Even though Pato O’Ward led almost uninterrupted until lap 55, Alex Palou took home a convincing win at The Thermal Club.
The win continues Palou’s preposterous start to a third straight title — he leads his teammate, Scott Dixon (No. 9), by 39 points after only two races, winning both, the first time someone won both opening races since Dixon did it in 2020. If he continues at this pace, Palou will be the first driver to win three straight championships since Dario Franchitti managed it from 2009-2011.
It also continues a strong run of Chip Ganassi Racing wins on new tracks — a CGR car has won each of the last three new additions to the schedule. Palou (No. 10) also won last year’s exhibition race at The Thermal Club.
“He keeps beating us every time, so we need to stop that,” third-place finisher Christian Lundgaard (No. 7) said after the race.
Tire strategy was as confusing as predicted. Despite racing on a track that eats tires away, it was the soft, red tires that proved to be the optimal choice. Polesitter Pato O’Ward (No. 5) built a lead of over 10 seconds on new red tires before Palou pitted from second on used ones. When O’Ward finally boxed, he led Alexander Rossi (No. 20) by over 20 seconds and cycled back to the lead, still ahead of teammate Christian Lundgaard (No. 7), who eventually finished third.
On old softs, O’Ward didn’t last as long. Despite being one of the last to box from the first stint, he was one of the first back into the pits. Still, he didn’t lose the lead even after Palou had some success on the overcut. Shortly after the halfway mark, O’Ward led Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27), in fourth place at the time, by nearly half a minute.
Around that same time, the podium found its first battle since the first stint, with Palou catching Lundgaard. The Spaniard couldn’t get a nose inside of the McLaren driver, so he sat in Lundgaard’s wheel tracks until the No. 7 car made its last stop of the day. Palou stayed out for two laps longer, drained his push to pass and fought hard to undercut the Dane.
With a tire advantage — new softs against hards — Palou still had more pace than Lundgaard. He finally found a gap, dove into it and overshot the corner. Lundgaard got back ahead. Palou tried outside, Lundgaard stayed ahead. He tried inside again and got by, but Lundgaard took the position back on the straight.
After one final attempt, Palou cleared Lundgaard and disappeared down the road. Within a lap, Palou grew the gap over Lundgaard to over a second. O’Ward’s lead, which had grown to nearly 10 seconds, was almost immediately down to seven seconds.
“I knew I had lost that fight. He was out on a sticker set of alternates, and I was on a sticker set of primes and I knew he was going to have the advantage,” Lundgaard said. “I tried to make him lose as much time, fairly, as possible.”
Three laps later, it was only two and a half seconds. Two more laps and Palou was in a familiar position: the wheel tracks of a McLaren. For half a lap. As soon as he could, Palou dove to the inside of the Mexican driver and clinched the lead O’Ward held for 51 of the previous 55 laps.
“We ran a red-black-black-black race and it should’ve been… any sort of combination with two reds and two blacks,” O’Ward said. “I just think we missed it on the [No. 5] car.”
Palou took the two-red, two-black tire strategy, starting on used soft tires and finishing on new ones. That was the plan once they made the Fast Six in qualifying Saturday.
“That’s why we never used two sets of reds in Fast Six and we only did one push lap on those used reds,” Palou said. “It was very tough to look after used reds, very hard, and I actually overused them a little bit.
“We actually wanted to do another set of used reds… and we changed that to primaries to avoid having a big drop-off and make sure that we were going to be good to the end of the race.”
Unlike in St. Petersburg, Palou’s lead was not endangered by lapped cars in front. When the Spaniard caught O’Ward’s teammate, Nolan Siegel (No. 6), he didn’t even need to bother getting by — sticking behind Siegel and growing a 10-second lead by the finish.
O’Ward felt it still played an impact on his lead not being larger, however.
“All of our Chevy affiliate teams are worthless with helping when a Chevy leader is coming up on them, and Honda seemed to work as a team very, very well,” O’Ward said. “I still think Palou would have gotten us sooner or later.”
The McLarens, along with many of the cars, dealt with overheating hybrid engines as the outdoor temperature soared above 90 degrees. While the engines were expected to be a major storyline, that was more to do with the added weight to the cars, not a drop in power. Palou did not have such issues.
Even without much drama at the front of the field for most of the race, there was plenty of action elsewhere down the field. Will Power (No. 12) made up 14 places after a rough qualifying from all of Team Penske, culminating in a pass around the outside of Rossi. Power was the only Penske driver to recover from qualifying outside the top 15 — two-time champion Josef Newgarden (No. 2) only made up four spots after starting 17th and Scott McLaughlin (No. 3) bowed out of the race after contact with Devlin DeFranchesco (No. 45) on their way to the green flag. McLaughlin was the race’s only retirement.
After a largely solid weekend for PREMA’s Callum Ilott (No. 90), the Brit found himself in last place among finishing drivers after driving into the back of his teammate, Robert Schwartzman (No. 83), on the first lap.
Schwartzman, however, found some success, Even with a rather rotten 23rd-place finish, the former Ferrari development driver had competitive battles with six-time champion Dixon after moving to the mid-teens early in the race. A penalty in the pit lane killed Schwartzman’s hopes, but it was an encouraging weekend for the grid’s newest team.
It was a successful race — for those who could watch.
Unfortunately for IndyCar, the entire second stint wasn’t broadcast after a FOX truck went down. For almost 20 minutes, the broadcast flipped between ads and the NASCAR race intended to be shown on FS1. It’s a rough look for the race, with The Thermal Club only allowing around 5,000 fans to the facility — an already exclusive race became far, far moreso.
Each of the two races FOX has broadcast have been fraught with issues — in St. Petersburg, the timing stand rarely showed intervals between drivers and featured many drivers, particularly Conor Daly (No. 76), jumping up to zeroth place.
FOX and IndyCar had almost a month to adjust from St. Petersburg, and they’ll have another three months before broadcasting in Long Beach. If the broadcast continues to have problems, it’s hard to think Roger Penske and those heading the sport won’t start to have second thoughts about the deal they signed last year.
IndyCar returns to Southern California April 13, when the series takes to the streets of Long Beach.