Alex Palou earns career-best third on short track, keeps 80-point lead over Josef Newgarden
NEWTON, Iowa – Alex Palou entered the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend realizing he had to navigate land mines at the 0.894-mile Iowa Speedway.
The short oval is not one of Palou’s best tracks, but with a 117-point lead in the standings entering the weekend, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver had a cushion so big, it was more than the total points combined for two races.
His goal was to leave Iowa with two eighth-place finishes. He finished eighth in Saturday’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250. He completed the weekend with a tremendous, overachieving third-place finish in Sunday’s Hy-Vee One Step 250.
It's a career-best on a short track for Palou, who is in his fourth year of racing on ovals after a background in international road racing. He is showing great aptitude for turning left this year, finishing third at Texas Motor Speedway and fourth at the Indy 500 (where he won the pole position)
Palou was able to avoid the landmines at Iowa. Though his lead shrank from 117 to 80 points over Team Penske's Josef Newgarden (who moved to second in the standings by sweeping the weekend), Palou and his team left in an upbeat mood.
“No question, it’s not one of our better tracks,” team owner Chip Ganassi told NBC Sports while sitting on his scooter in pit lane after the race. “We were second-class citizens and came away with a podium, so it’s nice.”
Palou is certainly not a second-class citizen. He is easily one of the best – if not the best – driver in the NTT IndyCar Series.
The popular racer from Spain is pleasant, happy, affable, and well-spoken, considering English is not his native language.
Palou speaks well off the track. He speaks even better with his No. 10 American Legion Honda at Chip Ganassi Racing.
“We knew it was going to be a tough weekend,” Palou said afterward. “We thought it was going to be maybe a little bit less tough after we tested here, but honestly yesterday we had a lot of pace. Not like Penske pace, but like second series pace, and that was great.
“We just didn't really have that final lap that you need to finish fourth, fifth, and we finished eighth.
“Today was the opposite. Today we had no pace. I was struggling to overtake. I was struggling to keep the tires under the deck, and the team just put me in the position that we are now. So, yeah, it was all up to the team today.
“It was a place and a weekend that I was not looking forward to even before starting the season because it's a place I struggle personally to place. As a team we know we need to find a little bit more, which we did. Yeah, I was still struggling a lot.
“Super happy with the podium today and with the P8 yesterday. I'm looking forward to the next couple of races, which we know that we have a good car, and I have a lot of confidence that I can extract kind of the same from what we have.”
It was a late caution and a restart with three laps to go that saved the day for Palou. He was able to pick off two positions and make it up to the podium, once again turning a bad day into a very positive ending.
“That was cool,” said the driver who won the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series championship in his first season with Chip Ganassi Racing. “I knew that we were the last car (of five) on the lead lap, so I could risk it a little bit more. If I had an issue with something, I was not going to lose a position.
“I went on the outside. Had a good restart. Went on the outside of Scott McLaughlin, and I think Felix Rosenqvist was battling with Will Power and just to the narrow, and I got to the inside of him into three.
“So, yeah, it was a pretty good restart.”
Barry Wanser is the team manager at Chip Ganassi Racing and calls the race strategy for Palou’s No. 10 Honda.
He had just taken off his headset on the team’s pit stand as Palou’s car along with the winner, Newgarden, and second-place Power parked at the start/finish line for the post-race celebration.
“We are certainly happier,” Wanser told NBC Sports. “The car was great. There were quite a few cars that were very close in pace. We took a few gambles there with the last two pit stops and it certainly paid off.
“Before we became an early pitter and took some early risks there, we were P12, P13 and we knew we had to do something different. We did it, Alex drove a great race and it’s great to get that American Legion Honda on the podium.”
It was that decision to pit early that helped Palou’s Honda come to life.
“On that second run I was just loose, super loose,” Palou explained. “Never felt that loose. That caution that came after 20, 25 laps saved me a ton because I was just losing places and places.
“That second stint, yeah, I was super loose. As loose as we've been, and we had to make a change. We adjusted the pressures, adjusted the wing, and then we started in our group again and made it back.”
Wanser and the team were able to adjust the car and overcome the loose condition.
“We looked at the car overnight and looked at the changes we could make,” Wanser explained. “We struggled mid-stint on a set of tires, and we got it back for the rest of the race.
“The car was strong. The guys did a good job in the pits and it’s great to finish on the podium.”
Palou and his team have little time to celebrate. They loaded up the transporter and will make the long drive to Monterey, California, to hit the track at Laguna Seca this week.
“We are still taking it race by race,” Wanser said. “We don’t get a break. We are going to Laguna Seca to test tires for Firestone.
“It just keeps going.”
There are five races left in the NTT IndyCar Series championship. The teams get a weekend off next week before resuming with the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville on Aug. 6. The following Saturday is the Gallagher Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the road course.
The final short oval race of the season is Aug. 27 Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
“I hope that before getting to Gateway, it's not as bad as Iowa in the past, but it's not been great,” Palou said of the short oval program. “I think I feel a bit more comfortable there, and also, we have a bit more performance from the car.
“I need to do the work in Nashville and Indy Road Course before getting there. If we cannot, because it's part of the sport in IndyCar, then we'll have to figure it out.”
Eighty-points, five races to go between Palou and his second NTT IndyCar Series championship in three seasons.
“I'm glad we have those points in the bag, but I'm not comfortable, honestly,” he admitted. “I will be comfortable if we won the championship already.
“We know in IndyCar with the big swing you can make in only one weekend just by winning and having a bad race, yeah, you can never give up.”
Newgarden took two big swings at the championship over the weekend with two-big victories. He entered the weekend third in points chopped 28 points off his deficit to Palou. He whacked off another 18 points on Sunday with his fifth-straight victory.
“Man, it’s hard to compare his oval dominance to anybody,” Wanser said of Newgarden. “It is impressive. It was great to have that late-race restart and be a contender at the end. It’s going to take a lot to beat him, but we will work hard to come back next year and be even stronger.
“All of the engineers at Chip Ganassi Racing worked hard to improve our performance here. It showed the last few races, and we should be happy.
“Whenever you have cars as strong as Team Penske has, you don’t really need to make any changes, you have to make the competition catch up to you.
“I believe we are catching them (at Iowa).”
Palou certainly narrowed the gap on Newgarden’s Iowa performance and remains in great shape in terms of controlling the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series championship by surviving the land mines on a short oval doubleheader weekend.
