IndyCar News: Palou takes the entire field to school at Laguna Seca

Alex Palou (pictured) survived two late yellow flag restarts and dominated the 2025 Java House GP of Monterey NTT IndyCar race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

For the eighth time this year, Palou started from pole and gave the other IndyCar drivers a schooling they won’t soon forget on the way to his 4th IndyCar title.

So dominant was this year’s Indy 500 winner, Palou, that his fastest race lap was 0.7s faster than anyone else.  It’s probably best described as ‘like taking candy from a baby.

“Today we had a lot of pace. I was super comfortable with the car. Car balance was amazing. Strategy, pit stops. And we were fast on both soft or hard tires. It was one of those days where it felt like we had a big pace advantage, and we were able to — I’m happy that we were able to capitalize and get that win.”

“Three, four race wins would be a good season. Four I would say it’s like a season that you are, like, on fire. Three is a good season. We won the championship last year with two wins, and another one at Thermal that was not inside the championship.”

“I felt that last year was a really good year for us. But yeah, I think three wins. Whenever you are able to win three races, it’s a pretty good year”

“Yeah, could not be happier with eight wins this season.”

Arrow McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard came home 2nd, 3.8s behind Palou, but if not for all the cautions, Palou may have lapped the entire field.

A disappointed Lundgaard gave his take of the race and his results.

“Really it was just a very similar race for me compared to Barber. Used the undercut and attack. Obviously it worked. I knew I had to surprise Colton Herta. So I did it into 11 instead of waiting for the main straights.”

“I think with the amount of deg that we had, the alternates (red tires) weren’t — they were lasting from a pace perspective, but again, balance was very tough at the end of stints, and I knew that from my own first stint.”

” I was really struggling on the last stint. We were on a used set of alternates that we knew we had to run longer than we’ve run the other two new alternates stints. I was just trying to keep it on the track, in all honesty, and stay ahead of Colton. It just made it a lot tougher having to keep Colton behind as well. ”

Colton Herta was third in the #26 Andretti Global Honda, 4.6s behind the DHL Honda of Palou.

“The race was fun. At the end of the race, too. I think it was — I kept Christian (Lundgaard) on his toes at the end. Unfortunately, he got by me in that pit exchange. It’s fun. When you get to race here, when you have deg like we did, and it opens up lines and allows more raceability, it makes this place a lot of fun.”

“For me, this is my favorite racetrack in the country, and it really is a treasure every moment that we get to bring INDYCAR here. It’s a super track. It deserves INDYCAR,
and really it needs INDYCAR. We go well together.”

“Love racing INDYCARs here. Love the ability that the track kind of weathered and opened up lines, and now you can race here a lot better than the last two years. I think it
shows it’s earned its spot on the calendar this year.”

Palou’s title rival, Pato O’Ward, passed Scott Dixon with seven laps to go to take 4th place, but Alex widened his point lead, 589 to 469 (120 points).

Dixon held off Callum Ilott to round out the top-5, 7.3s behind his teammate Palou in an identically prepared Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

The race winner, Alex Palou, and Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Seigel, are the only two drivers to take the lead of the race.  Palou passed Seigel on Lap 37, just before Seigel ducked into the pits, and never had another car get close enough to challenge him for the lead.

There were only 13 laps of yellow for the entire race and Palou was so fast.  On Lap 71, the Spaniard was 32.3387 seconds ahead of Christian Lundgaard.

Team Penske had a redeeming weekend, with all three drivers finishing today.   Will Power finished seventh.  Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden finished 10th and 11th respectively.

After winning his eighth race of the season, Palou has eliminated all competitors from going for the championship except for Pato O’Ward.

2025 Java House GP of Monterey IndyCar Results

Lucille Dust reporting live from Laguna Seca