Alex Palou wins BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ Joe Skibinski

IndyCar: Palou schools the field to win 2nd title in Portland

Spaniard Alex Palou dominated the Bitnile.com GP of Portland Sunday in Portland to win his 2nd NTT IndyCar title in three years.

With one race to go in the season, Palou has enough points that teammate Scott Dixon in 2nd cannot catch him.

It was Palou’s 5th win of the year – more than any other driver. It was Palou’s 9th IndyCar career win and 9th championship title for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Alex Palou and Chip Ganassi - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ Joe Skibinski
Alex Palou and Chip Ganassi – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ Joe Skibinski

Palou led 69 of 110 laps and eased to a 5-second win over Felix Rosenqvist despite a late caution that bunched the field.

“That’s what we wanted,” Palou said. “It was an amazing weekend overall. We had really fast cars. We knew we had to go for it, and we just raced how we’ve been doing all season. Super proud to be here in victory lane and super proud of the second championship.

“I never thought that I would be an INDYCAR champion, and to be a two-time INDYCAR champion feels amazing, like a dream.”

Scott Dixon came home third, but should have come home 2nd if not for IndyCars closed pit crap shoot rule.

Ganassi also clinched its first 1-2 finish in the driver point standings since 2009, as six-time series champion Scott Dixon secured second with his third-place finish in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren teammate Pato O’Ward was 4th, 19s behind.

Felix Rosenqvist - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ Joe Skibinski
Felix Rosenqvist – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ Joe Skibinski

Josef Newgarden rounded out the top-5 for Team Penske after crashing out in qualifying Saturday.

Running on Firestone primary tires at the start, Palou first took the lead on Lap 22 when NTT P1 Award winner Graham Rahal and fellow front-row starter Scott McLaughlin stopped for fuel and swapped their Firestone alternate tires for primary rubber. The CGR team decided on an “overcut” strategy for Palou and Dixon on primary tires, running long on the more durable rubber to build a gap on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course.

That strategy worked perfectly. Palou made his first stop on Lap 31, switching to Firestone alternate tires. Dixon stopped a lap later as the last driver to enter the pits for his first service, staying on primary tires.

Palou cycled to the front on Lap 34 when David Malukas pitted from the lead in the No. 18 HMD Trucking Honda fielded by Dale Coyne Racing with HMD.

From there, Palou and Dixon alternated the lead during pit cycles until Rosenqvist grabbed the top spot on Lap 81 when Palou made his final stop. But Palou took the lead for good on Lap 84 when Rosenqvist pitted a lap before the caution flew for the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet of rookie Agustin Canapino, who spun off track in Turn 12.

Alex Palou - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ James Black
Alex Palou – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ James Black

That caution period allowed Rosenqvist to get heat into his new, cold Firestone alternate tires at slow speed behind the Honda pace car, avoiding a probable attack by Dixon on warmer, grippier tires if the race was under green-flag conditions.

Palou eased away from Rosenqvist and Dixon on the restart on Lap 88. But Rosenqvist stayed within one second for the next five laps before Palou began his inexorable drive away from any threats and into victory lane as Rosenqvist’s alternate tires lost grip toward the end of the race.

“I was kind of lucky in the end, first off with the yellow that we just managed to do our stop before,” Rosenqvist said. “And then also at the end, we kind of had a buffer with lapped cars that gave us a little bit of a cushion to Scott at the end. It kind of worked out our way for the first time in a while, so I was enjoying the race a lot.”

Race Results

Pos No Name Laps Diff Gap Led ST Engine Points Team
1 10 Alex Palou 110 0.000s 0.000s 69 5 Honda 618 Chip Ganassi Racing
2 6 Felix Rosenqvist 110 5.4353 5.4353 3 11 Chevy 311 Arrow McLaren
3 9 Scott Dixon 110 8.0669 2.6316 15 4 Honda 527 Chip Ganassi Racing
4 5 Pato O’Ward 110 19.0572 10.9903 0 6 Chevy 461 Arrow McLaren
5 2 Josef Newgarden 110 21.0831 2.0259 0 12 Chevy 470 Team Penske
6 21 Rinus VeeKay 110 21.8799 0.7968 0 13 Chevy 265 Ed Carpenter Racing
7 8 Marcus Ericsson 110 30.5820 8.7021 0 10 Honda 423 Chip Ganassi Racing
8 18 David Malukas 110 32.6211 2.0391 2 23 Honda 255 Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
9 3 Scott McLaughlin 110 33.0282 0.4071 0 2 Chevy 448 Team Penske
10 27 Kyle Kirkwood 110 33.7836 0.7554 0 16 Honda 347 Andretti Autosport
11 45 Christian Lundgaard 110 34.4757 0.6921 0 17 Honda 362 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
12 15 Graham Rahal 110 38.6995 4.2238 21 1 Honda 271 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
13 26 Colton Herta 110 39.7582 1.0587 0 3 Honda 348 Andretti Autosport w/Curb Agajanian
14 06 Helio Castroneves 110 40.3373 0.5791 0 21 Honda 200 Meyer Shank Racing
15 77 Callum Ilott 110 40.4769 0.1396 0 8 Chevy 236 Juncos Hollinger Racing
16 14 Santino Ferrucci 110 41.1279 0.6510 0 22 Chevy 201 AJ Foyt Enterprises
17 29 Devlin DeFrancesco 110 42.5578 1.4299 0 20 Honda 169 Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
18 30 Juri Vips 109 1 LAPS 37.0964 0 18 Honda 12 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19 11 Marcus Armstrong 109 1 LAPS 2.1182 0 14 Honda 190 Chip Ganassi Racing
20 7 Alexander Rossi 109 1 LAPS 3.0216 0 9 Chevy 349 Arrow McLaren
21 20 Ryan Hunter Reay 109 1 LAPS 4.5760 0 25 Chevy 111 Ed Carpenter Racing
22 55 Benjamin Pedersen 109 1 LAPS 9.7550 0 26 Chevy 115 AJ Foyt Enterprises
23 51 Sting Ray Robb 109 1 LAPS 18.7679 0 24 Honda 129 Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
24 60 Tom Blomqvist 109 1 LAPS 1.1263 0 27 Honda 11 Meyer Shank Racing
25 12 Will Power 108 2 LAPS 1 LAPS 0 7 Chevy 393 Team Penske
26 78 Agustin Canapino 82 Mechanical 1 LAPS 0 19 Chevy 164 Juncos Hollinger Racing
27 28 Romain Grosjean 31 Contact 30 LAPS 0 15 Honda 276 Andretti Autosport

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 110.758 mph
Time of Race: 01:57:01.9814
Margin of victory: 5.4353 seconds
Cautions: 2 for 6 laps
Lead changes: 9 among 5 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Rahal, Graham 1 – 21
Palou, Alex 22 – 30
Dixon, Scott 31
Malukas, David 32 – 33
Palou, Alex 34 – 47
Dixon, Scott 48 – 59
Palou, Alex 60 – 78
Dixon, Scott 79 – 80
Rosenqvist, Felix 81 – 83
Palou, Alex 84 – 110

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings:
Palou 618, Dixon 527, Newgarden 470, O’Ward 461, McLaughlin 448, Ericsson 423, Power 393, Lundgaard 362, Rossi 349, Herta 348, Kirkwood 347, Rosenqvist 311, Grosjean 276, Rahal 271, VeeKay 265, Malukas 255, Ilott 236, Ferrucci 201, Castroneves 200, Armstrong 190, DeFrancesco 169, Canapino 164, Jack Harvey 146, Conor Daly 134, Robb 129, Pedersen 115, Hunter-Reay 111, Simon Pagenaud 88, Takuma Sato 70, Ed Carpenter 46, Linus Lundqvist 35, Tony Kanaan 18, Marco Andretti 13, Vips 12, Blomqvist 11, RC Enerson 5, Katherine Legge 5