ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Alex Palou started the weekend at Road America with a car-damaging crash and rallied to end it with his third victory in the past four IndyCar races.
That’s how well things have been going for the 26-year-old Spaniard in his remarkable first half to the 2023 season.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver built on his commanding lead in the points standings with a decisive victory Sunday in the Sonsio Grand Prix. Palou finished 4.5610 seconds ahead of-second place Josef Newgarden, the Team Penske driver from Nashville who won at Road America last year.
Newgarden also won the Indianapolis 500 last month, when a fourth-place showing kept Palou from what would be a four-win streak right now. Still, Palou’s latest victory was the 250th overall team win for Ganassi.
“It was an amazing day for us,” Palou said.
An amazing month, really.
Palou’s title follows victories on May 13 on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and June 4 on the streets of downtown Detroit. And though he finished fourth in the Indy 500, Palou started in pole position and dominated for much of the prestigious race until he was spun on pit road during routine stops.
He has a 74-point lead in the points standings over Ganassi teammate Marcus Ericsson. The last time anyone had this big of an advantage eight races into an IndyCar season was in 2020, when eventual series champion Scott Dixon, another Ganassi driver, owned a 117-point edge.
“I think we all need to be better if we want to catch the 10 car,” Newgarden said of Palou. “That’s just the reality of it.”
Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren was third, while Dixon was fourth. Colton Herta started from the pole and had a dominant car, but Andretti Autosport blew the race strategy and Herta finished fifth.
Palou’s victory didn’t come easily. He spun in a Saturday morning practice, hitting the tire barrier with the right side of his Honda. After his team worked to rebuild it later that day, Palou finished third in qualifying to put himself in position for another successful Sunday.
“We almost had no time to rebuild the car,” Palou said. “They did. They not only got the car back on track, but it was fast.”
Palou also won at Road America in 2021, when he went on to win his first IndyCar title.
A late pit decision caused Herta to fade down the stretch. He was in front when he went to pit road on the 40th lap, one before the rest of the lead group. Herta remained ahead of the competitors who pitted a lap later but had a much more precarious fuel situation.
That enabled Palou to gradually close the gap before finally overtaking him on the 49th of 55 laps on the 4.014-mile, 14-turn course. Herta continued to fall back in the pack the rest of the way, and he hasn’t won a race since May 2022 at the IMS road course.
“It’s frustrating,” Herta said. “We had the best car.”
Dixon’s fourth-place finish was remarkable considering what had happened a day earlier. The six-time IndyCar Series champion was at fault in a crash with reigning IndyCar champion Will Power during a morning practice that severely damaged both their cars. An angry Power got out of his car, exchanged words with Dixon and shoved him in the chest.
Dixon’s car was damaged badly enough that he used an entirely different vehicle for qualifying later Saturday. He started 23rd in the 27-car field Sunday but worked his way up near the front of the pack.
The Power-Dixon crash caused one of five red flags during a Saturday morning practice on Road America’s repaved surface, which created faster times but also made the track very slippery whenever drivers went a little off line. Power complained later that “this track’s terrible when you go off it.”
There weren’t any major incidents of that sort Sunday, but there were 444 on-track passes, the most ever for an IndyCar race at the site. The results of Road America’s first repaving since 1995 drew positive reviews in the end.
“There was a lot of unknowns going into the new surface on how it would race,” Newgarden said. “I think today, I don’t know how you could have asked for much better of a race.”
Palou believes it might be a sign of things to come for this track.
“In terms of passing, I think it’s actually going to be even better next year because the track surface was still too new,” he said. “On the exiting or the outside of the corners, it was a bit slippery. I think we’re not going to have that next year, so it’s going to be even better racing.”
Next on this year’s schedule is the Honda Indy 200 on July 2 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin won last year.