Palou Stays Perfect With Thrilling Thermal Club Victory

THERMAL, Calif. — Pato O’Ward may have won the pole and led the lion’s share of laps in the Coachella Valley Sunday afternoon, but defending NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou simply would not be denied.

The three-time titlist from Chip Ganassi Racing used a power move on his Arrow McLaren rival in turn seven, with the help of a fresh set of red alternate tires, to take the lead with 10 laps left in the Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix.

From there, Palou drove away by 10.1854 seconds to earn back-to-back checkered flags not only in races at Thermal Club, but also in the first two rounds of the NTT IndyCar Series as a whole.

Sunday’s triumph gave Palou his 13th career Indy car victory, all of which have come on road and street courses.

O’Ward led 51 of 65 caution-free laps between pit cycles around the 3.067-mile private circuit before Palou ultimately tracked him down.

Palou made his final pit stop on lap 49, where the DHL Honda crew hustled to get him back on track with a chance at the leading Arrow McLaren duo of O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard.

Meanwhile, 42 seconds up the road, O’Ward’s crew informed him it was time for his third and final pit stop. Forced to leave the hairpin pit exit at a snail’s pace, along came the battle for second and the race lead all at once.

Palou and Lundgaard put on a tremendous battle from turn one all the way to the back section of the course, in what Townsend Bell called “a quadruple cross-up” for its combined precision and chaos.

It ultimately allowed Palou to pull off the improbable. In the span of roughly six laps, the Spaniard made up a nine-and-a-half second gap on O’Ward. It all came together for the race lead with 12 to go, where lap traffic became a factor.

Palou was able to use the slower car of Louis Foster to his advantage, and in the next two laps, he made it to O’Ward’s sidepod. The Spaniard then used the slipstream off the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to take the lead, and didn’t look back after that.

Though Palou has made winning consecutive races to open the season look easy, he gave much of the credit for the back-to-back scores to his over-the-wall crew.

“What an amazing weekend. Honestly, we had a really fast car since practice, and they executed very well, everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing (on) the (No.) 10 car,” Palou said.

Each team was allotted six hard and four soft compound tire sets for the race weekend, with a required minimum of two laps on both compounds during the Sunday headliner.

With freedom to run multiple unique strategy plans, the goal for Palou and the DHL team was to set themselves up to be strongest in the final stint.

“We knew we were aggressive to start with the used reds, and we knew that we were looking towards the end of the race,” Palou tipped. “I have a great team, honestly. They give me a great car that I can manage, that I feel comfortable with, and they make it look easy.

“They do all the work; I just try to make it happen.”

Taking the second spot on the podium was polesitter O’Ward, the dominant driver of the day. He took took his late defeat in stride for the most part, knowing his team had already taken a risk on tire strategy early on.

“We took a gamble; it didn’t work out for us. We used our new reds in the start, because we didn’t quite know what the [degradation profile] was going to be like,” O’Ward explained. “The blacks really kind of took a turn in the negative towards the end of the race, and that was it.

“We didn’t really stand a fighting chance (during the final run).”

The weekend started with O’Ward's first NTT P1 Award since July 2022 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, as well as the first Arrow McLaren lockout of the front-row since their return to the series.

It ended in the first time Arrow McLaren had two cars on the podium since 2023, as O’Ward’s teammate Lundgaard crossed third in Thermal’s first ever points-paying NTT IndyCar Series event.

The track featured the non-championship $1 Million Challenge last year ahead of this season’s race.

Andretti Global’s Colton Herta and Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist were fourth and fifth, respectively, while the greatest story out of the race for Team Penske was Will Power – who charged forward 15 positions on track from 21st on the grid to finish in sixth place.

There were five lead changes among O’Ward, Palou, and the Java House Chevrolet of Ed Carpenter Racing’s Alexander Rossi, who led briefly during the first green-flag pit cycle on lap 18.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden ended the day just outside the top 10 in 13th, advancing fourpositions from his qualifying spot.

Meanwhile, Devlin DeFrancesco was the first driver to finish one lap down in 20th, largely due to contact with Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin shortly after the initial start.

The incident led to a drive-through penalty for DeFrancesco during the race and a heated discussion with McLaughlin after the checkered flag. McLaughlin ended the day last in the 27-car field.

Palou leads the championship with a commanding 102 points, while O’Ward sits 39 points behind in second. Scott Dixon, Lundgaard, and Rosenqvist are the rest of the top five in the early standings.

The NTT IndyCar Series calendar takes another three-week pause before resuming on the streets of Long Beach, Calif.

Broadcast coverage of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is set for Sunday, April 13 at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on FOX, the IndyCar Radio Network, and Sirius XM IndyCar Radio, channel 218.