Alex Palou dominates to second win of the season in Detroit

The NTT IndyCar Series raced the streets of Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday afternoon in the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. This race used to be held in Belle Isle. Part of the racetrack was used by Formula 1 from 1983 to 1991.

Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou won the pole for this race. It was his third pole of the season, and Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin started second. This race featured plenty of contact and we didn’t have to wait for the first one to occur.

The drivers were antsy to start the race as the field was to spread apart just as the green flag was about to wave only for the first caution as the field had not condensed into a close figuration. It was declared a false start. The drivers got back in formation and the race finally started on the second lap.

Heading into turn three, Callum Ilott ran into Kyle Kirkwood, smashing the back wing, while destroying the front of his car for the second caution of the race. Ilott was the first driver out of the race and Kirkwood went to pit road to get a new rear wing.

Alex Palou was still leading the race as they finally got going on the seventh lap. Later in the race, some of the drivers started their first round of pit stops. The pit roads were in a weird location and it was set up in a dual formation rather than a single formation as you would normally see on pit road. I give credit to IndyCar for doing something different. Romain Grosjean missed the turn-eight corner and had to turn around before pitting on lap 29.

On lap 36, Pato O’Ward was exiting pit road and his car shut off. O’Ward told his crew chief that the drive shaft was broken. However, turns out the left rear tire was installed properly and caused the car to shut off. His crew fix the tire and got him back out but he went two laps down.

O’Ward was driving aggressively trying to get back on the lead lap and it cost him. He forced his way past Santino Ferrucci and crashed into the wall at turn nine, damaging the left front for the third caution of the race. While the race was under caution, Graham Rahal hit the wall at turn eight. Most of the drivers were able to avoid hitting him except for Benjamin Pederson, who ran into the back of his car which extended the caution. The race would resume on lap 56.

Will Power passed Palou at turn three for the lead. He led nine laps before Palou passed him after Power locked up his brakes at turn three on lap 65. Both Palou and Power pitted a lap later and Alexander Rossi led a lap. Josef Newgarden, Kyle Kirkwood, and Marcus Ericsson also led laps before it cycled back to Alex Palou.

The caution would come out again on lap 82 when Romain Grosjean crashed at turn four for the fifth caution of the race. The race restarted on lap 87 but quickly went back to a caution after David Malukas crashed in turn nine. The race restarted on lap 91 but the caution flag waved again when Sting Ray Robb and Santino Ferrucci made contact at the hairpin in turn three.

The final restart happened on lap 96. Alex Palou defended his position as Will Power tried to pass. Behind him, Scott Dixon got into Power that slightly lifted his car in the air at turn three. Power returned the favor at turn four to retake second place.

Meanwhile, the Arrow McLaren teammates of Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi made contact fighting for the third position. Rossi fell back to fifth place. Up front, Palou won his second race of the season by 1.1843 seconds over Will Power. He now has six wins in his IndyCar career.

He is now the second driver to win more than two races this year along with Josef Newgarden. In addition, he’s won two of the last three races.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Felix Rosenqvist third, Scott Dixon fourth, Alexander Rossi fifth, Kyle Kirkwood sixth, Scott McLaughlin seventh, Marcus Armstrong eighth, Marcus Ericsson ninth, and Josef Newgarden tenth.

“The No. 10 Ridgeline Lubricants car was on point today,” said Palou. “Super proud of the job we did. It was tricky there at the end, man, with those (worn) tires couldn’t really get to temperature (on restarts). We had an issue that was probably my fault, but then we got stuck there. I couldn’t really upshift. Proud that we got it back and that we got another win this year.”

“Yeah, very satisfied. I mean, starting on the blacks (primary Firestone tires), everything played out as we thought,” said Will Power. “I guess we were worried when the yellow came. Everyone packs up. But then we got a yellow again, so that kind of helped us. We had 10 laps to push hard. I got Palou on the restart. Then they went off, he got me back. Yeah, I couldn’t get him. I tried everything.”

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to Road America on Sunday, June 18^th, at 1 pm on USA Network. 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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