Caution controversies allow Alex Palou to hold off Kyle Kirkwood for Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix victory
- Jeffrey Hrunka
- May 31
- 4 min read
Jeffrey Hrunka - INDYCAR Contributor
Street courses are always a wildcard on the NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule, as heavy braking zones and tight-knit racing are a recipe for trouble. This could not be truer in Sunday afternoon’s edition of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, as Palou stayed ahead of the chaos between cautions for his fourth victory of the season.
"It was not an easy day at all. It was not like a straight -- there's races where it's just straightforward and whatever it looks like it's going to be,” Palou said. “[There was] plenty of action, struggling a lot on restarts, and [I] didn't know if we were going to make it with Kyle or not because he was on alternates…I think he had a small advantage on the first two restarts, but then at the end I think he just didn't have enough grip on the tires.”
Alex Palou, driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, started on pole, led 71 laps, and dethroned the “King of the Street Courses,” Kyle Kirkwood, driver of the No. 27 Honda, with his fourth win in eight races. With the win, Palou extended his lead over Kirkwood to 62 points, who had to settle for a runner-up finish.
Christian Rasmussen’s early wreck in the Detroit Grand Prix, driving the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, was a hint of what was to come, as it was the first of seven yellows for 20 laps. The incident opened the gate for drivers to mix in strategy on lap 10, with the two preferred strategies focusing on sacrificing the alternate tire for a dominant stint on the primary (primes) compound.
Palou and Kirkwood were the main players in each strategy. Palou elected to run on the alternates in succession, ending on the primes. Kirkwood separated both his alternate stints with a middle portion of the race on the harder allocation.
Constant cautions caught drivers off guard throughout the race, critically, before the last set of pit stops.
Drivers who elected to run long on their second stints, such as Kirkwood, were forced to pit into traffic. The full course yellow allowed Palou, Mick Shumacher, Graham Rahal and David Malukas, who pitted early, to stay out and back in contention for the win.
Although Kirkwood started sixth after being filtered back through traffic, he immediately got to second after Malukas and Schumacher made contact in the ensuing restart. Back-to-back yellows under 16 to go, stalled out his tire advantage once he caught Palou. Both Malukas and Schumacher received damage and finished several laps down.
Kirkwood felt many of the full-course yellow-flag conditions were exaggerated after the recent officiating controversy involving Alexander Rossi, driver of the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, who was stranded on the front straightaway with no full-course caution at the Sonsio Grand Prix on May 9.
He believed the aforementioned incident was inflated.
"Not really. To be honest, when you get ridiculed and criticized so much by the media, the drivers, everyone involved, that's what you expect from race control,” Kirkwood said. “at the same time, it seemed like they got way too much pressure for leaving a driver on the front straight that was kind of in a safe position, 25 or 26 competent drivers that weren't going to hit him.”
Graham Rahal, driver of the No.15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, rounded out the all-Honda podium. Although the cautions benefited his strategy, he said they were warranted based on the several blind spots on street courses, such as Detroit.
He emphasized that his turn 3 contact with Kyffin Simpson, driver of the No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, on lap 39 underscored the importance of the incident.
“I thought the procedure was good in my case, particularly because I was behind a blind corner and I really did not know -- I backed up. I was kind of guessing,” Rahal said. “The thing I can tell you here, this place exaggerates the margin for error from the standpoint that it makes all the scenarios worse. It's so easy to lock up and hit the wall here. It's so easy, even if you're going easier, under yellow flag conditions.”
For Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, it continued their recent run of success on road courses with Rahal’s third this season, his most since 2020. As for Foster, he tied his best career finish of seventh.
Chevrolet struggled to show speed at its home race, with only three of its drivers finishing inside the top 10. The Arrow-McLaren duo of Pato O’Ward, driver of the No.5, and Christian Lundgaard, driver of the No.7, were the top two Chevrolet finishers, in fourth and fifth.
Josef Newgarden, driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet, was the race's largest mover, going from 21st to 10th over 100 laps.
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Results:
Alex Palou #10 - (WINNER)
Kyle Kirkwood #27 -3.058s
Graham Rahal #15 -5.18s
Pato O’Ward #5 -6.242s
Chrisitan Lundgaard #7 -7.263s
Felix Rosenqvist #60 -8.193s
Louis Foster #45 -8.8s
Marcus Ericsson #28 -9.247s
Kyffin Simpson #8 -9.674s
Josef Newgarden #2 -11.896s
Marcus Armstrong #66 -12.53s
Rinus Veekay #76 -13.4s
Dennis Hauger #19 (R) -14.188s
Sting Ray Robb #77 -14.952s
Nolan Siegel #6 -15.324s
Caio Collett #4 (R) -15.96s
Alexander Rossi #20 -54.044s
David Malukas #12 -4 laps down
Scott McLaughlin #3 -4 laps down
Romain Grosjean #18 -9 laps down
Mick Schumacher #47 (R) -9 laps down
Will Power #26 -21 laps down
Santino Ferrucci #14 -22 laps down
Scott Dixon #9 -31 laps down
Christian Rasmussen #21 -91 laps down
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES will shift from street-course racing to oval racing at World Wide Technology Raceway on June 7, on FOX at 9:00 pm EST. Stay up to date with Motorsports Today for all on-track coverage surrounding the Bommarito Automotive Group 500.
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