IndyCar provided me with some needed entertainment to bolster my weekend. Whilst not an all-time classic, Saturday’s running at the Indy Road Course mixed fun battles with an interesting game of strategy being played for the win. Like so many races last year, Alex Palou proved that, when in front, he becomes unstoppable. Palou laid down a gauntlet, reminding fans that his consistency and resilience makes him one of the favourites for the title.

At the race start, things did not go Palou’s way. He had a bad start, allowing himself to be overtaken by the impeccably talented Christian Lundgaard. Palou’s car may have had better pace, but he was stuck behind Lundgaard during the first stint, with Will Power rounding out the top three a few seconds behind. Behind the leading pack, chaos ensued as every driver struggled relentlessly to gain early track position. As this track can be challenging to overtake on, the best time to be aggressive is immediately. Some drivers took it too far however, most notably Santino Ferrucci. His move on Romain Grosjean, purposefully pushing him off of the track, was disgraceful. So much so that Marcus Ericsson, himself not a fan of Grosjean, appeared to push Ferrucci himself in response. Romain Grosjean’s race was deliberately ruined by Ferrucci, in a move that race control embarrassingly failed to punish. However, the racing gods don’t look well on dirty drivers, so when fate hit Ferrucci and he retired from the race with a technical issue, I can’t say it didn’t feel like karma.

An early undercut from Will Power forced Lundgaard and Palou to go into pit lane. Lundgaard retained the lead, but as Palou was on harder, colder tyres, Power took an opportunistic dive to take second place. At this point, it appeared that the race may swing against Alex. Power slowly reeled Lundgaard in, only to do so very quickly when Christian reached lapped traffic. Power took another opportunistic undercut to try to gain the lead of the race, but finding himself trapped behind Ericsson, this failed, with Lundgaard retaining track position after pitting on the next lap. However, whilst both Power and Lundgaard thought they were fighting for the win in this moment, they failed to account for Alex Palou, who in chess terms, was about to play a checkmate.

During the second stint, Palou was on the slower, harder, black tyres. They last longer and are faster towards the end of the stint, but most drivers found themselves limited during their required stint on these tyres. Palou, in contrast, was faster than anyone else on them, for example lapping 0.8-1.2 seconds a lap faster than Josef Newgarden, who was on those tyres at the same time. Thus, when both Power and Lundgaard attempted to undercut, Palou used his superior pace at the end of the stint to overcut both of them and come out in the lead. Palou proceeded to pull away until the end of the race and managed the race restart perfectly, to ensure that he would not lose his astutely gained track position.

The only other change amongst the leaders was when Lundgaard and Power took their final stops simultaneously. Whilst Power was behind Lundgaard, Team Penske has a perfectly oiled pit crew, whilst Rahal Letterman Lanigan has one that is comparatively unlubricated. Power was only ever going to retake second place. With the fight for the lead largely concluded, attention turned further down the field, namely, Coulton Herta’s fantastic recovery. After running out of fuel in qualifying, Coulton had to start the race in 24^th. However, he showed his tenacity and pace throughout the race, picking off car after car and making no mistakes in the process. Channelling determination, Coulton finished the race in 7^th. In a weekend that could have been a detriment to his championship chances, Coulton did the job of any championship contender, minimize your losses on the bad, unlucky weekends. His known pace can do the job on the other weekends.

Overall, I had a good time with this one. An interesting strategy, a reminder of Palou’s talent, determination from Herta and chaos behind. This season is setting itself up to be fantastically competitive. And from my own perspective, I’m happy that Scott Dixon had a clean uneventful race and finished 4^th. It’s what we need to get championship number seven.