Alex Palou Takes Big IndyCar Points Lead Into Race At Mid-Ohio

There are nine races remaining in the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season and Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou of Spain has established himself as the driver to beat for the championship.

Palou, the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series champion, has a 74-point lead after eight races. He has won three of the last four IndyCar races, including two in a row with victories in the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on June 4 and the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America on June 18.

Next up is Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

“It feels amazing,” Palou said. “You said it, three wins in the last four races. We had obviously really fast cars throughout all the year, and we were able to maximize and get those wins that we were maybe lacking last year.

“Hopefully it doesn’t stop here. Hopefully we can keep it going. We have a couple of races now coming up that we were really strong last year as well. We feel very confident. So, hopefully we can add some more wins this year.”

Palou has finished second and third the past two seasons at the 2.258-mile, 13-turn natural road course that includes elevation changes, high-speed corners, flowing corners, tight corners, a narrow (40 feet) racing ribbon and a challenging entry to pit lane.

It’s also where Palou climbed into an Indy car for the first time in his career.

“It was my first IndyCar test at Mid-Ohio,” Palou recalled. “I like it. It’s a really short track and really tight. Like you cannot really breathe a lot. But it’s amazing. It just feels very, very nice, especially sector two, sector three areas.

“I like it. As I said, it’s extra special because it was my first test there, and we had good cars the last couple of years. Hopefully we can try and improve it a little bit more and get one step higher than what we did last year.”

Palou believes momentum matters in motorsports and her certainly has the momentum in IndyCar at the moment. However, he realizes the season is just short of halfway and much can happen over the next 2-1/2 months that can affect the battle for the title.

“I just think that everything is working really good for us now,” Palou said. “I feel like we were as strong as we are now at the beginning of the season, but we had some ups and downs during the races. Long Beach was a clear example where we were running in the top four, got caught up on an accident, dropped back to 15th and still finished P5.

“Our performance is there. It’s just we’re able to get the results and get clean weekends, which is not real easy to do very often in IndyCar.

“I feel like we have momentum. Momentum in motorsports matters a lot for driver confidence, team confidence, mechanic confidence. Everybody want to get the win, just like you are asking for more and more. It just gets better and better.

“Hopefully we can keep the wave big or even bigger. Hopefully we can continue having some success.”

What makes the IndyCar Series unique is the first three months of the season are heavily focused on the biggest race on the planet, the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day Weekend.

When the calendar turns to June, however, the attention shifts to the championship.

Although every race pays the same number of points and the first race of the season means just as much as the last, more is discussed about the championship after the Indy 500 than before.

“Obviously when you’re leading the championship, you think about the championship, right?” Palou responded. “In all the interviews, they ask you about it. But driving on a different way I would say only on the last race in the ’21 year where we drove a little bit under the limit to try and secure points.

“I don’t expect to think about securing points until the last race or the last couple of races. I think we should keep it that way. We should try and score more points, get even a bigger gap. The best way to do that is by winning races.”

Next up is Mid-Ohio, where starting up front is very important because passing is difficult on the challenging track. That makes qualifying very important.

“It’s huge at Mid-Ohio,” Palou said. “At the same time, I don’t think it’s everything. We saw I think last year, started in the back, had an accident, dropped to last, but made it back at Mid-Ohio. You have different strategies.

“If you have clean air, you can make some advantages by being short on some strategies, being a bit longer. That’s the beauty of IndyCar.

“Yes, qualifying matters a lot and it helps you a lot if you have a fast car. If you have a fast car and you are not starting on the right position, you can still make up ground.”

IndyCar had an off-weekend, but it certainly wasn’t an off-week as 20 drivers and eight different teams tested at the .875-mile Iowa Speedway short oval on June 21 to prepare for the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend on July 22-23.

Palou was one of those drivers and finished the full day of testing. Because it was a private test, all times and speeds were unofficial, but Palou’s No. 10 Honda was fourth at 172.236 miles per hour.

There are two races between the test and the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway. The first is the July 2 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio followed by another off week, then the July 16 Honda Indy Toronto.

“We still have those two races, and both are tough with a tight and short road course at Mid-Ohio and a crazy street course at Toronto,” Palou told me. “We will try to keep it rolling into Iowa.

“Iowa is huge for everybody because it’s a big weekend with a double race. We didn’t perform as we wanted last year, so it’s good for us to have a full day here with four cars and also, 16 other cars on track because that makes you able to compare to everybody else and not feel that you are better than you really are.”

It’s one thing to have a doubleheader, but another at one of the hottest tracks in the heat of July. It’s a race that is survival of the fittest.

“Honestly, it’s tough for everybody – the teams, mechanics, engineers and also for the drivers,” Palou said. “It’s a bumpy track. It’s a fast track. You don’t have much time to rest and it’s crazy hot.

“We’ll try and hydrate as much as possible ahead of the weekend.”

Palou said Iowa Speedway reminds him of his home area in Spain, where corn grows near his house.

“I think this place is great,” he said. “We always try to deliver a really good show here and give something back to the fans that give us so much. I think it’s a great event.

“I wish it were 20 degrees cooler, just to help ourselves, but we will try and have a good result.”

Palou also has an additional one million reasons to win one of the two races on the Iowa Speedway oval.

He would split a $1 million bonus in the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge by winning on a road course (GMR Grand Prix at Indianapolis and at Road America), a street course (Detroit) and an oval, potentially Iowa Speedway.

The driver would collect $500,000 and the other $500,000 would go to the charity of his choice, in Palou’s case The American Legion.

“It’s cool, but we are thinking about the race,” Palou said. “It would be great because it would also be charity money and we could direct the funds to The American Legion and that would be amazing. We know how many people we could help with that money.

“But we are focused on the race. We have two shots here to try to win it. Being here at the test will help us find some setup stuff will help us achieve that.”

Palou said everything has been clicking so far this season for his team at Chip Ganassi Racing.

He enters July hoping to keep it rolling.

“We’ve had fast cars since the start of the season, we’ve had good luck on our side,” Palou said. “Everything is going well. Hopefully, we can keep it going.

“We know how hard it is in IndyCar and how difficult it is to have this amount, of good races in a row, but hopefully we can continue it through the end of this season.”