Alex Palou presses his luck for Monday’s Borchetta Bourbon Music Grand Prix victory
- Jeffrey Hrunka
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Jeffrey Hrunka - INDYCAR Contributor
The right strategy at the right time. After running outside the podium places for the first half of the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix, Alex Palou caught a caution to assume the lead and led 97 laps en route to his first career victory at Nashville Superspeedway.
“I'm so happy. I knew we had a great car. It's one of those tracks that we've been struggling in the past. I know last year we were second,” Palou said. “We kind of got very lucky with a yellow there.”
Not only does the win mark Palou's fifth this season and 24th overall victory, but it also secured Chip Ganassi Racing’s 150th win as an organization.
He beat out defending winner Josef Newgarden, driver of the No.2 Team Penske Chevrolet, and oval ace David Malukas, driver of the No.12 Team Penske Chevrolet, who rounded out the podium places. Newgarden lined up second on the final restart with 30 laps to go, and struggled to get around the Spaniard.
“Once you get into traffic, you're fighting with the car a lot, Palou said. “I think everybody's on the same page. That's why you see the biggest differences once you get through traffic.”
As for Malukas, he showed tremendous pace through the race, but was relegated to the back of the field after suffering a hard crash in first practice on Saturday. To make up for the deficit, he elected to attempt the race on one less pit stop. This strategy call saw him assume the race lead several times for 59 laps led.
A caution on Lap 123 eased this opportunity when Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi wrecked on the back straightaway two laps after Malukas came down pit lane, forcing him one lap down.
“We just wanted to go on a different strategy to the rest of the field since we were all the way in the back,” Malukas said. “The one concern was are these tires going to hold? Thankfully, we went through the different pit cycles.”
The incident granted Palou the race lead as he exited the pit lane three-tenths ahead of the leader to avoid going a lap down. Once up front, Palou stayed there, with no driver able to pass him on track.
“I don't know if people were able to move or not. It was just very tough because it was quite easy to be flat out when you were in the lead, " Palou said. “Then once you lose a little bit of downforce, you have nowhere to go.”
The critical difference-maker in Palou's victory was the struggle to pass through dirty air. Although Palou was able to catch the right side of every caution, the race saw its most passes on either end of both stints. Newgarden alluded to not being able to run full stints towards the end of the race for Palou’s advantage.
“I didn't think it was going to fully be that way if we could have gotten more full stints,” Newgarden said. “Before the last yellow, I was coming, I was ready. The track was still open.”
With the victory, Palou extended his points lead to 83 points over David Malukas and 88 over Kyle Kirkwood, driver of the No.27 Andretti Global Honda. As for the rest of the field, the four-time champion exits the weekend with a 100-point lead over them.
"There's a lot of unknowns still. It's still very early,” Palou said. “I wouldn't trade, like, my points with anyone. But still a long stretch ahead.”
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix Results:
Alex Palou #10 - (WINNER)
Josef Newgarden #2 -0.873s
David Malukas #12 -1.22s
Scott McLaughlin #3 -5.444s
Felix Rosenqvist #60 -6.075s
Marcus Ericsson #28 -6.992s
Pato O’Ward #5 -7.98s
Mick Schumacher #47 (R) -8.745s
Kyffin Simpson #8 -9.15s
Kyle Kirkwood #27 -10.15s
Nolan Siegel #6 -11.134s
Rinus Veekay #76 -11.724s
Santino Ferrucci #14 -13.001s
Romain Grosjean #18 -16.668s
Sting Ray Robb #77 -19.054s
Christian Lundgaard #7 -23.864s
Louis Foster #45 -2 laps down
Scott Dixon #9 -7 laps down
Graham Rahal #15 -16 laps down
Will Power #26 -16 laps down
Dennis Hauger #19 (R) -47 laps down
Christian Rasmussen #21 -98 laps down
Alexander Rossi #20 -104 laps down
Marcus Armstrong #66 -121 laps down
Caio Collet #4 (R) -208 laps down
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES returns to action at Portland International Raceway for the OnlyBulls Grand Prix of Portland on August 9th. Fans can tune into the action at 12:30 pm EST on FOX or the FOX One app.
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