IndyCar News: Palou takes the entire IndyCar field to school at Barber

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou gave the entire IndyCar field a schooling they won’t soon forget in Sunday’s NTT IndyCar race at Barber Motorsports Park

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Except for 9 laps during pitstops, Palou led 81 of 90 laps from pole around the undulating road course in Birmingham, Alabama, and finished 16s ahead of the Arrow McLaren Chevy of Christian Lundgaard.

Palou has now won 3 of the first four races of the 2025 IndyCar season and he extended his point lead to a wide margin.

Alex Palou winner Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix – By_ Paul Hurley

Scott McLaughlin, who started 2nd, finished third for Team Penske, 23.44s behind Palou.

McLaughlin stayed close on the first two trips around the 17-turn, 2.3-mile natural-terrain road course, but Palou built a gap of 1.1 seconds after just three laps. And the margin continued to grow.

“When the guy is on top of his game, you just can do the best you can, in that regard,” McLaughlin said of Palou. “I feel like week in and week out, we can challenge him. But if he keeps executing like this, all we can do is execute, as well.

“Props to his team. But it’s a long season. It’s way too early to be even worrying about points. We’ve just got to keep being there, and if we’re there, we’ll be OK.”

Dale Coyne’s Rinus Veekay drove a great race to finish 4th, right behind McLaughlin and 23.778s behind Palou.

Team Penske’s Will Power, a two-time winner here, rounded out the top-5, a massive 32.78s behind Palou.

Palou had so much in hand, he had 63s of unused push-to-pass left at the end of the race.

“It was a perfect day, a perfect weekend,” Palou said. “The car was amazing, super fast. I had a ton of fun.

“I was a bit lonely there, but I loved it. It was an amazing day.”

It was the 14th victory of Palou’s career, coming on the same circuit where he scored his first win, in 2021 with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Children’s of Alabama GP IndyCar Race Results – 90 Laps

Pos	No	Name	Laps	Behind	Gap	Led	ST	Engine	Points	Team
1	10	Alex Palou	90	0.000s	0.000s	81	1	Honda	196	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	7	Christian Lundgaard	90	16.0035	16.0035	0	7	Chevy	136	Arrow McLaren
3	3	Scott McLaughlin	90	23.4453	7.4418	3	2	Chevy	105	Team Penske
4	18	Rinus Veekay	90	23.7783	0.3330	0	5	Honda	78	Dale Coyne Racing
5	12	Will Power	90	32.7718	8.9935	0	4	Chevy	93	Team Penske
6	5	Pato O’Ward	90	33.2559	0.4841	0	8	Chevy	108	Arrow McLaren
7	26	Colton Herta	90	34.0216	0.7657	0	3	Honda	99	Andretti Global w/Curb‑Agajanian
8	20	Alexander Rossi	90	45.7556	11.7340	0	15	Chevy	82	Ed Carpenter Racing
9	6	Nolan Siegel	90	46.2254	0.4698	0	6	Chevy	48	Arrow McLaren
10	2	Josef Newgarden	90	48.0484	1.8230	0	9	Chevy	78	Team Penske
11	27	Kyle Kirkwood	90	57.9913	9.9429	0	18	Honda	127	Andretti Global
12	9	Scott Dixon	90	58.6974	0.7061	0	26	Honda	104	Chip Ganassi Racing
13	60	Felix Rosenqvist	90	59.3510	0.6536	0	14	Honda	105	Meyer Shank Racing
14	15	Graham Rahal	90	68.2589	8.9079	0	21	Honda	61	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15	21	Christian Rasmussen	90	69.2260	0.9671	0	17	Chevy	55	Ed Carpenter Racing
16	4	David Malukas	90	70.1133	0.8873	0	20	Chevy	56	AJ Foyt Enterprises
17	66	Marcus Armstrong	89	1 LAPS	10.9456	6	11	Honda	64	Meyer Shank Racing
18	14	Santino Ferrucci	89	1 LAPS	2.7886	0	13	Chevy	63	AJ Foyt Enterprises
19	76	Conor Daly	89	1 LAPS	2.0248	0	19	Chevy	43	Juncos Hollinger Racing
20	28	Marcus Ericsson	89	1 LAPS	7.1229	0	23	Honda	65	Andretti Global
21	8	Kyffin Simpson	89	1 LAPS	0.2468	0	10	Honda	57	Chip Ganassi Racing
22	77	Sting Ray Robb	89	1 LAPS	0.7954	0	22	Chevy	47	Juncos Hollinger Racing
23	90	Callum Ilott	89	1 LAPS	2.5146	0	16	Chevy	32	Prema Racing
24	30	Devlin DeFrancesco	89	1 LAPS	0.5147	0	27	Honda	30	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
25	83	Robert Shwartzman	89	1 LAPS	5.9559	0	24	Chevy	35	Prema Racing
26	45	Louis Foster	88	2 LAPS	59.5268	0	12	Honda	30	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
27	51	Jacob Abel	88	2 LAPS	45.7650	0	25	Honda	22	Dale Coyne Racing