nearly unceasing domination of the 2025 IndyCar campaign has left the championship leader's rivals with in peculiar emotional spot. Do you step back and appreciate the history you're witnessing — a start to an IndyCar season not duplicated since 1979? Do you let the Chip Ganassi Racing Driver's five wins in six starts, including his first Indianapolis 500, agitate you to no end? Do you do your best to ignore it and shrug off references to a triple-digit championship gap while nearly every week getting asked questions about it again and again? And so when Kirkwood was asked whether his strategist Bryan Herta told the eventual Detroit Grand Prix race-winner over the radio that Palou had crashed out of Sunday's action on a Lap 72 restart — to no fault of the Ganassi driver's own — Kirkwood began to smile, as he said, 'No he didn't, but I knew it.' 'I shouldn't be smiling thinking that, but I knew that he crashed, and I knew we needed to capitalize on some points today, given the outcome for him,' Kirkwood continued. 'I feel bad for him, but this also does help us a lot with the points.' For weeks, if not months, Palou's rivals had been trying their darndest to speak into the existence of Palou's IndyCar reign — frankly not knowing what else to do as the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 10 team, led by lead engineer Julian Robertson, crew chief Ricky Davis and strategist Barry Wanser, made the right calls at every turn, executed flawless pit stops at every opportunity and engineered a speedy race car at all sorts of circuits — all with a three-time series champion in the cockpit to boot. And yet, as Palou learned the hard way during his first championship run at World Wide Technology Raceway, sometimes chaos can creep up behind you and tag you at a moment's notice with a simple lock of a trailing car's tires. 'Time will tell. You don't know if this run ends this weekend or next weekend or the weekend after. You have no idea,' fourth-place championship challenger Christian Lundgaard said Friday in Detroit. 'But you guys know as well as we do that (Palou's) run is going to end at some point. He can't win the rest of the races for the rest of this life. 'But the smallest little bit of contact, and he's out of the race. It could be his fault or not, and that can end his streak.' That's precisely how Palou's 112-point championship lead on Pato O'Ward, who finished third in the Indy 500 but lost 15 points on the runaway championship leader, shrunk back to double digits at 90 points at the checkered flag of the Detroit Grand Prix, despite a rather lackluster race weekend from the young Mexican driver that saw O'Ward only finish seventh. And it's how Kirkwood, who at the checkered flag of last weekend's 500 appeared to be trailing Palou by 126 points, only for a post-race tech inspection failure to widen that gap to 150, now sits 102 points back after his second win of the year, still as IndyCar's only non-Palou race winner through seven of 17 events this year. A race that had featured two instances of loose wheel-induced crashes and a beef-sparking spin was set to restart with just under 30 laps to go, following a caution to clear Callum Ilott's mangled No. 90 Prema Racing Chevy off the track. To their incredibly good fortune, Santino Ferrucci, Kyffin Simpson and Marcus Armstrong had pitted from 15th, 16th and 19th, respectively, just a couple laps before Ilott's day would come to an end, leaving the trio in the catbird seat as the other 22 cars dove into the pits, leaving them suddenly running 1-2-3 on equal strategy to the rest of the field, forced to fend off a hard-charging pack of five cars that had run up at the front virtually the entire day, but instead of first through fifth, now occupied fourth through eighth. Back to the Motor City: IndyCar to return to Detroit Grand Prix for at least 3 more years Whether or not they leapfrogged the new cars ahead or not, Kirkwood, Will Power and Colton Herta (who ran 1-2-3 before the caution and 4-5-6 at the time of the restart) were in line at the moment to make up some chunk of points on Palou, who sat seventh in line at the time of the return to green flag racing, but whether that bite out of Palou's lead would be meaningful or marginal would depend on how effective a sprint to the finish they'd go on to make. 'We had to pass some cars out there,' Kirkwood said. 'It was some low-percentage moves, I'm not going to lie, that I made. But you have to on street courses.' One corner after a return to green-flag racing, not a low-percentage move, but locked up tires from the car trailing behind of AJ Foyt Racing's David Malukas sent the No. 4 Chevy skidding into the back of Palou and ended with the No. 10 in the tires and Palou's day done down in 25th. 'It's very unfortunate after an amazing recovery this weekend when we didn't have much pace,' Palou told the Fox broadcast after being released from the infield care center. 'It doesn't feel great, but there's not much we could've done there.' As he cycled around and saw the AMR Safety Team trucks flanking the yellow and red machine of the championship leader, Kirkwood said he didn't so much change his focus, but he realized this even deeper: 'I need to win this race," he said. 'I'd known that anywhere we ended up toward the front that we were going to have a good points day, and that was going to help us a lot.' Notably, O'Ward, Lundgaard (fourth in the championship, eighth in Sunday's race) and Felix Rosenqvist (sixth in the championship, 21st in Sunday's race after a late crash) weren't his direct late-race competitors, which made the precise spot Kirkwood finished less of a major hang-up. And yet, IndyCar's proverbial street course king — winner of four of IndyCar's last 11 street races — motored up to the front for what was a relatively comfortable victory by the checkered flag, even after weathering a late-race red flag that bunched back up the field behind Kirkwood with 12 laps to go. 'I'm fine with that,' Kirkwood said, when asked about the importance of both his win and Palou's DNF that handed the championship leader just five points compared to Kirkwood's 53. 'It's super important, but we've got to keep doing it. 'As we know (Palou) can skip out on still a handful more races and be absolutely fine. It's unfortunate for him that he ended up in the wall, but it actually helps us a lot in the championship. It puts us …' And then reality set in for Kirkwood, as he was clarified of the massive undertaking that still lies ahead with 10 races to go. '102 points? That's still a mile away, but it puts you back in a position where you feel like you might be able to get that back,' he continued. 'But I'm sure we're going to go to road courses, and Palou is going to do his thing. So we'll see what happens.' First is a stop at World Wide Technology Raceway, perhaps a proving ground for an Andretti Global group that increasingly over last year has found race-winning short oval pace that had been missing from the team for years. Down the stretch a year ago, Herta found himself in the thick of the fight during a late-race restart, and at the next couple ovals on the calendar, the No. 26 driver would log a podium (The Milwaukee Mile) and his first oval win (Nashville Superspeedway), while Kirkwood took pole in the Nashville finale and found himself disappointed in fourth place by race's end. Palou, though, finished 3-for-6 on short oval top 5s in 2024 and now can call himself an IndyCar oval winner after the 500, and at the two races that follow next on the calendar, Road America and Mid-Ohio, the Spaniard has logged seven top-4 finishes in eight combined starts during his CGR tenure, including three wins and a sweep of the two-race stretch in 2023. As Kirkwood pointed out, super-abrasive road courses like The Thermal Club, Barber Motorsports Park and the IMS road course, a trio that Palou swept in 2025, are done for 2025, and the Andretti Global camp feels relatively confident in their increasingly competitive traditional IndyCar road course package. But already with five wins in seven starts in 2025, with four tracks left where Palou has won before in his still relatively young IndyCar career, it's pertinent to capitalize massively on any other days like Sunday. 'We've just got to get back to our winning ways,' Kirkwood said. 'Because we can't let him win any more races.' Added Herta earlier this weekend: 'I know we can beat (Palou). I know if we do all the right stuff, we have a really good chance to beat him, and we should beat him if we do everything the right way.
Fox Sports
29-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox Sports
Getting Alex Palou to talk possible INDYCAR records is as tough as beating him
Alex Palou has won the Indianapolis 500 and appears well on his way to winning a fourth INDYCAR title in the last five years. What more does he have to accomplish? "Another championship and another 500 and so on and so on and so on," Palou said. "There's a lot. There's many races that we need to win." Yeah, and how many is that? Palou swears he isn't looking at trying to reach 10 victories (or a record 11th) in one season after winning five of the first six races this year with 11 more to go. At the Detroit Grand Prix this Sunday (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX), Palou seeks to become the first driver since 2000 to win the Indy 500 and the following race. "I don't think that way," Palou said. "I think more of I would love to win Detroit [this weekend] now after the 500. It's pretty tough, and we've not seen that happen very often, that after the 500 to win the next race. That's the goal." Palou does have "just" 16 victories in the series, which ranks him tied for 31st (with Dan Wheldon) on the all-time list — he would need to win 15 more to get to the top-10 all-time and 26 more to get to fifth. A.J. Foyt has the record with 67 victories. A fourth title would tie him for third on the list behind seven-time champ A.J. Foyt and six-time champ Scott Dixon. Mario Andretti, Sebastien Bourdai and Dario Franchitti each have four. Only three drivers have won three consecutive titles (Palou has won two in a row), and Bourdais' four consecutive Champ Car titles is the INDYCAR record. Palou's boss, car owner Chip Ganassi, dismissed talk of trying to reach those benchmarks. "You know what I need to talk about? Detroit," Ganassi said. "We just try to do the best job every day that we can. And if you do that, the long term takes care of itself. "When you want to talk about start talking about comparisons and history ... all that stuff, that's for you guys, not me." But chasing records can be a storyline and a sign of accomplishment, and Ganassi knows that. "Records are only important if you're close to breaking one," Ganassi said. The most immediate record Palou could achieve would be wins in a season, which is 10 (Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser in 1970). The more modern era record is eight (Michael Andretti in 1991, Al Unser Jr. in 1994 and Bourdais in 2007). "I don't have a number," Palou said about wins for this year. "Winning five is already the most that I've won in an INDYCAR season. So it's pretty cool." The 28-year-old Palou could have more than a decade left in INDYCAR, and if he continues this tear, he could potentially break many records. "In my mind, I don't have a list of stuff that I want to accomplish," Palou said. "I have accomplished a lot more than I've ever thought and a lot more than I could have put on any list. "It's more about every day trying to beat the competition at every single race that we can and trying to do the best that we have." Not only will Palou likely not continue this tear — he'll admit that himself — but there is also a new car coming. INDYCAR would like to have the new car ready for the 2027 season. "Any time a new car comes along, it jumbles the field," Ganassi said. But, as Ganassi said, the focus isn't on 2027 or beyond. It's on Detroit. But it's been hard for Palou to focus on Detroit during an intense media tour in New York City. "I don't feel as prepared as I should," Palou said Wednesday at the Empire State Building. "But on the flight [Thursday] to Detroit, I should have a couple of hours that should be OK to be at least ready for a track walk [that night] and just to have an idea of what the schedule is going to be for the weekend." If he does win Detroit or earns a few more wins heading into August, the record for wins in a season could become a focus. "Records are made to be broken and if somebody hasn't done it in the modern era, why shouldn't it be us to do it?" Ganassi said. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. recommended Get more from NTT INDYCAR SERIES Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Fox News
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox News
Indy 500 winner Alex Palou pumps brakes on possible F1 move
Print Close By Ryan Gaydos Published May 28, 2025 Alex Palou is on top of the open-wheel racing world as he won Sunday's Indianapolis 500 for the first time in his career and notched his fifth win in six IndyCar races this season. Palou appeared to be cemented in his IndyCar seat for the foreseeable future as he made clear that joining Formula 1 wasn't in the cards. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON "(F1) is not calling me anymore. I still follow it. It's a huge series. It's amazing. I'm a big fan, but I don't think they're having as much fun as I'm having here," Palou told the Indy Star. "I don't see people celebrating with their wives and their kids as much as we do. I don't see them hanging in the bus lot or having dinner with their mechanics. I only enjoy driving and having fun and being with my people, so I think (F1) is the total opposite." Palou dipped his toe in the F1 waters in 2022 when he signed with McLaren's Testing of Previous Cars program. He was then named a reserve driver for the 2023 season but never raced in an official event. CONOR DALY ADMITS TO PERFORMING GROSS ACT WHILE WAITING FOR INDY 500 TO BEGIN He participated in four races in Formula 2 in 2017 and drove full time in Formula 3 in 2018, finishing in seventh in the drivers' championship. Palou joined IndyCar in 2020 with Dale Coyne Racing. He moved to Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021. He's won the IndyCar championship three times and is in line for a fourth. After the Indy 500 win, Ganassi called him the "best driver." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "I think he's one of the greats. It's that simple," Ganassi said. "Certainly we've had some great drivers on our team, and he's right there, at worst, shoulder-to-shoulder with all the rest of them." Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter . Print Close URL
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- Automotive
- Epoch Times
Spain's Alex Palou Wins Indy 500
INDIANAPOLIS—Alex Palou took the ceremonial swig of milk in victory lane at the Indianapolis 500. He allowed his wife to have a sip, she in turn gave a sip to their baby, and team owner Chip Ganassi ended up with the bottle and took a drink, as well. 'I have to tell you, it was the best milk I ever had,' Palou said. The first Spaniard to win 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing' then took a victory lap with his entourage around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the back of a pickup truck. At one point, Palou climbed onto its roof and raised his arms in triumph, the winning wreath draped around his neck. He briefly lost his balance and Ganassi instinctively reached out to grab his star driver. No need. Palou rarely makes a wrong move. Palou came to the speedway as the two-time defending IndyCar champion—he has three titles in four years—and had opened this year with victories in four of the first five races. It's the kind of start not seen since 1964, when A.J. Foyt won the first seven races of the season, including the Indy 500. Related Stories 5/24/2025 5/18/2025 But it was win No. 6 that Palou had circled on his calendar. Without an Indy 500 win, he said, his career would be incomplete. 'Like he said last week, if he was to go through his whole career and not win here at Indianapolis, it wouldn't be a complete career,' Ganassi said. 'I don't want to say his career is complete now—he's got a lot in him yet. Look at the last five, six races we've had. It's just incredible. He's on a roll.' Such a roll that IndyCar officials were trying to hustle along the postrace commitments for Palou to get him downtown to watch the Indiana Pacers play the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals. Palou on Saturday wore a Tyrese Haliburton jersey in the Indy 500 parade. 'That's going to help some people in Indiana to know me,' Palou said. Palou was in fuel-saving mode over the closing laps, following former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Ericsson. Palou got tired of staying put with 16 laps remaining and charged ahead—a move Ericsson said 'will keep me up at night. What I did and what I didn't do.' Palou was never challenged from there, taking the checkered flag as a crash brought out a caution. He stopped the car just beyond the Yard of Bricks, climbing out of it and nearly losing his balance as he raised his arms in triumph. Palou jumped down and took off in a run down the front stretch, pulling off his gloves and tossing them behind him, and ultimately was engulfed by his father, Ramon, and his team in a jubilant celebration. Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti both hugged him, a pair of former Ganassi Indy 500 winners welcoming him into their exclusive club. He wasn't sure what the win will do for him Spain, which celebrates Formula 1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz Jr., but Palou said for the first time he can recall he saw throngs of fans with Spanish flags chanting his name at an IndyCar race. 'It makes it extra special that I'm the first Spanish driver to win it,' Palou said. 'But honestly, if I was the 50th Spanish driver to win, I would be as happy as I am now.' Meanwhile, Ericsson climbed from his car in pit lane and pressed his hands to his face, the disappointment of coming oh-so-close to a second Indianapolis 500 victory etched across his face. David Maluks was third for A.J. Foyt Racing. 'It's pretty painful,' Ericsson said of his second career Indy 500 runner-up finish. 'I need to look at it again. You replay it in your head a million times after the finish, wondering what I could have done differently. Second means nothing in this race.' Josef Newgarden's bid to win three consecutive Indy 500s ended with a fuel pump issue. He was trying to become the first driver to come from the back row to win because he and Team Penske teammate Will Power were dropped to the back of the field for failing inspection before the final rounds of qualifying. Power wound up 19th, the highest-finishing Penske driver on a miserable day for the organization owned by Roger Penske. He earlier this week fired his top three IndyCar executives for a second technical infraction in just over a year, and has had to defend the optics of his teams failing inspections when he also owns IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500. Penske has won the Indy 500 a record 20 times. It was the sixth Indy 500 win for Ganassi, who has been on a dominating wave since hiring Palou before the 2021 season. Palou won the championship in his first year with the team, added two more titles, and now seems on pace for a fourth one. 'I'll tell you what, that kid's a good driver. I think he's off to a good start,' Ganassi said. 'We're gonna have a good season. It might be OK. Yeah, might be okay. Might be looking at a championship.' Ganassi also vowed that winning the Indy 500 win 'is going to make Alex Palou's career. It is going to make his life.' Palou started the race tied with Pato O'Ward as the co-favorites, listed at +500 by BetMGM Sportsbook. O'Ward finished fourth—the fifth time in six career starts the Mexican has finished sixth or higher. Kyle Larson won't complete 'the double' after crashing out of the Indianapolis 500 before he headed to North Carolina to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race. By Jenna Fryer
