Palou ticks the last boxes with Indy 500 triumph | RACER

Alex Palou has spent the last few years answering questions about what it would mean to add an Indy 500 win and a win on an oval to his vast list of IndyCar achievements. Both boxes are now ticked.

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Alex Palou has spent the last few years answering questions about what it would mean to add an Indy 500 win to his vast list of achievements. He’s answered just as many questions about when he’d finally earn that first oval win.

He won’t have to answer either of them anymore.

On a day that started off being mostly defined by chaos and mishaps, it all came down to patience and calculation. Palou's No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was sitting behind Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson, who had benefited from an alternate strategy to take a fuel and tire advantage into the final phase of the race. Palou, needing to save fuel, seemed content to spend most of the final 20 laps tucked in behind Ericsson so that he’d have what he needed to battle in the last couple of laps, and Ericsson seemed equally content to keep him there.

But Palou had spotted Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster – the last two cars on the lead lap – just a little further down the road from Ericsson. One car’s tow is as good as another’s, so when Ericsson, seemingly still playing the long game, left the inside open at Turn 1 on lap 187, he was probably quite surprised to see Palou slide past him.

Palou quickly tucked in behind the cars ahead, kept an eye on his mirrors in case Ericsson tried anything, and listened for word from the pitwall. It came on lap 196: “Burn all the fuel you need.”

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Palou never got around the two cars ahead, but he never let Ericsson get too close, either – until the last lap, when an attempt to break the two at the exit of Turn 2 failed and Ericsson got a run on the approach to Turn 3. It briefly appeared that a second Indy win was on the cards for the Swede, but what looked like the tiniest of wobbles was all it took for Palou to regain the advantage. A yellow flag for a Nolan Siegel crash in Turn 2 as the leaders exited Turn 4 sealed the deal.

“I cannot believe it,” said an elated Palou. “What an amazing day. What an amazing race. I can’t believe it. There were some moments I felt really good in the race, but at the end I wasn’t sure if I could pass Marcus Ericsson or not. It was tough conditions, especially when we were third or fourth in the pack. The fuel consumption was super high. But made it happen,. I’ve already lost my voice and I haven’t even started celebrating.”

Ericsson was left to process another one that got away, while David Malukas’ third place came after the No. 4 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy spent virtually the entire day running with the leaders. Pato O’Ward rebounded from a mostly quiet afternoon to finish fourth in Arrow McLaren’s No. 5 Chevrolet, leaving Felix Rosenqvist to round out the top five for Meyer Shank Racing in the No.6 Honda.

If the later part of the race was all about Palou, the first half was defined mostly by a string of disasters for others in the field. The race got off to a delayed start due to sprinkles of rain on some parts of the track, and as soon as the cars starting moving, the attrition began.

Scott McLaughlin didn’t even make it to the green flag. The New Zealander was trying to warm his tires when the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet jinked left and into the pitwall on the final installation lap, breaking the front-left suspension.

McLaughlin climbed out, removed his helmet and squatted down in the grass by the track with his head in his hands. His devastation was palpable.

“Rookie... I don’t know what,” he said after being released from the medical center. “I really have no idea what happened. Just really upset for my team, they built me a fantastic car again. I don’t know what happened. I can’t believe we are out of the race. I had so much hope today. By far the worst day of my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but you put so much into this day.”

The race finally went green on lap four, only to immediately go yellow again when Marco Andretti, on the outside of a four-wide group, was bumped into a spin right in front of Marcus Armstrong. Armstrong was able to continue on; Andretti was not.

“I haven’t seen (a replay) yet but whoever was next to me definitely crowded me and I ran out of room,” he said.

Meanwhile, Scott Dixon’s No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda had a brake fire in the left-rear wheel during the installation laps, but the team was confident that the issue would take care of itself once the brakes cooled down. The fire did go out, but apparently not before causing some damage. Dixon pitted for a left rear caliper change on lap 30, and ultimately finished three laps down.

The next couple of departures brought early ends to what had been brewing as two of the afternoon’s most compelling stories. Alexander Rossi, like the rest of the Ed Carpenter Racing team, had gone off strategy and stayed out when the bulk of the field pitted for during a caution for conditions on lap 19. He was running fourth, still on an alternate strategy, when smoke began to emit from the rear of his No. 20 ECR Chevy. He returned to the pits and shut it off, whereupon it immediately caught fire due to a fuel leak from the fuel probe. While crew and safety personnel blasted the car with extinguishers, Rossi climbed out and threw his gloves to the ground in disgust. The initial problem was traced to the gearbox.

Moments later, Rinus VeeKay, who had been on a heroic climb to sixth after starting 31st, lost the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda while entering the pits and hit the wall.

“I had no bite in the brakes coming into the pitlane,” he said. “I was doing 120mph and had no response from the brakes; I was trying to hit the brakes as hard as possible and locked up the left rear and it came around on me.”

A similar problem brought an end to Robert Shwartzman’s Indy 500 fairytale a few minutes later. The surprise polesitter, who’d dropped down the field following a very slow earlier stop, had brake problems of his own while approaching his pit box, locked up and understeered into the wall, hitting several of his crew members in the process. None were seriously injured.

“I touched my brakes and the whole front just locked,” said the PREMA driver. “When I braked I was just a passenger. I don’t know what happened, I just had no brakes.”

That brought out more yellows. The race went green again on lap 91 – and then almost straight back under caution, this time to a three-car crash at Turn 1 triggered by Kyle Larson. The NASCAR star lost the No. 17 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet on a downshift and spun into the outside wall, tapping Kyffin Simpson’s No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda into the wall in the process. Meanwhile. Sting Ray Robb had been alongside Larson at the time of his spin, went high to try to avoid it, but couldn’t find enough grip on cold tires and a cold track, and spun down into the inside tirewall.

Next to bow out was Josef Newgarden, who appeared to be on target to put a complete different spin on a rough week for Team Penske with his climb towards the front of the field from 32nd on the grid. He was running sixth, on the same strategy as the leaders and with a very fast-looking No. 2 Chevrolet underneath him when a fuel pump failure brought the curtains down on his hopes of a three-peat.

Conor Daly had a strong afternoon in Juncos Hollinger’s No. 76 Chevrolet until his right-rear tire went away completely near the end of his second stint. He went from running among the leaders to bleeding 14mph, becoming increasingly animated over the radio, while the team beseeched him to stay out just a couple of laps longer to avoid the need for a late splash and dash. He held on, but fell from contention.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, meanwhile, looked to have a chance to get a second portrait on the Borg Warner Trophy as an Indy-only driver, driving an Indy-only team (and doing so in a backup car after his primary car caught fire on Carb Day). A similar strategy to Ericsson’s had the Dreyer & Reinbold/Cusick Chevrolet in the lead as late as lap 170, only for the car to stall in the pits.

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