+++
.
Saturday afternoon at Indianapolis - the IndyCar race…
.
…will be remembered as a BEAT DOWN by Alex Palou for Chip Ganassi Racing on the rest of the field, as the Spaniard took the WIN from his P3 start. P3 went to Pato O’Ward for Arrow McLaren from his P5 start and P3 went to Pato’s new teammate Alexander Rossi from a P10 start.
.
.
.
.
It wasn’t that Palou had the best car on the track. There were cars easily as good fighting him. It was that he had a great car and a great tire strategy to go with it and lastly, he executed flawlessly, all day long. It’s true that a race WINNER is almost always the guy who makes the fewest mistakes and Alex appeared to make none, all day.
Palou set the Fastest Lap and led the most laps and his strategy wasn’t interrupted by any cautions, though there was a caution, when the two Dale Coyne cars took each other out. It just happened to fall at a time that seemed to hurt no one else. After that one, it was a clean and fast race. The leader early was pole-sitter Christian Lundgaard for Rahal Letterman Lanigan and once Palou passed into the lead Chrisitan was also his most persistent and ardent pursuer. The young Dane also ran seemingly flawlessly, but his car was not good when he needed it most, due to the tire strategy. Eventually the Arrow McLaren boys were all on him, too. While Christian was able to come home in P4 Felix Rosenqvist for Arrow McLaren was after him, as the Arrow boys put all three cars in the TOP FIVE.
Palou WON by a solid 16.8006 seconds - Beat down!
.
.
.
Notable:
-
This was Pato’s 3rd P2 of the year. The young Mexican is being very consistent but has to be very frustrated. His consistency nevertheless is great for his title hopes.
-
Marcus Ericsson pulled in P8 from his P7 start. He lost the points lead as a result but is still TOP THREE.
-
Rossi was one of the biggest gainers on track, grabbing 7 positions to make a podium. Romain Grosjean also gained 7 spots, but started from P18 and was P11 at the end. Josef Newgarden gained 6 spots but had a bad final pit stop and it cost him. He ended the day in P7 from his P13 start. After the race he felt he had a P3 car, at least, but lost the opportunity at the end.
.
.
.
Here are the race highlights:
.
.
.
Your happy podium - That’s Alex Palou in P1 on the left, Pato O’Ward in P2 in the middle and Alexander Rossi in P3 on the right:
.
.
.
With this result, here are the TOP FIVE in points leaving the Indy Road Course:
1 - Alex Palou, 174
2 - Pato O’Ward, 168
3 - Marcus Ericsson, 155
4 - Romain Grosjean, 134
5 - Scott Mclaughlin, 133
.
.
.
The teams will take Sunday to make changes and then take Monday off but will remain at Indy to begin a week of testing for the Indy 500 on Tuesday. The weather is predicted to be about perfect all week.
.
.
.
M
