Alex Palou came into Sunday’s IndyCar race as one of the favorites to win, as he is most every weekend, but the result turned out very differently.
After starting from pole, the reigning champion immediately was under attack from Kyle Kirkwood behind, and had to slot into second after the first lap.
Palou then had problem after problem that kept knocking him backwards.
First, he hit a competitor’s tire on pit lane and was given a drive through penalty, then later on his crew had trouble affixing the left front wheel to his car during the second pit stop cycle.
It was an uncharacteristic performance, and he was downbeat after finishing in 20th position, three laps down.
“Yeah, a lot. We could have done a lot differently,” Palou said on the FOX broadcast. “It hurts, man. It hurts.
“It was one of those races that I wanted to do really good. I wanted to get that win, so it hurts a lot that we had this bad of a day. It’s okay. Things happen.
“I’m at least kind of happy that everything happened on the same day instead of spreading out throughout different races.
“We had some issues on pit lane, one my fault and one out of my control. One the track, then I bumped a little bit the wall then 20 laps after the rear toe link broke. That’s why we spun. Not a good day, but it’s alright.”
Kirkwood came into the event as the nearest challenger in the points standings, and he went on to win the race and earn 53 points.
The disparity in performance cut Palou’s lead to 91 points, but with only three races remaining in 2026 it still seems likely the Spaniard will clinch his fifth title in the coming weeks.
Discussion about this post