After the go-fast approach lost out to the fuel-save tactics of Scott Dixon and Chip Ganassi Racing on the streets of Long Beach, the opposite approach proved the winning hand for this week’s NTT IndyCar Series race at Barber Motorsports Park. After one full-course caution played into the hands of the fuel savers — led this time by Ganassi’s Alex Palou — another with 35 laps to go provided an opportunity for the three-stopping cars to stay out and run harder as the two-stop cars had to pit for fuel.
Those included Palou’s rookie teammate Linus Lundqvist (pictured above), who seemed as happy at being on the side of the speedsters as he did about his first trip to the podium in third place behind fellow two-stoppers Scott McLaughlin and Will Power of Team Penske.
“I think for the first time ever I was not on the save-fuel strategy. I was not the one being passed, which was nice,” said Lundqvist.
“Obviously we had a bit of everything in that race for us. We started quite far back, in 19th. In the beginning it was just about basically saving fuel as much as we can, see what we can do later in the race. The team kept telling me to hit your number, you’ll reap the reward at the end. That definitely happened.”
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In the end, Palou also had to give way to the two-stopping Felix Rosenqvist, who was on the faster alternate rubber for his final stint. The fourth-place result for Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda moved the Swede into up to fifth in the drivers’ standings.
“P4, I’d say we’d take that any day,” Rosenqvist said. “We didn’t feel quick initially and we had some challenges early on in the weekend, but after that we kept improving and improving.
“I think our strongest part of the weekend was the race. We were on a massive fuel save and pretty much everyone around us tried to do a three-stopper, so it was hard to keep everyone behind. I’m happy we stuck to that strategy because it gave us a couple of spots in the end, even if we were not on the winning strategy. We made the most out of it and a lot of points on a weekend where we weren’t the favorite.”