IndyCar completed the 13th round of the 2026 season on Sunday, with drivers racing 110 laps around Portland International Raceway.
Felix Rosenqvist led the field away at the green, and amazingly the entire field made it through the notorious Turn 1 complex without any major damage.
As the race wore on, the expected tire battle did not play out. Both tire compounds performed well, allowing drivers to stay on the preferred, spaced-out pit strategy throughout the event.
READ MORE: IndyCar Portland – Full Race Results
The battle for the win was fought in pit lane, however, and Alex Palou was able to leapfrog into the lead after the first stop due to a slow service from Rosenqvist’s Meyer Shank Racing crew.
Once Palou was up front, there simply was no catching the Spaniard. He had his own slow pit stop later on, but had built a gap by that point and cruised to victory by just over four seconds.
Palou’s win is sixth of the season, and gives him a massive 110 point lead in the overall points standings with five races remaining.
Rosenqvist maintained second position, continuing a good run of form that has been present ever since he announced his intention to leave MSR for Arrow McLaren next season.
Crossing the line third was Will Power, who made it an all Honda podium with his run.
Power has yet to win a race with his new Andretti team, but he now has three podiums and sits just outside the top 10 in points.
Rinus VeeKay ended the day in fourth, completing the weekend just as strong as it started and was the first Chevy driver in the standings.
The other two Andretti Global drivers Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson finished fifth and sixth respectively, giving their team a fantastic result on the West Coast.
What tire strategy?
The consensus coming into the race was that the soft tires were not going to last very long. Teams had determined this throughout the weekend and planned accordingly.
However, the red-walled variant proved to be up to the task, and some teams even decided to run a second set of the softer tires.
Team Penske clued into the new strategy quickly, and even chose to run three sets of soft tires with Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden.
The strategy worked brilliantly, and both drivers vaulted through the field from their starting positions in the middle of the field.
McLaughlin ended the day in seventh after starting in 13th, and Newgarden finished in eighth after rolling off in 14th.
Arrow McLaren employed a similar strategy that also favored the softer compound, and Christian Lundgaard climbed from 25th all the way up to ninth.
Lundgaard in particular was particularly impressive, and at one point found himself battling wheel to wheel with Kyffin Simpson.
He came out of that battle unscathed, and continued his march forward from there. Simpson finished just behind in 10th.
Even though the softer compound tires did not degrade as quickly as expected, some still had issues with them.
Pato O’Ward was one who reported that he thought his right front was going to blow, and when he came in the team found heavy blistering.
Even so, he also ended the day farther ahead than he started, and almost logged a top 10 for his efforts.
Falling backwards
While good fortune for some allowed them to move forward, others had troubles on the Portland circuit.
The first and only caution was brought out by Graham Rahal, who got it wrong in Turn 11 and slid across the dry grass.
He made contact with the tire barriers, but was able to continue without assistance.
Rahal’s car was not completely unharmed, however, and he remained at the back of the field all afternoon. He ended the day in 23rd.
Marcus Armstrong was the only retirement of the day, as he coasted down pit lane after suffering engine issues.
He started the weekend off strong, but the latter half of the event did him no favors. He finished in the 25th and final position.
It was a pit stop issue that undid Christian Rasmussen’s day. He had been running in the mid-pack, but the slow stop just past halfway cost him four laps.
There is no rest at this point in the season, and there are events each weekend for the next month to conclude the 2026 season.
Next on the schedule is a trip north of the border to Markham, Canada, where drivers will tackle a brand new street course.
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