By Roy J. Akers – www.skyviewsports.net
Mid Ohio — Starting the second half of the NTT Indy Car season, Alex Palou has a near insurmountable points lead in the final two months of the season and is on the pole for the Mid-Ohio race. Several drivers have a scant chance of catching Palou, and the time is now to close the gap. Palou needs to both exit races early and those within 100 points need to pounce. That would by Kyle Kirkwood, and Pato O’Ward. The rest are racing for better seats at the postseason banquet table.
Alex Palou takes the field to the green flag and on the opening lap, teammates Josef Newgarden, and Will Power collide and add Graham Rahal to the mix. The field spends the first 5 laps under yellow and drivers are pitting to gain red tires to better race the track. Will Power’s car smokes on lap 12 and he exits the race. Palou is up by 2.4 seconds over second place Christian Lundgaard. By lap 19, Palou’s tire ware is falling off and the field is slowly inching up on his early lead. AP plans his pit stop but the leaders outside of him pit by lap 25 of 90 and he has clean air in front of him as he has not caught lapped traffic and clean air is king. Palou’s stop on lap 28 for black scuffs takes him out of the lead and he drops to 7th and Kyffen Simpson is the new race leader. He pits and Scott Dixon cycles to the front with Palou second on lap 30/90.
Christian Rasmussen’s machine goes off track and it takes nearly one lap for a caution to slow the race and Palou inherits the lead. The race goes to green on lap 36 and Palou takes the field to turn one. Ferruci is penalized for running a competitor off the track on lap 45/90 and drivers continue to clock laps. Dixon gambles on saving fuel and running a two-stop race to the fields three and will help him in the later stages of the race.
By lap 48, Palou’s lead is 4.2 seconds over Lundgaard and Herta. Palou has run the fastest lap of the race for five straight laps with the leaders pitting and his lead is now nearly ten seconds over Herta and Dixon as Lundgaard pits from second place. Palou gets loose on lap 56 and takes two wheels off track and he pits on lap 57 of 90. With green flag pit stops, Dixon is back on top with Marcus Armstrong second, and Kyffen Simpson third.
With drivers once again pitting under green, Palou is once again your race leader on lap 62, with Lundgaard second ,and Herta third. Palou’s lead is nearly 14 seconds and he pits on lap 72. He takes hard compound tires and Herta inherits the lead with AP two seconds in front of the third place Dixon.
Palou’s machine is slowing up and Dixon goes around him and then Palou bobbles the car and the No. 9 is up front. Dixon methodically keeps the 10 at bay and wins Mid-Ohio.
It’s about the team
Chip Ganassi Racing had your race winner, (Dixon) second place car (Palou) and tenth place finisher (Kyffen Simpson). Team Penske had the two last place finishers plus a bottom five Scott McLaughlin.
Checkered Flag
Scott Dixon came into Mid-Ohio and knew he had to run a two pit stop race and save his fuel and tires at every opportunity if he was going to take on the points leaders who use three stops in most road course races. Dixon trailed by 25 seconds the beginning of the last third of the race and was only 2.5 seconds behind Palou after his third stop. Dixon takes advantage of a rare mistake by the 10 and wins the race in a close finish for his career 59th career victory. He is a six-time drivers’ champion of the IndyCar Series, having claimed the title in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2020, and he won the 2008 Indianapolis 500 with CGR.
Podium Finishes- Second and Alex Palou
Alex Palou – on his late race faux pau. Alex, big question: Turn 9, what happened?
ALEX PALOU: Big mistake, man. Big mistake. Yeah, nothing in particular happened. Just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out. Yeah, lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by
my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race. But yeah, man, it’s not over until it’s over, until you see the checkered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car. Yeah, just lost it.
Third Place Podium- Christian Lundgaard
Christian, another podium for you. Your thoughts on your day today?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: “Yeah, we saw Mr. Perfect here make a mistake. You don’t see that very often. I think the day was pretty good. Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did. This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. I think obviously Dixon kind of proved that.
This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do, and we decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result, but at the end of the day, we’re on the podium.”
Dixon Said It
“It was definitely a tough race,” Dixon said. “We had fantastic cars. But just so much fun to try and pull off what we did and do it with what we had was fantastic. “They were supposed to (remove downforce) from the front wing on the last stop. I just had to look at the corner, and the car was going to turn. I was just hoping the rear tires were going to hold on.”
My Terrible, very bad, no good day
Josef Newgarden crashes on the opening lap after tangling with teammate Will Power. He finishes last. Newgarden entered the race in 17th place in the points standings and will be in the low 20’s after the race is made official.
Tale of the Tape
Only four race leaders and 122 on-track passes among eight lead changes.
Factoids that may interest only me
Palou wins six of the first nine races. This is the first time since AJ Foyt in 1975 that this has happened in Indy Car.
Scott Dixon’s 59th Indy Car win puts him within eight of AJ Foyt to tie the all-time leader in wins.
Top Finishers
What’s Next
NTT Indy Car runs a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader next week in Iowa.
Roy J. Akers of www.skyviewsports covers NTT Indy Car
