Palou overhauls Herta to claim third win in last four rounds at Road America

Just over 24 hours after a heavy crash in the final free practice session before qualifying, Alex Palou took his third win in the last four IndyCar races, overtaking Colton Herta in the final laps to win the Grand Prix of Road America.

From pole position, Herta led much of the race but wasn’t able to build much of a lead after a flurry of early incidents and Safety Car interventions. It seemed Herta was on course for his first win of 2023, as he virtually led for most of the race save for a round of pit stops at the mid-way point.

But the race turned when Herta pitted for the last time at the end of lap 40 of the 55-lap race. That was one lap before his closest pursuers including Palou, who’d run in second for much of the race, and briefly got ahead of Herta after the final Safety Car restart. Herta was able to retain his advantage over Palou on the track, but he needed to save more fuel to the end just to make the finish – let alone hold the lead.

The two leaders ran tail-to-nose for a handful of laps before Palou slipstreamed past Herta into turn one, and grabbed the lead with seven laps to go.

From there, Palou drove off to a 4.5-second margin of victory – following up his dominant wins at the Indianapolis GP and last week’s Detroit GP with a win at Road America. The victory is huge in Palou’s bid for a second IndyCar Series title, as he now leads the championship by 74 points over his Ganassi team mate Marcus Ericsson, who finished in sixth.

Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden finished in second place, and a much-needed third place was won by McLaren driver Pato O’Ward, to correct course after back-to-back crashes in the Indy 500 and Detroit. O’Ward had a scruffy start compounded by a blocking penalty after he pushed Santino Ferrucci onto the grass on the first lap.

O’Ward had to hold off Scott Dixon, whose fourth place was something of a miracle for the six-time IndyCar champion. Dixon set off the free practice two incident which left Will Power incensed with him yesterday. Dixon could only qualify 23rd just a few hours after the bust-up, but made another signature late-race surge to pick his way into the top 10, and eventually the top five.

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After leading 33 out of 55 laps, fifth place will have felt like a bitter disappointment for Herta, who has now gone more than a year since his last IndyCar victory.

Behind Ericsson, Christian Lundgaard found himself in the wars all day, bumping elbows for prime position but he came home in a solid seventh. Scott McLaughlin authored a great comeback drive of his own, going from 18th to finish eighth – and after spinning out and stalling on the opening lap, Kyle Kirkwood recovered to finish in ninth place. Alexander Rossi completed the top ten finishers.

Will Power finished 13th after starting 22nd. While he tried to gain track position with an alternate pit strategy just like Dixon did, his bid for a top 10 finish fell short. He did fare better than another target of his Saturday morning ire, as Romain Grosjean spun off in front of him on lap 12, causing a Safety Car period. Grosjean finished a lap down after a few more off-track excursions, in a painful 25th place.

Another driver who led for a brief period was Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong, also on an alternate strategy – but he dropped down the order after his penultimate stop on lap 31, and then went off course on the last lap, for a 24th-place result.

There was only one retirement: David Malukas went off course and retired on lap 25, bringing out the Safety Car for a fourth time. The others were for following Kirkwood’s first lap spin, Grosjean’s spin on lap 12 and Jack Harvey who slid off at the final corner before the field got to turn one after the Grosjean Safety Car was withdrawn.

One driver who stayed out of trouble was 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, who finished 17th in his first race with Ed Carpenter Racing, on the lead lap, after starting 27th and last.

IndyCar returns in two weeks’ time to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, to kick off the second half of the 2023 season.

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Grand Prix of Road America race results

110Alex PalouGanassiHonda22Josef NewgardenPenskeChevrolet35Pato O’WardMcLarenChevrolet49Scott DixonGanassiHonda526Colton HertaAndrettiHonda68Marcus EricssonGanassiHonda745Christian LundgaardRLLHonda83Scott McLaughlinPenskeChevrolet927Kyle KirkwoodAndrettiHonda107Alexander RossiMcLarenChevrolet1115Graham RahalRLLHonda1221Rinus VeeKayCarpenterChevrolet1312Will PowerPenskeChevrolet1460Simon PagenaudMeyer ShankHonda1506Helio CastronevesMeyer ShankHonda1614Santino FerrucciFoytChevrolet1723Conor DalyDreyer & ReinboldChevrolet1877Callum IlottJuncos HollingerChevrolet1978Agustin CanapinoJuncos HollingerChevrolet206Felix RosenqvistMcLarenChevrolet2155Benjamin PedersenFoytChevrolet2251Sting Ray RobbCoyne/RWRHonda2329Devlin DeFrancescoAndrettiHonda2411Marcus ArmstrongGanassiHonda2528Romain GrosjeanAndrettiHonda2630Jack HarveyRLLHonda2718David MalukasCoyne/HMDHonda

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