IndyCar News: Palou defeats Power to win Sonsio GP at Indy
Polesitter Alex Palou led 39 of 85 laps around the IMS road course in his Chip Ganassi Honda to win the Sonsio GP by 6.6 seconds over Team Penske veteran Will Power in his #12 Chevy.
Palou won the race off pit road on lap 62 of 85 then beat Will Power into Turn 1 on the restart and stretched him out from there to the finish.
Early race leader Christian Lundgaard in the #45 RLL Honda was third, 8 seconds behind. Lundgaard took the lead from polesitter Palou at the start and led 35 laps
Palou’s Ganassi teammates Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong rounded out the top 5 in 4th and 5th.
Colton Herta was the big mover in the race. Starting 24th, he came home 7th ahead of Scott McLaughlin’s Penske Chevy.
It was Spaniard Palou’s career win No. 10 and the third Indy road course in a row for the Ganassi team.
With the win, Palou is now the NTT IndyCar championship point leader.
Only two laps were yellow, caused by a spin from Dale Coyne Racing’s Luca Ghiotto, which made the multiple strategies not work the way some teams hoped they would.
Will Power
Will Power was disappointed to finish second in the third race this season.
“It was just a solid day. Just didn’t quite have enough on that restart. I had to lift coming into the last corner, just had too much push. Had to lift, otherwise would have been an interesting battle into Turn 1. I didn’t know whether to go for the inside or the outside but he made it very clear he (Palou) was going to blow up the inside, so I kind of went the
outside. Just wasn’t far enough along to make it work.”
“I just wish I was a bit more like Dixon where some of them just fall into place for you. Yeah, yellow drops here and you start on blacks. You qualified so you got your reds and da-da-da.”
“Doesn’t seem to flow like that for me. I don’t know why. Every win I get it’s just the hardest fought win. I’ll take an easy one at some point. I’ll take that, the next one. The next race. If it was an easy, give me — and I got absolutely lucky I would be very proud of that. If I got just a total luck — like the dude should not have won, he wasn’t the quickest, but he did. I’d be like, yes, I’m taking that. I’m taking it.”
Christian Lundgaard
Christian Lundgaard had a great start to the race by taking the lead in Lap 1 and holding onto it until lap 35. The Dane tried to get a second win by was beat by a fast Alex Palou.
“Happy to be disappointed I would say. Yeah, I think that’s becoming an expression in
the RLL engineering truck. Sometimes we’re just happy to be disappointed.”
“No, I’m proud of the team. We qualified well at Barber, and I think considering how we handled Long Beach in terms of strategy trying to get too much out of what I think we could have hurt us on the pure result. Going into Barber, it was a pure strategy of just get through the race and make sure that we get a good result, and coming here, there was a minimum, which was a podium. We got it, but I wanted it to be a win.”
“But I think Alex was just fast today. He was fast here last year in May, in August. He’s fast wherever we go, really!”
Race Results
| Pos | No | Name | Laps | Behind | Gap | Led | ST | Engine | Points | Team |
| 1 | 10 | Alex Palou | 85 | 0.000s | 0.000s | 39 | 1 | Honda | 152 | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 2 | 12 | Will Power | 85 | 6.6106 | 6.6106 | 0 | 3 | Chevy | 140 | Team Penske |
| 3 | 45 | Christian Lundgaard | 85 | 8.0900 | 1.4794 | 35 | 2 | Honda | 84 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 4 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 85 | 13.4262 | 5.3362 | 1 | 6 | Honda | 127 | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 5 | 11 | Marcus Armstrong | 85 | 13.8978 | 0.4716 | 3 | 8 | Honda | 76 | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 6 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | 85 | 14.2746 | 0.3768 | 2 | 13 | Chevy | 88 | Team Penske |
| 7 | 26 | Colton Herta | 85 | 18.8554 | 4.5808 | 0 | 24 | Honda | 127 | Andretti Autosport w/Curb‑Agajanian |
| 8 | 7 | Alexander Rossi | 85 | 20.1638 | 1.3084 | 1 | 7 | Chevy | 78 | Arrow McLaren |
| 9 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 85 | 22.1556 | 1.9918 | 2 | 9 | Honda | 71 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 10 | 60 | Felix Rosenqvist | 85 | 26.3424 | 4.1868 | 0 | 10 | Honda | 107 | Meyer Shank Racing |
| 11 | 27 | Kyle Kirkwood | 85 | 27.4572 | 1.1148 | 0 | 14 | Honda | 86 | Andretti Autosport |
| 12 | 77 | Romain Grosjean | 85 | 29.3108 | 1.8536 | 0 | 23 | Chevy | 68 | Juncos Hollinger Racing |
| 13 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | 85 | 31.2388 | 1.9280 | 0 | 5 | Chevy | 88 | Arrow McLaren |
| 14 | 30 | Pietro Fittipaldi | 85 | 31.8872 | 0.6484 | 2 | 11 | Honda | 45 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 15 | 4 | Kyffin Simpson | 85 | 32.2895 | 0.4023 | 0 | 25 | Honda | 60 | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 16 | 28 | Marcus Ericsson | 85 | 34.6582 | 2.3687 | 0 | 21 | Honda | 63 | Andretti Autosport |
| 17 | 6 | Theo Pourchaire | 85 | 36.5679 | 1.9097 | 0 | 18 | Chevy | 40 | Arrow McLaren |
| 18 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 85 | 36.9649 | 0.3970 | 0 | 4 | Chevy | 60 | Team Penske |
| 19 | 18 | Jack Harvey | 85 | 38.0124 | 1.0475 | 0 | 17 | Honda | 46 | Dale Coyne Racing |
| 20 | 20 | Christian Rasmussen | 85 | 39.4219 | 1.4095 | 0 | 20 | Chevy | 32 | Ed Carpenter Racing |
| 21 | 78 | Agustin Canapino | 84 | 1 LAPS | 52.3448 | 0 | 15 | Chevy | 48 | Juncos Hollinger Racing |
| 22 | 41 | Sting Ray Robb | 84 | 1 LAPS | 7.8457 | 0 | 27 | Chevy | 31 | AJ Foyt Enterprises |
| 23 | 66 | Tom Blomqvist | 84 | 1 LAPS | 2.0972 | 0 | 26 | Honda | 41 | Meyer Shank Racing |
| 24 | 8 | Linus Lundqvist | 84 | 1 LAPS | 5.8808 | 0 | 19 | Honda | 68 | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 25 | 51 | Luca Ghiotto | 84 | 1 LAPS | 6.4597 | 0 | 22 | Honda | 14 | Dale Coyne Racing |
| 26 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | 84 | 1 LAPS | 5.6187 | 0 | 12 | Chevy | 58 | Ed Carpenter Racing |
| 27 | 14 | Santino Ferrucci | 55 | Mechanical | 38.0056 | 0 | 16 | Chevy | 63 | AJ Foyt Enterprises |
Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 117.956 mph
Time of race: 1:45:27.2320
Margin of victory: 6.6106 seconds
Cautions: 1 for 2 laps
Lead changes: 13 among 8 drivers
Lap Leaders:
Lundgaard, Christian 1 – 18
Armstrong, Marcus 19
Rahal, Graham 20 – 21
Fittipaldi, Pietro 22
Lundgaard, Christian 23 – 39
Palou, Alex 40
Dixon, Scott 41
Rossi, Alexander 42
Fittipaldi, Pietro 43
McLaughlin, Scott 44
Palou, Alex 45 – 61
Armstrong, Marcus 62 – 63
McLaughlin, Scott 64
Palou, Alex 65 – 85
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings: Palou 152, Power 140, Dixon 127, Herta 127, Rosenqvist 107, McLaughlin 88, O’Ward 88, Kirkwood 86, Lundgaard 84, Rossi 78, Armstrong 76, Rahal 71, Lundqvist 68, Grosjean 68, Ericsson 63, Ferrucci 63, Newgarden 61, Simpson 60, VeeKay 58, Canapino 48, Harvey 47, Fittipaldi 45, Blomqvist 41, Pourchaire 38, Rasmussen 32, Robb 31, Ilott 19, Ghiotto 14, Braun 10, Siegel 10
Lucille Dust reporting live from Indianapolis