Alex Palou continues winning streak at Road America

The NTT IndyCar Series continued its 2023 season in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America. Leading up to the race, the track was completely repaved and many drivers had a hard time adjusting to the new track.

Will Power had the most interesting week when he collided with Scott Dixon during practice and exchanged a few words with him and later wanted to punch Romain Grosjean in the face. Alex Palou crashed during practice and the team repaired the car. Little did they know, they built the winning car. Colton Herta started the race on the pole with Pat O’Ward starting second.

Just as the race was getting underway, the first caution came out on the first lap when Kyle Kirkwood lost grip heading into turn one and went around. His car stalled and the safety team was trying to get him restarted but IndyCar officials threw the caution flag.

It was a smart decision by the officials as the safety team tried to get him refired but had to turn his car around to do so and they were not going to have enough time to get him back out onto the track and get to safety before the cars came back around at turn one.

The race restarted on the fourth lap. There was a lot of aggressive driving all over the track. Christian Lundgaard tried to make an aggressive pass on Josef Newgarden for a position but got hip-checked by him and could not make the pass.

Toward the back, the day got worse for Romain Grosjean. He got loose on lap 13 and went into the sandbox at turn three which led to the second caution of the afternoon. Everyone pitted under caution and Herta kept the lead. The race restarted on lap 16.

The drivers had just passed the start/finish line before Jack Harvey hit the left rear of Devlin DeFrancesco and went into the sandbox before hitting the tire wall at turn 15 for the third caution. The race resumed on the 19^th lap. A lap later, Marcus Ericsson and Simon Pagenaud made contact sending Ericsson onto the grass.

On lap 25, David Malukas had a mechanical failure at turn eight that led to the fourth and final caution of the race. During pit stops, Colton Herta lost the lead as he nearly had a collision on pit road with Rinus VeeKay. Marcus Armstrong was now the new leader as he chose not to pit on the last caution. He led five laps before pitting and Will Power got the lead only for Herta to take it back.

Colton Herta dominated this race and it looked like he was on his way to victory. He pitted with 15 to go as Will Power stayed out to lead a few laps along with Alex Palou. Then, Herta’s crew chief called him in with seven laps to go.

NBC Sports broadcaster Townsend Bell did not agree with the call and he was right. The tires were going to wear out on a slick surface and Herta was not happy about the call but pitted anyway. Palou pitted a lap later and this was the difference in the race.

Palou caught Herta and passed him for the lead with five laps to go. Herta fell back to fifth place as Josef Newgarden, Pato O’Ward, and Scott Dixon passed him. Herta was dejected after the race. Meanwhile, Palou drove away and won his third race of the season by 4.5610 seconds over Josef Newgarden. Palou has now won three of the last four races and extended his championship points lead to 74 points over Marcus Ericsson. In addition, it was the 250^th career win for Chip Ganassi Racing.

“This been an amazing weekend. I’m super happy. They gave me the pit stop that gave us the win. It was an amazing day for the No. 10 American Legion Ganassi car, and we’re going to keep it going,” said Palou. “We started with a lot of speed. Big mistake by my part in practice two. We went back on track, and it (car) was even better than in practice two. We’re going to try and keep it rolling. We have an amazing team behind us.”

“It was unclear to me how the race was going to play out at that point,” said Herta. “It’s a frustrating one. We had the best car. We were cruising the whole time. I had so much more in it, and we never really got to show it because we were always saving fuel, trying to go that lap later. That’s a killer.”

“We definitely had a shot at the win today,” said second-place finisher Josef Newgarden. “Palou was just better than us on the final stint. He did a great job. He’s very deserving. In the middle of the race, we had an opportunity. I chose the lane on the restart when we had all the lapped cars and chose the wrong lane with Palou and lost a couple of spots to Colton (Herta) and Pato (O’Ward) and playing catchup. It’s tough when you have the opportunity to win and don’t seal the deal.”

The rest of the top ten finishers were Pato O’Ward third, Scott Dixon fourth, Colton Herta fifth, Marcus Ericsson sixth, Christian Lundgaard seventh, Scott McLaughlin eighth, Kyle Kirkwood ninth, and Alexander Rossi tenth.

The NTT IndyCar Series head to Mid-Ohio for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Sunday, July 2^nd, at 1:30 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.

Finishing Order: