Perfect Palou Seizes Another Win In Sonsio Grand Prix

Alex Palou celebrates with his crew in victory lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment photo)

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — After Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou made it quite clear once again that right now, it’s his world and the rest of the NTT IndyCar Series paddock is just living in it.

The driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda found yet another way to prove himself as a generational talent in American open wheel racing, winning from the pole and leading 29 of the 85 laps along the way, after a mid-race pass of early dominator Graham Rahal.

The victory is Palou’s fourth in the first five races of the year, giving up only the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach to Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood. Still, however, Palou finished second to Kirkwood in that affair.

Palou boasts a 1.2 average finish through five races, the best statistical start to an Indy car season since 1964, when four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt won the first seven races that year under United States Auto Club sanction.

The three-time and defending NTT IndyCar Series champion once again gave ample credit to his teammates behind the wall, but with his unfathomable level of recent dominance, major credit is more and more being attributed to the 28-year-old in the cockpit.

“I cannot describe the amazing season we had so far,” Palou exclaimed from victory lane. “I mean, I owe everything to the team, Chip Ganassi Racing, my teammates, and everybody that is working behind the scenes to make me look so fast on track. So, yeah, it’s amazing. It’s unbelievable.”

Palou handed off the lead in the opening right-hand corner to Graham Rahal, but carefully and methodically kept his exceptional pace throughout the event, essentially only falling lower than second position during pit stops until lap 58.

At that juncture, Palou was prowling behind the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver’s rear wing on the long infield straightaway approaching turn eight, a 90-degree left-hander.

In a pass that could only be labeled surgical, Palou carved his way around Rahal, and proceeded to take off to a more than two-second gap in less than two laps.

Final pit stops came for Rahal with 23 laps remaining, in a fight that quickly turned from battling for the race win to struggling to stay in the top five. The final service for the No. 45 was a disaster, impeded by a slow release from the pit box.

Palou’s final stop, however, was all according to plan. He retained the lead on lap 66, and punished the field on lap 68 by laying down the fastest lap of the race overall at a 1:11.9434, gapping second-place runner Pato O’Ward by a full second.

Alex Palou en route to victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. (Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment photo)

But in the end, it wasn’t quite that easy.

With 16 laps to go, a spin from David Malukas brought out a full-course caution for the first time in 408 laps of Indy car competition, going back to lap one on the Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., in March.

The final restart proved futile to any of Palou’s doubters, though. He remained untouchable, gaining more than four seconds over O’Ward in the closing laps.

O’Ward took home second for the Arrow McLaren team, gaining eight positions during the course of the race. Like most of the field this season, the young standout from Mexico is yet again finding himself asking what he has to do to beat Palou.

“Go faster, I guess.” O’Ward admitted plainly. “Good thing is we go really fast in the next one [the Indianapolis 500], and man … this place is special, it really is.

“Good to have two Chevys up there, but yeah, we need to do something to stop this [No.] 10 car. These cars are really, really on a roll. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, especially in IndyCar.”

Team Penske’s Will Power claimed the final step of the podium, improving throughout the day from a seventh-place start. His teammate Scott McLaughlin, a two-time Barber winner, remained constant near the front in finishing fourth.

Behind McLaughliin was the hard-charging Scott Dixon, who blasted up 11 positions in the order to round out the top five.

The only other true challenger to Palou seemed to be Rahal, who led 49 laps in the first half of Saturday’s race, but the No. 15 Fifth-Third Bank Honda couldn’t keep the pace to snap a 128-race winless streak, settling for sixth in the finishing order.

Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood, Rinus Veekay, and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top 10, with Veekay notably being the day’s biggest mover, improving 15 spots on-track from a 24th-place start.

The NTT IndyCar Series will stay on the property for the remainder of the Month of May, as The Greatest Spectacle in Racing – the 109th Indianapolis 500 – looms on the horizon.

It’s a race in which Palou hopes to find himself in similar surroundings after 500 miles.

“Hopefully we get to stay here [victory circle] again in a couple of weeks for the biggest race of the year,” Palou noted.

Broadcast coverage of the 109th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge is scheduled for Sunday, May 25 at 10 a.m. ET, live on FOX, the IndyCar Radio Network, and SiriusXM IndyCar Nation, channel 218.

Practice for the ‘500’ is scheduled to kick off Tuesday, May 13 at noon ET, with coverage airing on FS2.