Alex Palou dominates to first win of the season at Indianapolis

The NTT IndyCar Series kicked off the month of May on Saturday afternoon in the GMR Grand Prix on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It has been an interesting season so far as there have been no repeat winners this year. That trend continued on Saturday.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver Christian Lundgaard started on the pole with Arrow McLaren driver Felix Rosenqvist next to him.

The race got off to a chaotic start on the opening lap when Graham Rahal was hit from behind by Scott McLaughlin, puncturing his right rear tire while everyone scrambled and most of them did a great job avoiding Rahal. However, Romain Grosjean, Scott McLaughlin, and Callum Ilott were not so lucky as all of them pitted for new front wings. Meanwhile, Alex Palou passed Christian Lundgaard at the exit of turn 14 to lead the first lap.

On the second lap, the first and only caution came out when David Malukas cut off his teammate Sting Ray Robb entering turn seven and the two made contact, putting each other out of the race.

More chaos happened on the twelfth lap as Will Power forced Kyle Kirkwood off the road entering turns one and two. Kirkwood went onto the grass and hit Power’s left rear, spinning him out. Race control reviewed the replay and issued an avoidable contact penalty on Kirkwood.

On lap 18, Palou made his first pit stop and Christian Lundgaard went to the lead. For the next 23 laps, Lundgaard, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Ericsson, and Graham Rahal all led laps. During Rahal’s lead, the team was aiming at pitting on lap 33 but came up two laps short and pitted on lap 31. They forced Lundgaard to use his tires to catch them as Alex Palou was closing in.

Alex Palou went back to the lead after Lundgaard made a pit stop. He had Marcus Ericsson chasing him but Palou made his second pit stop of the afternoon and Ericsson went to the lead, followed by Scott Dixon.

On lap 48, Alex Palou went back to the lead and his car was dominant. They made their last pit stop on lap 60 as Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi each took turns leading several laps before pitting themselves. On lap 80, Colton Herta went around Felix Rosenqvist and blocked him entering turn seven and was issued a penalty by having to give back the position to Rosenqvist.

Upfront, Palou led the last 20 laps on his way to dominating for his first win of the season by 16.8006 seconds over Pat O’Ward. Palou led 52 of 85 laps. He is the fifth different winner in the 2023 season. Palou’s last win was the season finale at Laguna Seca in 2022. In addition, Palou is now the new championship leader with a six-point lead over Pato O’Ward.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Alexander Rossi third, Christian Lundgaard fourth, Felix Rosenqvist fifth, Scott Dixon sixth, Josef Newgarden seventh, Marcus Ericsson eighth, Colton Herta ninth, and Graham Rahal tenth.

“What an amazing job by the ten-crew American Legion. First win for them so super happy,” said Palou. “We honestly knew we had a fast car since P1 (first practice) yesterday. The car has been amazing all weekend.

“Once we knew we were starting on reds (Firestone alternate tires), I think we knew we were going to fight for the win. Amazing work by these guys. I just had to execute.”

“Hats off to them. I just think they were extremely strong today. They really were. For us, we’re two, three, and five as a team, and that’s pretty frickin’ phenomenal,” said Pato O’ Ward. “The guys gave us a great race car. We were kind of just running our own race today. We were there fighting with Lundgaard and all of us teammates. Once I got clear, I had to minimize the gap I had to Alex, but I think they were very strong today. We were just hanging on there at the end, trying not to destroy our reds and just bring home some solid points.”

The NTT IndyCar Series next race will be the 107^th running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 28^th, at 11 am on NBC. Subscribe to Fubo to watch all of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season. Purchase tickets for all IndyCar races today on StubHub and Viagogo.

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