NTT IndyCar Series’ team owner Chip Ganassi has weighed in on the new entanglement involving his driver Alex Palou and the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team, which claims Palou is refusing to abide by his commitment to leave Ganassi’s team and join the Zak …
NTT IndyCar Series’ team owner Chip Ganassi has weighed in on the new entanglement involving his driver Alex Palou and the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team, which claims Palou is refusing to abide by his commitment to leave Ganassi’s team and join the Zak Brown-led McLaren organization and race for them 2024.
Under a revised contract that came from a protracted battle between Palou and Ganassi in 2022 which led to the Spaniard’s ability to leave Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of 2023, Palou has been expected to race for the Arrow McLaren team next season.
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As RACER revealed Friday morning, Palou has been actively trying to reverse course and stay with Ganassi which, according to McLaren, conflicts with a contract it has already executed with Palou.
“Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t make a habit of commenting about contract situations. Subsequently, I have been quiet since day one of this story but now I feel I must respond. I grew up respecting the McLaren team and their success. The new management does not get my same respect,” Ganassi said.
“Alex Palou has been a part of our team and under contract since the 2021 season. It is the interference of that contract from McLaren that began this process and ironically, they are now playing the victim. Simply stated, the position of McLaren IndyCar regarding our driver is inaccurate and wrong; he remains under contract with CGR.”
Asked to comment on whether McLaren is planning to sue Palou and attempt to force his move from Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of the season, a McLaren spokesperson provided a statement from Brown that did not answer the question.
“I’m extremely disappointed that Alex Palou does not intend to honor his contractual obligations to race with us in IndyCar in 2024 and beyond,” Brown’s statement said. “That’s all I have to say on the topic for the time being.”
Alex Palou’s management team has severed ties with the Chip Ganassi Racing driver. As RACER revealed on Friday morning, Palou is attempting to stay with CGR, despite obligating himself to join Arrow McLaren in 2024. Through the Monaco Increase …
Alex Palou’s management team has severed ties with the Chip Ganassi Racing driver.
As RACER revealed on Friday morning, Palou is attempting to stay with CGR, despite obligating himself to join Arrow McLaren in 2024.
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Through the Monaco Increase Management firm, Palou orchestrated a revised contract with CGR that facilitated his ability to race for McLaren in 2024, but with Palou’s newfound intent to stay with CGR, Palou’s managers announced they will no longer support Palou as he steps into another contractual battle involving powerful racing teams.
“Monaco Increase Management is bitterly disappointed to learn about Alex Palou’s decision to break an existing agreement with McLaren for 2024 and beyond,” the company wrote. “Together, we had built a relationship that we thought went beyond any contractual obligation and culminated in winning the 2021 IndyCar crown and tracing a path to F1 opportunities.
“Life goes on and we wish Alex all the best for his future achievements.”
The IndyCar season is in its final sprint to the checkered flag as 13 races are in the books and the last four will be settled in a rapid-fire manner, starting this Saturday during the series’ second road course visit to Indianapolis. Championship …
The IndyCar season is in its final sprint to the checkered flag as 13 races are in the books and the last four will be settled in a rapid-fire manner, starting this Saturday during the series’ second road course visit to Indianapolis.
Championship leader Alex Palou was unable to win his fifth race of the year at Nashville’s Music City Grand Prix, but it didn’t matter. His immense luck produced the next-best outcome when Kyle Kirkwood earned 53 of the maximum 54 points that Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon — Palou’s closest challengers — so desperately needed. If Palou can’t win, having a non-title contender come out on top is a cause for joy for the Spaniard.
Palou also managed to finish ahead of Newgarden and Dixon in Nashville, extending his lead at a moment in the championship where they could ill afford to lose ground. The losses, though, were minimal. Where Newgarden entered his home race with 80 points to draw down, he limited the damage by placing fifth to Palou’s third on Sunday, but the gap has slightly widened to 84.
It’s a similar story for Dixon who went from a deficit of 120 points before Nashville to 126, and if you consider how only 216 points are left to capture this season, the light is fading from his hope to reel in Palou.
The fact that Palou won the Indy GP in May and the two road courses that followed is another foreboding item to consider. He and the No. 10 Ganassi crew have been IndyCar’s best road racing team of 2023, and from the four closing races, three are on road courses…
Palou can’t depart Indy with the championship in hand, but he can certainly move it to a place where only crashes or blown engines with the No. 10 car would bring it back into reach for others over the next month.
For Dixon, Saturday is all about finishing ahead of Palou, and if that doesn’t happen, we’re in game-over territory for the six-time champion.
For Newgarden, staying close is his objective; if he can shadow or finish ahead Palou, the one big salvo he’s waiting to fire is on August 27 at the 1.25-mile oval in Madison, Illinois. With three wins at World Wide Technology Raceway, the Team Penske driver owns the place and the odds are entirely in his favor to sweep all four ovals this year. Getting to WWTR with 84 points or fewer to carve into is his make-or-break mission in Indy.
Newgarden has one more oval race opportunity up his sleeve to close the gap, but he’ll need to stay ahead of Palou at Indy first. Brett Farmer/Motorsport Images
For those who prefer to have their racing championships go down to the wire, misfortune will need to introduce itself to Palou on Saturday afternoon and steer clear of Penske’s lone contender.
Elsewhere in the field, Romain Grosjean’s gotten his season back on track with a couple of clean and solid runs at Iowa and a quality sixth-place result at Nashville. It appears the close-to-winning version of the Swiss-born Frenchman is making a welcome return. He’s still chasing that first victory, and if he can hold onto the good momentum he’s built, there’s no reason to count him, or teammates Kirkwood and Colton Herta out from standing in victory lane at the Brickyard.
David Malukas has been just as impressive, if not more, since Mid-Ohio where he finished sixth, then added a 12th and an eighth at Iowa, and started fifth last weekend. The fire and resulting rear wing failure weren’t of his making, so if we take his overall output into account, the sophomore IndyCar driver is doing all the right things to attract interest from the teams he wants to join.
It’s also getting down to desperation time for some of the teams and drivers who’ve been everything from mildly dissatisfied to stunned by how their seasons have gone.
After 13 races, Arrow McLaren remains winless, and the last time that happened, it was 2020 — the first year of McLaren’s involvement — where Pato O’Ward took four podiums and earned fourth in the championship, all without tasting victory. In 2021, Arrow McLaren was a winner by Round 4 with O’Ward, and did it again at Round 4 in 2022 with the Mexican.
He’s taken five podiums in 2023, but wins for O’Ward — along with teammates Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi — have proven elusive. They’d love to have some of the bullet-proof luck that Palou has enjoyed, but we’ve also seen a strange trend where stellar qualifying performances and impressive output in the early stages of a few recent events have been undermined by crashes, misfortune, or fades in the second half of the races.
The same strange dynamic remains where Dixon, Will Power and Herta are winless as well. For Dixon, Saturday will mark 391 days since his last victory. For Power, the defending IndyCar champion, the number is 433, and for Herta, an unfathomable 455 sleeps will have been had since he was celebrated as an IndyCar race winner.
Together, they accounted for nearly 25 percent of all wins in 2022. To reach the twilight of the current season with that percentage at zero is yet another shocking development that defies every prediction.
Alex Palou, IndyCar’s dominant points leader, says he’s trying to take advantage of the fact that fortune is smiling on him this year, in a complete reversal of his 2022 season. The 2021 champion suffered a torrid season in title defense, even aside …
Alex Palou, IndyCar’s dominant points leader, says he’s trying to take advantage of the fact that fortune is smiling on him this year, in a complete reversal of his 2022 season.
The 2021 champion suffered a torrid season in title defense, even aside from the contract shenanigans between himself, Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow Mclaren. Not until the season finale did he clinch a victory – an utterly dominant display at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Yet this year he has accrued four wins, and has seen the cards fall his way strategy-wise on other occasions, too, resulting in an 84-point lead in the title race, with just four rounds to go.
The latest kiss from Lady Luck came in Nashville’s Music City Grand Prix. The race ran largely green, and given his early first stop under caution, it seemed inevitable that he would have to make a third stop. He fell almost 20s behind the lead battle between Kyle Kirkwood and Scott McLaughlin while desperately trying to save enough fuel to stay ahead of two-stopping Josef Newgarden – his closest rival on the points table.
Strategist Barry Wanser had just told Palou to forget fuel saving with 10 laps to go — that he’d have to pit as there were no cautions coming — when out came the race’s second yellow for a shunt for debutant Linus Lundqvist. Immediately the fuel situation eased; on the restart, there was another yellow, then red flag required to retrieve three crashed backmarkers.
A smiling Palou admitted that he’d never had a year such as this, adding: “I’ll try and [take] advantage of that because I know it’s not often. Last year we didn’t win a race until the last race. I thought that every race we had something wrong going on, on our strategy or race. This year is the opposite. I’ll take it.”
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The Spanish sensation shouldered the blame for a strategy call that so nearly went asunder.
“Yeah, we made a really aggressive call on that first yellow, like lap 13 or 14. We pitted,” he said. “It was the plan, honestly. We spoke about it. I was pushing for it. It wasn’t the right call today.
“We expected a lot more cautions throughout the race. We learned…we were super, super lucky today. Luck was in our favor because we were not going to make it. Then those yellows came.
“It was a very stressful race. I think I lost like five years of my life just trying to save fuel — a lot of fuel — and praying for a yellow. It finally came, which was…perfect for me.
“It was overall a really good day. Could have been a lot cleaner and a lot easier. We wanted to make it a bit too hard.”
Compared to Toronto, where he admitted to some good strategic fortune, Palou said the situation in Nashville was even more extreme.
“Today we were, like, done,” he said. “We couldn’t really save that much fuel: it was impossible. We were already saving and losing like 2s a lap, or 2.5s. They told me to go.
“We did one full lap of ‘going’ because we wanted to get some lap time, try and pass some cars that were, like, 20th or whatever. Suddenly the yellow came. I was like, ‘Yeah!’ Then another yellow that helped me a lot so I could at least be a bit more aggressive or defensive on the last restart.”
He later commented, “When you are on the side of wanting a yellow, it never comes. When you don’t want a yellow, it comes right away.
“In my vision, it was not coming. Everybody was on fuel saving. I don’t know why. Everybody was taking it easy. Then at the end I guess people started pushing. That’s when the yellow came. I was surprised.”
The current state of IndyCar’s silly season is slow and measured, all thanks to the paddock’s collective waiting to see what happens to two of the biggest names on the market. The curiosity starts with championship leader Alex Palou and the most …
The current state of IndyCar’s silly season is slow and measured, all thanks to the paddock’s collective waiting to see what happens to two of the biggest names on the market.
The curiosity starts with championship leader Alex Palou and the most coveted available seat in all of open-wheel racing, the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. No answers on Palou’s replacement are expected before September 1, which is the first day the 2021 IndyCar champion is eligible to sign with another team.
Once Palou confirms where he’s driving, the logjam of talent scrambling to gain access to the No. 10 car will start to untangle itself. Ask any of the free agents who aren’t Palou, and they all want is clarity on who will drive that 10 car, because if it isn’t them, they will need to pursue their second and third options.
Palou’s Sept. 1 negotiating window is an important one, but yesterday, August 1, was the big day when Marcus Ericsson — the other top free agent — and a few others became eligible to grab a pen and finalize their futures. Like Palou, once Ericsson’s settled, a better picture of the remaining options will emerge, and there’s no shortage of drivers who want to claim Ericsson’s No. 8 Honda as their own.
While it’s true that everything about the silly season revolves around Aug. 1 and Sept. 1, we won’t necessarily see a flurry of announcements this week. With that being said, you can expect a lot of private meetings to go down this weekend in Nashville where face-to-face engagements between drivers, agents, and teams will continue to shape the market.
Then we have the overarching preference by many teams to hold their news — for drivers who are either inbound or exiting — until the last race of the year, or right after the season has concluded. Although I expect some business to get done by the end of the week in Tennessee, most of it will stay under wraps.
The one exception is when a team and driver agree to continue working together, and in those instances, August could produce a couple of press conferences.
As we wrote on Monday, the Ganassi team is in no rush to fill the numerous vacancies that are anticipated across three of its four entries. But what if one of those seats remains filled? More on that later, so let’s roll through the 10 full-time teams and what we know or have heard about their status in the silly season.
A.J. FOYT RACING
With rookie Benjamin Pedersen signed to a multi-year deal, the fate of his teammate Santino Ferrucci is the only question mark for the Foyt team. Ferrucci would like to return and the team is also interested in continuing with him, but the need to secure a proper budget comes first. The item to track here is the timing of that budget’s arrival, and if it arrives in a timely manner, I’d expect the relationship to continue.
ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT
One or two seats? That’s the main item to process with Andretti’s role in the silly season, and by all accounts, the team is shopping for two drivers to complement its young stars in Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood.
Herta’s on a long-term deal with Andretti and Kirkwood’s understood to be in the first of a two-year deal, so they are in position through at least 2024.
Grosjean and Rosenqvist both face unclear futures with their current teams…and so could fit into other teams’ calculations. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Kirkwood, however, continues to be mentioned as a perfect fit for Team Penske when Will Power retires. If Andretti wants to protect its assets, extending Kirkwood before he hits the market next summer — assuming he wants to stay — could be a wise move. If we look ahead, Andretti’s only race winner so far in 2023 would be among the top free agents one year from now.
Regardless of the car number, we know there’s one seat to fill in the No. 29 Honda, and until the team states its intent with the No. 28 Honda to keep or part ways with Grosjean, we’ll have two potential hirings to complete.
The cast of candidates hasn’t changed, with Ericsson seemingly destined to join Herta and Kirkwood. Felix Rosenqvist is another significant name who is unsigned for 2024, and like his countryman Ericsson, he’s drawing a lot of interest among those who have money to spend.
Add in Callum Ilott, provided he can be acquired from Juncos Hollinger Racing, and David Malukas, another quality driver who’s said to be on Andretti’s radar. In the Swedes, Andretti has a pair of race winners to consider, and in Ilott and Malukas, he has next-generation talent who could develop into winners. Would signing one of each be the right way to go?
Looking outside of IndyCar, there’s no lack of international options for Andretti, or its rivals. In no specific order, and without any implied or specific ties to Andretti, a ton of recent and current Formula E and WEC talent has been spoken of in relation to IndyCar, with Oliver Askew, Nyck de Vries, Brendon Harley, Jean-Eric Vergne, Sergio Sette Camara and Stoffel Vandoorne among the many I’ve heard from team owners and managers could be in the mix.
Reigning Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich is another, and while he’s been mentioned as an Andretti Formula E candidate for 2024, the Brazilian is also known to have met with a few IndyCar teams.
Andretti also has its new Formula E champion Jake Dennis, who impressed the team in an IndyCar test in 2022 and would seem ripe for the big team if he wasn’t just crowned last weekend in London. I’d struggle to find the logic in yanking Andretti’s best FE driver to give him a tryout alongside Herta and Kirkwood when there are so many options that wouldn’t involve destabilizing its title-winning FE program.
Like Ganassi, Andretti has some hard decisions to make. Should it extend Grosjean? And who’s the best fit in terms of talent and chemistry? Lastly, as much as I’d like to say Ericsson or any other driver is a sure thing, I’ve yet to get that feeling with Andretti at this stage of the silly season.
ARROW MCLAREN
If we work from the assumption that Alex Palou won’t be driving for an AlphaTauri-type F1 team next year, we can expect him to be racing for Zak Brown in IndyCar. I’ve probably had 50 people tell me Palou’s already signed a deal with Arrow McLaren which, we know, would not be possible because of the Sept. 1 date, but there is a significant segment of the paddock that believes the Spaniard is already betrothed to McLaren, even if it’s not in the form of a legally binding contract.
Regardless, as we detailed in our last silly season piece, Palou’s straight-to-McLaren plans have been fuzzier than anticipated due to his management team’s efforts to find him a race seat in F1. Barring that coming to fruition, we’d look for Palou to replace Rosenqvist in the No. 6 Chevy next year.
And what if Palou defies the odds, gets an F1 seat, and Arrow McLaren has a sudden driver need? The team loves Rosenqvist and would happily hold onto him. And if Rosenqvist decides he wants to leave, just look at most of the names listed above with Andretti and they’d all jump at the chance to wear McLaren’s papaya orange and wield the No. 6.
Although the Palou situation is the one that sits in the middle of the spotlight, Arrow McLaren’s interest in running a fourth full-time entry is where I’m focused. As we previously chronicled, expanding to four cars would require the outsourcing of that extra program due to the space limitations at the team’s current shop.
I understand a decision on whether to green-light or pass on the fourth entry is imminent, and if we look to the other Chevy-powered teams in the series who would want to function as a satellite McLaren team, it’s hard to find a suitable candidate in the paddock. Team Penske isn’t running a car for Arrow McLaren, and arming a Carpenter, Foyt, or Juncos Hollinger with its setup information would not be wise.
A team that isn’t a full-time rival makes the most sense, which is why the Chevy-loving folks at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, with full funding, engineering support, and a driver supplied by McLaren, stand out as the first solution to consider. And if it isn’t DRR, I’m not sure who would fit the bill.
Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi are locked in. Palou, Rosenqvist, and the fate of a fourth car aren’t, and have our full attention.
Take a freshly-paved WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, drop two of the top NTT IndyCar Series drivers and teams onto the 2.2-mile road course for a Firestone tire test, and the byproduct from the four-hour test on Wednesday was monumental speed. Chip …
Take a freshly-paved WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, drop two of the top NTT IndyCar Series drivers and teams onto the 2.2-mile road course for a Firestone tire test, and the byproduct from the four-hour test on Wednesday was monumental speed.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou and Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist were tasked with evaluating a range of new tires for the series’ official partner to help Firestone finalize the rubber it will bring to the season finale, and according to the championship leader, Laguna Seca’s all-time IndyCar lap record of 1m07.7s by Helio Castroneves in 2000 could fall during the September 8-10 event.
“It was awesome. It was amazing,” Palou told RACER. “We were like three seconds faster than the pole last year, and it was only the two of us on the track with the track not rubbered in and the engines not at full beans. And the grip is amazing.
“Already last year, the track was quite physical because of the high speed and especially after the Corkscrew, you have Turn 9 and then Turn 10, which (takes) a lot of commitment. But now with the new surface, man, it was so fun. Everything is ‘more.’ It was really fast. It was really physical.”
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Reigning IndyCar champion Will Power set pole for the 2022 race with a 1m11.6s set in his No. 12 Team Penske Chevy, and unofficial reports had Wednesday’s drivers running in the 1m08s range with ease. Factor in the extra performance the turbocharged engines will offer with qualifying settings applied and the benefit of 27-plus cars filling the track surface with rubber prior to qualifying, and Palou thinks Castroneves’ record set during CART’s 1000hp era might be in jeopardy.
“I think we will be able to beat that lap time during a race week if we get the good weather, because it rubbers in so much when there are so many cars and makes it so much faster,” he noted. “I think we’re gonna beat it.”
Palou expects more passing opportunities to emerge during the race in some of the faster corners where small mistakes can prove costly by the time drivers reach the next braking zone. He also hopes fans will wander out to a few corners and watch their favorite drivers fire through at incredible speeds.
“They need to go to Turn 3 and 4, — 4 was almost flat,” Palou said. “Last year, we had to brake, and it was not flat yesterday, but it was almost flat because we can use the curbs and it sounds really, really good when we go over them. And, I would say go watch at Turn 9 and 10, because 9 is so fast now when you come down from the Corkscrew, it’s crazy.
“It was already really fast, even with the old track, because you have so much downforce there, and now, it’s way more physical with the loading and the speed you take through 9 and keep so much of that speed through 10. It’s crazy-fast. And the Corkscrew didn’t change at all, which is great. It’s still really tough to do.
“Turn 6 is another one. There’s always a big compression there going up the hill to the Corkscrew and it’s pretty tricky, but now with the more speed we have, it compresses even more so it makes it trickier. So I think we’re gonna see more overtakes going into the Corkscrew by people doing some small mistakes and not getting a good exit there. There are some places where everybody should be super-quick, so one little mistake would make a lot of difference.”
Palou closed by discussing Turn 5, the corner that takes cars out of the infield and sends them under the bridge and towards the left-hander at Turn 6. At the IMSA race in May, a few drivers were highly critical of the new pavement added on the exit of Turn 5 which took away some of the challenge and risk of perfecting the corner in prototype and GT cars.
At least in an Indy car, which sits lower to the ground, the Spaniard’s experience at Turn 5 was no different than what he encountered prior to the repave.
“It’s true that they added some tarmac outside of 5, but it doesn’t affect us at all, because you still get the same curve to take, and if you go over, it falls down,” he said. “So if you go out there with an Indy car, I’m pretty sure you’re going off and crashing, but if you don’t, you’re still losing time, for sure. I didn’t even try it, because you can see that it was not the way to go. For us, at least, they haven’t changed the nature of any corner, which is good.”
Alex Palou has held a firm line throughout the year where he’s politely declined requests to speak about where and for whom he’ll be driving in 2024. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver, as RACER chronicled in June, has been spoiled with options that …
Alex Palou has held a firm line throughout the year where he’s politely declined requests to speak about where and for whom he’ll be driving in 2024.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver, as RACER chronicled in June, has been spoiled with options that range from staying with his current team to departing for Arrow McLaren. His managers have also been busy trying to find opportunities for the Spanish phenom in Formula 1, and with his name held high in silly season conversations for two straight years, Palou has come to a firm realization.
“I cannot wait for this to honestly be over,” Palou told RACER. “To be able to say that I have, I don’t know, a 25-year contract with someone, or whatever, means I’m not going to get those questions anymore!”
RACER understands the Ganassi IndyCar ace and McLaren Formula 1 test driver needs to get to September 1 before his expiring contract allows for negotiations and the conclusion of any official deals to take place with other teams.
Barring an unforeseen plot twist, Palou is expected to be confirmed at Arrow McLaren, which has been the subject of speculation dating back to 2022 when lawsuits and legal entanglements between the IndyCar champion and the Ganassi team made for a tense and largely unproductive summer of racing.
Being in the center of a self-made storm knocked Palou off his game, but with the one-year reconciliation achieved with Ganassi to continue in 2023, and all manner of positive interest being received by those who want to acquire his services for the future, he has never been faster or more effective in the cockpit.
“I’m not proud of everything that happened last year and being in the media for bad stuff off of the track,” Palou said. “I just like to be in the media because of winning races, and not because of something else. But it’s not been as bad this year, obviously. I think last year was terrible for everybody mentally and it was tough to deal with. But that just made me a lot stronger this year. Honestly, what’s been happening this year, it’s been actually fun hearing what people think I’m doing [next year].
“There’s been a lot of interest from people wanting to know where we’re going to be next season, and obviously getting silly season talks from other series as well, that’s more than welcome. But I cannot wait for that to be over.”
Palou struggled to block out the noise last year as speculation whirled about his future. The speculation is still there this time around, but his massive points lead suggests it’s no longer a distraction… Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
When it comes to the current season of IndyCar racing, Palou’s dominance has been the major talking point. Armed with the same race engineer in Julian Robertson, the same crew chief in Ricky Davis, and the same race strategist in Barry Wanser, Palou’s surrounded by the identical group who facilitated his 2021 championship victory and did their best to support him through last year’s contractual sagas.
What’s remarkable now is how Palou, with no changes to his No. 10 Honda program, has found a new level within himself that wasn’t previously seen or expected. In his fourth IndyCar season, the runaway championship leader, who’s won 40 percent of the races so far, has become wholly unrecognizable to the driver who won the title as a sophomore.
How has Palou made such foreboding gains in a single offseason? He puts it down to age and going through the wars that limited his potential 12 months ago.
“I would say experience, and I would say confidence within myself,” he said. “Hopefully, this version of myself lasts forever, but it’s not easy. And it’s not one thing. I’m not only more confident with the car, but the team is doing a tremendous job as well. And my car is crazy fast, like, I’ve never had a slow car this year. I’ve never been this comfortable in my racing career, because you’re always moving from series to series. But now, it’s my first time that I’ve been doing one series for three to four years, so it’s just making me able to extract everything from myself.
“I learned a lot in 2021 and 2022. And I’m still learning a ton. But I would say also that when you’re in this moment that I am now, where everything goes well, things like this can happen. There’s some other seasons, like last year, where man, it was like there was no way that we could have a clean, good race without crazy stuff happening to us. And no matter how much effort you put in, it’s not your time.
“I would say also mentally, what happened last year was terrible, but I was able to improve from it with mental toughness. That was something that I said, ‘Man, it’s no good what’s happening, but let’s try and learn from this and try and take it into next year,’ and it made me mentally tougher. I can feel that.”
Palou has also reached an important stage in another area of his mental development. He’s by no means the only young driver with prodigious talent in IndyCar, but as many of his contemporaries know — and the elite veterans can attest — the ability to quiet one’s mind and mute distractions is a game-changing breakthrough.
“I don’t really hear noise,” he said. “Anything outside of the track, or outside of my team, it’s not what’s going on in my mind. A lot of things are clicking at the same time. And I’m still improving. I don’t think I’m all the way there. Like, getting 100 percent from an IndyCar, I’m not there. It’s so tough. But I can see that I’m more comfortable to drive closer to the limit than I was last year or two years ago. And now, I’m in my best moment of my career, and I just don’t want this moment to end.”
The driver leading the NTT IndyCar Series championship who’s had a nearly perfect season lines up 15th. The driver closest to him (Alex Palou), Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, who goes into Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto race holding second …
The driver leading the NTT IndyCar Series championship who’s had a nearly perfect season lines up 15th. The driver closest to him (Alex Palou), Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, who goes into Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto race holding second in the championship, starts seventh.
Josef Newgarden, the driver sitting third in the standings, will take the green flag from 11th on the grid, and you’ll have to look to fourth in points to find the first title contender who didn’t have a rough day in qualifying on the slippery street circuit — Marcus Ericsson on the second row in P4.
Colton Herta, last year’s Honda Indy Toronto polesitter and the polesitter for the last two NTT IndyCar Series races, had intentions to earn another, but was a big surprise in his failure to transfer into the Firestone Fast 12. The Andretti Autosport driver, fastest in the session prior to qualifying, wasn’t alone.
Beasts in the dry, Herta’s frustrating run to 14th was compounded by Kyle Kirkwood—fastest on Friday—who lines up eighth and Romain Grosjean who settled for ninth.
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The greatest surprise, though, was the aforementioned Palou, whose worst start of the year prior to Toronto was seventh. To the Spaniard’s credit, he was in worse shape last year in Canada when he started 22nd and rocketed to eighth, so all hope is not lost.
“I just think we didn’t really put together everything we had,” said an untroubled Palou. “We’re going to have to start from the back, but we know we have a fast car and we can make it from there. It’s gonna be a pretty busy race. It’s the first (challenging starting spot) of the year; hopefully the last one, but yeah, we will have to work for it, for sure.”
Backmarkers being allowed to hold up the leaders in an IndyCar race is a topic that reared its head again at in the Honda Indy 200, after AJ Foyt Racing’s Benjamin Pedersen proved particularly obstructive on his way to 26th place. Mid-Ohio race …
Backmarkers being allowed to hold up the leaders in an IndyCar race is a topic that reared its head again at in the Honda Indy 200, after AJ Foyt Racing’s Benjamin Pedersen proved particularly obstructive on his way to 26th place.
Mid-Ohio race winner Alex Palou saw his lead over Colton Herta shrink from 8.3s to 3.8s while trying to lap the rookie without using up too much push-to-pass boost, which is supposed to be for passes for position.
The fight to stay on the lead lap is understandable, to a degree, since if there is a full-course caution, the driver will get his lap back when the field bunches up. But more surprising was that even once he was lapped by the leader, Pedersen was similarly adversarial to the other frontrunners.
“I think that the blue flag rule, it’s crazy,” said Will Power, who finished third. “You use push-to-pass up and have to race somebody that’s going to be a lap down like you’re racing for position. The series is so tight and competitive, and everyone is so good now that I think we could have a blue flag rule. It’s not like we have yellows constantly, and you’re going to get your lap back.
“Maybe they do it in the second half of the race, but it’s ridiculous when a leader gives up 10s.”
Turning to race runner-up Dixon, Power said: “I think you were 5s down the road, I closed it right up. Probably would have overtaken you if I didn’t get held up while going a couple of laps longer.
“We should have a talk about it,” he continued to the assembled media, before Dixon interjected, “We do every year.” Power nodded, “We tell them every year. They’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we hear you.’ Then… crickets.”
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Asked if there was a simple solution, Power replied: “The problem is, it takes a lot of people to police that because if there’s a blue flag rule and the first guy passes, then you’ve got to have a command blue for everyone. But I think if everyone just understood, if you get the blue flag, you have to let the driver go within the lap.
“That, I think, is their issue – the amount of people in race control that would have to police that. It becomes a bit difficult. But we’re at the stage where this competition is so tough, maybe we have to add some people to do that.
Dixon said that disabling push-to-pass for the backmarker should be part of the solution, to which Power commented, “That was the one where they say, ‘Well, how do we police? Do we disable it for everyone after that?’ It sounded like that was a big problem.
“But it’s not like a ton of people go a lap down anymore anyway. Yeah, disabling the push-to-pass would be a big step if you are going to be a lap down, yeah.”
Although angry at the time he was seeing his lead evaporate behind Pedersen, Palou was calm in front of the media afterward.
“It’s IndyCar; I know the rules,” said the winner, “But at the same time, it’s very frustrating when you are leading and you try to open the gap, and they don’t let you pass, but they are using the overtake, like 20s, 30s a lap, to try to stay up front. On top of that, once you are side-by-side that they are so aggressive defending. Obviously it’s really frustrating when you are leading.
“I knew I had to get past also because you are using more overtake, you are using more fuel, you are using more tires, and you’re not able to do the race you want, just because of a backmarker car that wants to stay on the lead lap.
“The issue is that once you pass them, they let everybody pass because they already lost the lap, right? So, yeah, it’s frustrating. I know it’s the rules.
“I would like it to change. It’s not going to change. So, yeah, whatever. I’m more relaxed now!”
IndyCar’s runaway points leader Alex Palou says that his current purple patch is the best of his racing career. The Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver scored three wins in his title-winning 2021 campaign, yet today at Mid-Ohio, the ninth round of the …
IndyCar’s runaway points leader Alex Palou says that his current purple patch is the best of his racing career.
The Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver scored three wins in his title-winning 2021 campaign, yet today at Mid-Ohio, the ninth round of the 2023 season, he scored his third consecutive win and his fourth in just the last five races. He has not finished outside the top five since an eighth place in the season opener at St. Petersburg.
Asked if he had ever enjoyed such a period in his career, the 26-year-old Spaniard said, “Not at all. No, absolutely not. Obviously in go-karts I had good couple of races, but I don’t think I had three big wins in a row or in the last five and always being up there.
“So, no, it’s the best moment of my career so far.”
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Palou ran fourth in the opening phase of today’s Honda Indy 200, but having started on primary Firestones, he was ready to pounce when Kyle Kirkwood’s alternate tires started fading, and he grabbed third. He then outlasted Colton Herta and Graham Rahal on their alternates, slammed in fast laps as they pitted, and was comfortably ahead of them when he emerged from his first pit stops.
“We knew that we had the pace, but we needed clean air,” he said. “Obviously it’s tough at Mid-Ohio to follow cars — well, to overtake cars, I would say. That’s why we went for the primaries at the beginning, which we thought was probably a bit risky, but if we were able to cross the first lap in position, we were going to be good for our strategy.
“So, yeah, made it work. We saved a little bit of fuel. Waited until the No. 27 [Kirkwood] struggled a little bit on tires. We were able to pass and then just run a bit longer than Colton and Rahal to get the lead.
“Yeah, it was fun. The car was really fast, obviously. It was great to be able to do everything that we planned, and all the pit stops and everything was fine.”
Although he said “we can keep it going because I know we have good cars and a great team,” Palou remained wary of the next races, on the streets of Toronto and the doubleheader on the Iowa short oval.
“Toronto, it’s a street course, and everything can happen there,” he said. “Same for Iowa. It’s always a crazy race, and it’s a doubleheader. So if you have a bad day, you’re probably going to have two bad days.
“Yeah, hopefully it’s going to be OK. I know Toronto was really good for us last year. If I remember correctly, Scott won, so we have a really good car. Hopefully we can still have a clean race there.
“Then Iowa, we’ll see. But, yeah, it would be nice if we’re preparing for another great result there, and we suddenly get the great result.”
Describing the big factors in his progress in 2023, Palou said: “I would say we got a lot better in qualifying than in the last two years. We’ve been able to get more speed from the car and get myself more comfortable. That helps getting better strategies during the races.
“And I would say reading the races. I’m learning a lot. I’ve been learning a lot from Scott, from the team for what I need for my races. So far it’s working. So hopefully we can keep on learning and keep getting some good results.”
