IndyCar: Alex Palou wins Detroit pole, then sounds off on 'too tight, too short' track

DETROIT – On a day in which numerous IndyCar drivers were fuming — privately, of course — regarding the conditions and layout of the series’ return to the downtown streets of Detroit, one of the few drivers willing to speak up landed his first street course pole of his career. Then, Alex Palou used his spot on the media center podium to express the paddock’s collective frustrations.

“Honestly, I agree with all the drivers — or most of the drivers. It’s too tight for Indy cars. It’s too short for Indy cars. There’s too much traffic. It’s too bumpy,” the Chip Ganassi Racing driver said after edging Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin by three-tenths of a second to take pole for Sunday’s 100-lap race.

“If they were asking me, I would say, ‘Please, can we have 20 more seconds (worth of racing per lap), and a bit wider turns? But yeah, they are not going to ask me, so…”

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Palou’s sentiments were said with a large grin — “I think I’m the happiest driver at the moment, starting on pole, so I cannot complain too much,” he said — but he mirrored much of the private sentiment his fellow competitors shared following an utterly chaotic morning practice that included five red flags in just 45 minutes. That followed six reds in the initial 90-minute practice Friday, after which Palou tweeted a GIF of Army vehicles riding over a series of speedbumps with the words “Detroit POV.”

Among drivers’ frustrations included: pavement types that constantly change across an incredibly-short 1.645-mile lap, a bumpy surface that seems to be at its worst in the braking zones (and very worst headed toward Turn 3, which most drivers said would be the only reliable passing zone just from looking at the track map before Friday), incredibly tight corners (all but one of which have to be taken in first gear) and narrow run-offs that make it difficult for drivers to get spun around and avoid forcing race control to call for a caution or red flag.

“This is not a street course. This is a go-kart track where you would come after drinking beer and racing with your buddies,” said one driver that competes for one of IndyCar’s top teams after Practice No. 2. “But it’s not a race course.”

Said others:

>>“It’s embarrassing.”

>>”Nashville is at least a track. This is Mickey Mouse. We warned them, and they didn’t listen.”

>>”Nashville is bad. This is worse. It’s a disaster.”

>>”Everyone agrees, but no one wants to say anything.”

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McLaughlin made a point in his post-qualifying news conference to speak out against what he called hasty “conclusions” and “noise” from other drivers, which, ironically, fit with the sentiment one driver told IndyStar Saturday afternoon – that the Team Penske drivers were the only ones relatively happy with the track, which Penske Corp. president Bud Denker and fellow Penske exec Michael Montri have spearheaded.

“There’s been a lot of noise I’ve seen on Twitter from other drivers, and at the end of the day, this is a new track, new complex,” said McLaughlin, who makes his first front-row start of the season Sunday. “I think what everyone has done to get this going, like the vibe is awesome. Belle Isle (the home of the Detroit Grand Prix in each year the race had been held since it left downtown after 1991) was getting old. We had to do it.

“Yeah, first-year problems. It’s always going to happen. It’s just going to get better from here. The racetrack for the drivers is a blast. We don’t even know how it races yet. Everyone is making conclusions already, and they probably just need to relax and wait for tomorrow.”

For what it’s worth, McLaughlin said he believes the track will race similar to Nashville’s new IndyCar street race, which in its first two iterations has had a combined 17 caution periods for yellow-flag running for 69 of the 160 laps.

“Everyone says we crash a lot in Nashville, but I think (Detroit) is going to race well. It’s just going to be up to us with etiquette of the drivers to leave it up to us and figure it out along the way.”

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Qualifying results for Sunday's Detroit Grand Prix

1. Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing…1:01.8592

2. Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske…1:02.1592

3. Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport…1:02.2896

4. Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing…1:02.4272

5. Josef Newgarden, Team Penske…1:02.5223

6. Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing…1:02.6184

7. Will Power, Team Penske…1:02.1817

8. Simon Pagenaud, Meyer Shank Racing…1:02.1860

9. Felix Rosenqvist, Arrow McLaren…1:02.1937

10. Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren…1:02.2564

11. Marcus Armstrong, Chip Ganassi Racing…1:02.2958

12. Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport…1:04.6075

13. Alexander Rossi, Arrow McLaren…1:02.5714

14. Rinus VeeKay, Ed Carpenter Racing…1:02.1911

15. Conor Daly, Ed Carpenter Racing…1:02.9522

16. Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing…1:02.2644

17. Devlin DeFrancesco, Andretti Autosport…1:03.0017

18. Christian Lundgaard, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing…1:02.6495

19. Benjamin Pedersen, AJ Foyt Racing…1:03.1599

20. Agustin Canapino, Juncos Hollinger Racing…1:02.9017

21. David Malukas, Dale Coyne Racing…1:03.2126

22. Santino Ferrucci, AJ Foyt Racing…1:02.9589

23. Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing…1:03.3879

24. Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport…1:03.4165

25. Jack Harvey, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing…1:03.7728

26. Sting Ray Robb, Dale Coyne Racing…1:03.7496

27.  Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing…1:03.8663

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Alex Palou wins IndyCar Detroit pole, sounds off on track frustrations