IndyCar GP Indy: Palou perfect, beats McLaren drivers, Lundgaard

The Ganassi #10 team played the tire strategy perfectly to allow Palou to lead 52 of the 85 laps and climb to the top of the points standings, while both Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi were able to outfumble and ultimately outpace the #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan car of Lundgaard to complete the podium.

Surprisingly it was pretty much a day to forget for the Penske cars which simply didn’t have the speed to compete at the front.

STORY OF THE RACE

Lundgaard and Rosenqvist elected to start the race on primary tires, and Alex Palou, from third on the grid, was the only driver in the top seven to choose alternates, ahead of Jack Harvey, Pato O’Ward, Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson.

Behind this septet, Marcus Armstrong in another Chip Ganassi Racing car, was the only one of the next seven to choose primaries.

Lundgaard made a great start to get the jump on Rosenqvist, but Palou was all over him using his grippier tires and through Turns 12 and 13 he got past the Rahal Letterman Lanigan car to cross the line first, and the Dane could not retaliate into Turn 1.

Harvey had also passed Rosenqvist to run third, while further around the opening lap Rossi – up from 10^th – used his alternates to outbrake his teammate for fourth. Meanwhile Josef Newgarden was up from 13^th to eighth, while Scott Dixon had lost out in the first corner shuffle and dropped to 16^th.

The yellows flew to retrieve the two Dale Coyne Racing cars of David Malukas and Sting Ray Robb which collided at Turn 7, allowing Scott McLaughlin and Romain Grosjean to pit for new front wings.

On the Lap 6 restart, Palou held off Lundgaard, but Harvey lost out to Rossi on the back straight after a heavy tire lockup into Turn 1. Further back Newgarden passed Ericsson for seventh, while Will Power passed Marcus Armstrong for 12^th. However, when Power tried to take Kirkwood into Turn 1, he ran the Andretti Autosport driver out of road, and as Kirkwood rejoined the track he punted the champion’s Penske into a spin. That dropped Power to the back of the field, and earned Kirkwood a penalty from Race Control that fell in behind Power

Harvey’s flat-spotted tires meant he had dropped behind all three McLarens, Newgarden and Colton Herta by Lap 11.

By lap 13, Palou was five seconds ahead of Lundgaard who was working hard to fend off Rossi. But the crossover regarding which tire was better came just a lap later; the reds started to go off, so Lundgaard closed on Palou, while pulling away from Rossi. Sure enough, Palou and Rossi pitted on Lap 18.

Perhaps surprisingly Lundgaard pitted on Lap 20, taking on a set of alternates but he emerged two seconds behind Palou, while Rosenqvist and O’Ward went two laps longer. On Lap 24, Lundgaard took the net lead from Palou under braking for Turn 7, although teammate Rahal – who had suffered damage in the opening laps and made two stops under yellow – was out front.

O’Ward on alternates passed Rossi on primaries for fifth on Lap 27. Meanwhile RLL didn’t ask off-strategy Rahal to move over for Lundgaard, so the Dane was left in dirty air and was unable to take full advantage of his alternate tires until his teammate pitted on Lap 31. He got the gap out to 2.8s, but then Palou started coming back at him and by Lap 40 Lundgaard’s lead was barely half a second.

O’Ward pitted from fourth to give up his reds for primaries. Lundgaard lost the lead to Palou before he too pulled into the pits to grab a second set of the reds, and emerged 26s off the leader, who then also stopped, and emerged half a car’s length ahead of Lundgaard. But they were both behind O’Ward, for whom the undercut had worked perfectly.

It took the Ganassi driver a couple of attempts to pass the McLaren but Palou got it done on Lap 45, and then into Turn 1 on Lap 46, Lundgaard lunged down the inside of O’Ward to resume his pursuit of Palou. When the 2021 champ passed off-strategy Rahal, this time Rahal allowed Lundgaard through.

Once Dixon – who had recovered well from his first-lap frustration – made his second stop on Lap 49, Palou (primaries) was left leading Lundgaard (alternates) by 1.7s, with O’Ward third on primaries 2.5s back, but 1.5s ahead of Rosenqvist (alternates) and 3.5 ahead of Rossi (primaries).

By Lap 57, Palou had extended his lead to six seconds, and O’Ward had passed Lundgaard, whose alternates were clearly going off. He pitted at the end of Lap 59 to take on a set of primaries for his final stint in this 85-lap race. So as not to be dropped into the danger zone in the event of a caution, Palou was brought in on Lap 60, and he too took on primaries. O’Ward went two laps longer but he took on alternates, and came out between Palou and Lundgaard. These three cycled to the front on Lap 65 when Rossi and Dixon pitted for their final stops, but this now looked easy for Palou, having pulled almost one second per lap on O’Ward to now hold a 10-second lead. Lundgaard on primaries had to hope the reds went off because he was now five seconds behind O’Ward and only one second ahead of the alternate-shod Rossi.

Herta was hoping the opposite, since he was going to come under pressure from Rosenqvist, Dixon and maybe even Newgarden before the race was over.

Rossi passed Lundgaard, who was out of push-to-pass boost, into Turn 7 on Lap 76, and on Lap 81, Herta was called for blocking Rosenqvist and had to cede fifth, allowing the Swede onto the tail of his fellow front-row starter Lundgaard.

Palou won the race by 16.8 seconds ahead of a 2-3-5 finish for Arrow McLaren, as Lundgaard managed to hold off Rosenqvist by less than half a second.

Herta fell back in the final laps allowing Dixon, Newgarden and Ericsson into the top eight. It was a particularly strong salvage job by Dixon after Lap 1 issues, and by Newgarden on a day when Penske wasn’t even the fourth quickest team.

P	Name	Laps	Diff	LapTime	Pits	P2P	Led	ST	Engine	Tire	Team
1	Alex Palou	85	LAP 85	1:13.0780	3	16	52	3	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	Pato O'Ward	85	16.8006	1:14.8518	3	7	2	5	Chevy	A	Arrow McLaren
3	Alexander Rossi	85	18.1448	1:14.5560	3	0	3	10	Chevy	A	Arrow McLaren
4	Christian Lundgaard	85	23.4801	1:13.8913	3	0	13	1	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
5	Felix Rosenqvist	85	23.9258	1:13.6866	3	0	3	2	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
6	Scott Dixon	85	25.5206	1:13.4487	3	7	3	9	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
7	Josef Newgarden	85	26.3159	1:12.8665	3	0		13	Chevy	P	Team Penske
8	Marcus Ericsson	85	31.8308	1:12.8427	3	35	2	7	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
9	Colton Herta	85	38.4189	1:17.3244	3	0		14	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
10	Graham Rahal	85	48.8712	1:14.8029	4	185	7	8	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
11	Romain Grosjean	85	52.5732	1:13.5897	4	37		18	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
12	Will Power	85	59.7698	1:13.5699	3	15		12	Chevy	P	Team Penske
13	Rinus VeeKay	85	67.0708	1:13.7998	3	31		17	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
14	Kyle Kirkwood	85	68.1940	1:14.0916	3	0		6	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport
16	Scott McLaughlin	85	83.6382	1:34.3866	5	51		16	Chevy	P	Team Penske
16	Scott McLaughlin	85	83.6382	1:34.3866	5	51		16	Chevy	P	Team Penske
17	Devlin DeFrancesco	84	1 LAPS	1:13.6809	3	0		15	Honda	P	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
18	Callum Ilott	84	1 LAPS	1:15.3450	4	2		24	Chevy	A	Juncos Hollinger Racing
19	Conor Daly	84	1 LAPS	1:17.4612	3	0		21	Chevy	A	Ed Carpenter Racing
20	Jack Harvey	84	1 LAPS	1:17.3193	3	39		4	Honda	A	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
21	Agustin Canapino	84	1 LAPS	1:14.2292	3	14		25	Chevy	P	Juncos Holling Racing
22	Helio Castroneves	84	1 LAPS	1:14.0003	3	0		26	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
23	Santino Ferrucci	80	5 LAPS	1:14.5265	3	99		27	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
24	Benjamin Pedersen	79	6 LAPS	1:15.0169	4	200		23	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	Simon Pagenaud	58	Mechanical	1:37.7897	3	49		19	Honda	A	Meyer Shank Racing
26	David Malukas	2	Contact	13:03.983	1	187		20	Honda	A	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
27	Sting Ray Robb	1	Contact	1:19.0267		200		22	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR