Mastering the mayhem: How Palou won IndyCar at Road America
- Archie O’Reilly
- Jun 23
- 8 min read
When even Barry Wanser and the genius No.10 Chip Ganassi Racing team cannot decipher how things are going to unfold until the very closing laps, it is a telltale sign of an IndyCar race that has been something of a barnstormer.
There were 348 on-track passes - 345 of which were for position - at Road America on Sunday. And it was a frenzied affair from the outset.
A caution on Lap 1 for the beached AJ Foyt Racing car of David Malukas set the tone, with five yellow periods inside the opening 30 laps triggering a scattered strategy game. Either side of these stoppages, it was an epic showcase of the purity of hard-fought IndyCar racing.
With as few as three laps remaining, Scott Dixon led the way from CGR teammate Álex Palou on an audacious fuel save. Palou himself was in a fuel-save situation but on a different strategy to Dixon, with the two cars behind on further alternative strategies; Felix Rosenqvist was hard-charging and Santino Ferrucci on another fuel-save mission.
How did they all get there? What did they all need to do to make the finish?
It was hard for even the best in the business to say for certain - a day where few envy the role of strategists. But that unpredictability and jeopardy is fuel for the best IndyCar races.
“We didn’t know we were on the right strategy until like 10 to go,” admitted Wanser, Palou’s strategist and CGR team manager. “We’re reacting based on what we think is happening. Today was luck to be on the right strategy because it was hard.”
Only with two laps remaining did the picture become totally clear. Dixon had bailed for a splash of fuel - dropping him to ninth - but Palou remained on track. And it was a majestic fuel-saving effort to get him over the line, such that he was able to push on the final lap to fend off threat from behind, take the chequered flag and complete his in-lap.
With mayhem on the strategy front and aggression rife on track, and even in a race of distinct uncertainty, Palou still shone with his unique inevitability.
After a race so fraught and with so many fluctuations, it was still the Spaniard who reigned supreme to pick up a sixth win of the season - the first to reach this tally since Will Power in 2011 - inside only nine races.
His lead in the championship over Kyle Kirkwood has extended to 93 points as IndyCar passes the midpoint of its season. And after two races winless and off the podium, Palou got back on track in emphatic style.
“It was tough,” he said. “It was a crazy race. It just felt like there was a lot going on. Lots of yellows that were shaking how we were looking. We were looking really bad at the beginning, then really good, then terrible, then really good. It was tough to be up there.”
No matter how manic a race may be, Palou continues to show an unprecedented ability to rise to the top. And it certainly was a testing route to Victory Lane in Wisconsin.
There was a hint of adversity even before the race start, for which Palou was lining up in second place, amid indecision about what tyre to start on. There is a 30-minute window for teams to declare their choice, with the No.10 team initially opting for the harder primary compound but then deliberating their choice last-minute upon the 9:56am deadline.
At the last moment, with input from Palou in favour of the softer alternates, the team realised they may be making the incorrect choice. But by the time CGR altered their declaration, they were five minutes past the deadline and knew their request would be declined.
As the race unfolded, Wanser knew the eventual decision to start on the black-sidewalled primaries put them on the back foot. Indeed, Palou dropped from second to seventh before the first-lap caution was brandished.
“We should have never started on the blacks,” Wanser admitted. “It worked against us. Quite a few cars around us picked us off. It ended up being the right call in the end, but if we were to do the race again, not knowing what we know, we probably should have started on the reds.
“Then he wouldn’t have been able to complain about reds the rest of the race...”
Palou ran the alternate tyres from Lap 12-23 - his second stint - having regained some ground after his initial losses. He was ultimately the only finishing driver to do three stints on primaries and only once run the alternates in what appeared an alternate-favoured race.
He did not side with the choice to switch to the red-sidewalled softer compound in this first stop, hence Wanser pointing to Palou’s complaints. There was some rare grouchiness from the ever-effervescent three-time champion.
“I didn’t agree with Barry’s strategy call,” Palou confessed. “I got a bit grumpy for a couple of laps and then I saw it was working out and I started saying thank you again.
“That was only our set of alternates because I was pushing to try and get the pole, which we didn’t get. [That] put us on the back foot against [Christian] Lundgaard, [Scott] McLaughlin and everybody else that was not in the Fast Six.
“I knew it was going to help us during that stint but it was going to hurt us a lot on the last stint. But honestly, the pace we had today in the No.10 car was amazing and we were able to save fuel even on primaries to be quite fast.”
Wanser, who works closer than anyone with Palou, acknowledged it is rare for his driver to come close to losing his temper. So in the Elkhart Lake heat, Palou’s agitation was a little alarming.
But there is a deep-rooted culture of trust at CGR and knowledge that those on the pit wall have more information than anyone.
“He doesn’t get grumpy, so when he is grumpy, I know he’s really mad and questioning what we’re doing,” Wanser said. “We made some strategy changes on the tyres during the race that we went against what we agreed on before the race so he wasn’t very happy about that.
“But we saw what our competitors were doing and who we were racing so we had to make that change to be able to stay with them and then beat them. And it worked out.”
The critical call, Palou believes, came on Lap 24, when he pitted at the end of a brief caution period and the likes of Lundgaard, Kirkwood and eventual second-place finisher Rosenqvist stayed out and went off-beat to form another new strategy.
This put Palou into the lead of what had been the favoured strategy for the majority.
“That was the moment that I would say gave us the win,” Palou suggested. “We still had, I would say, five laps of fuel to make it, but in case there’s another yellow, you’re done. So that was a great call.”
As things settled, Palou found himself behind Dixon. But his veteran teammate had pitted prior to that fourth caution, at the end of which Palou pitted, which put the New Zealander into what proved to be an almighty fuel save across his final two stints of the race.
A further two-lap yellow period for Josef Newgarden was a boost for Palou’s fuel save, but Wanser and company knew that Dixon - and Alexander Rossi at the time - were in a worse, more helpless situation regardless.
By the time of his final pit stop, Palou was comfortably clear of any other driver on his own strategy and had only Dixon ahead of him on track. He knew his teammate making it to the end of the race without a splash of fuel would be a stretch, but with the six-time champion the master of fuel saving, Palou was not ruling Dixon out.
“When I was following Scott, I could see that he was not saving as much as I was,” Palou explained. “I was like: ‘This guy is crazy. How is he going to do it?’ If it was another driver, I would have probably just focused on myself.
“But I know that Scott can make crazy stuff happen.
“I trusted Barry but I was like: ‘Man, if he gets a yellow he’s still P1 and we’re not going to be able to pass him.’ We were still trying to get that first position on track just in case there was a four-lap yellow at the end and then he was still leading and ending up with a win.”
Even Palou’s No.10 team were concerned that Dixon could produce a trademark piece of magic having started the race from 25th.
“I even said to all of the engineers on the stand: ‘Are we missing something here?’” Wanser recalled. “They double-checked everything, triple-checked, but we were pretty confident we were going to be fine.”
Ultimately, Dixon did have to pit for a top-up of fuel and Palou was released for the final two laps. With Rossi also having bailed behind on an even more extravagant fuel-save attempt, attention turned to Palou having enough in reserve to fend off Rosenqvist, whose later second stop of the race meant he could push flat-out.
But having been in the tow of Dixon and used his own imperious race-management skills, Palou had over-saved fuel so he could push on the final lap. Even a last-lap fastest lap from Rosenqvist could not get him within two seconds of Palou by the chequered flag.
Pit exit became a graveyard for out-of-fuel cars after the race finish, but such was Palou’s outstanding fuel save, he was able to complete one final 4.014-mile tour of IndyCar’s longest track, albeit without celebratory donuts.
“I would have liked that,” Palou joked.
But singing Toby Keith’s ‘Red Solo Cup’ over the radio in honour of his striking one-off primary sponsor was sufficient celebration for yet another stunning victory for Palou.
“It was [always] the plan,” he said. “I did very good. The interference on the radio maybe didn’t sound very good but in my head it sounded amazing. It was good. It was fun.
“[Learning the lyrics took] a little bit longer than you would expect. I think also because there’s back-to-back lyrics that are very confusing when it says like: ‘I love you Red Solo Cup.’ So then in my head it was tough.
“I actually looked at it this morning. The last YouTube video I looked at was the lyrics of the song just in case we were winning.”
The win was another showcase of Palou’s ability to balance risk and reward in a race that, away from the chaotic strategic element, was rife with havoc on track. His ability to avoid the peril again coming to the fore, Palou was twice the beneficiary of contact between Power and Kirkwood at Canada Corner in the early exchanges.
He certainly showed aggression himself where necessary - but only where necessary. And he did so in a calculated, measured manner that allowed him to reach the finish unscathed.
“It was very aggressive,” Palou observed. “I got bumped - I don’t know now if it was the first restart or the second - by multiple cars. Not big contacts but when you’re touching wheels and it’s like: ‘Man, this could end up very bad.’
“I saw [McLaughlin and Newgarden] as well in Turn 5 banging wheels. There was a lot going on. Everybody wanted to get up front - me included. I was lucky enough to get out of the drama. I lost a couple of places because of contact but I didn’t lose like five seconds.”
Selfless as ever, Palou again heaped credit on his CGR team, plus the strength of Honda as they continue a 100 percent winning record in 2025 and 10-race winning run.
“We got the win because of the team that we had on both pit stops and strategy,” he said. “They made it look really good and HRC gave us the mileage we needed to gamble and to make it with that stop that we did.”
Honda’s nine victories this season have still only been spread across two individual winners, Palou and Kirkwood. It is the first time there have been only two winners in the first nine races of a season since Johnny Rutherford and Bobby Unser in 1980.
Long uncharted and historical territory continues to be breached as greatness is continually forged in 2025 for a driver ever-emerging as one of IndyCar’s best.
“The magical moment that we have in the No.10 car, it’s the same for Honda,” Palou described. “Even though sometimes we’ve not been the fastest, we are able to maximise everything and get the win.
“It’s amazing. It’s not normal.”
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