Palou beats Rosenqvist for third win of 2026 in Long Beach

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Álex Palou stormed home to a third win in five races to start 2026 on the Streets of Long Beach as he re-claimed the IndyCar championship lead and finally took a long-awaited first victory on the California streets.

Felix Rosenqvist had been the long-time race leader but was beaten out of the pits by the four-time IndyCar champion during the last round of stops after the caution had come out for debris on-track.

Rosenqvist came second at the flag, whilst Scott Dixon claimed his first podium of the year in third.

How it happened

Polesitter Rosenqvist led the field into Turn 1 followed by Pato O'Ward, Palou, Kyle Kirkwood, David Malukas and Dixon, despite the field not being formed up in the standard two-by-two procedure, with a significant gap behind Dixon to seventh-placed Will Power. The first lap was mainly incident-free bar a minor tap between Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson at Turn 11.

With the opening laps being the best opportunity to make key overtakes, Palou made his move to second, as he overtook O'Ward into Turn 1 on Lap 2 and sat in behind Rosenqvist.

Rinus VeeKay was the first to pit, making an early stop from the alternates to the primaries on Lap 8, with Josef Newgarden the next major name to pit as he moved from primaries to alternates on Lap 11. Newgarden's undercut proved a significant advantage, with the two-time champion a second-a-lap quicker than the rest of the field, albeit meaning he would have to make another stop later on.

The race soon settled into its rhythm before O'Ward was the first of the frontrunners to take off his alternates on Lap 30 as he moved onto another set of alternate tyres. The leading two would follow a lap later along with Kirkwood and Malukas. Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) would win the race off pit road as Rosenqvist maintained his position over Palou. Kirkwood and Malukas were able to overcut O'Ward behind.

Further down the order, Ericsson suffered a hybrid issue on Lap 37 which dropped the Swede down to 22nd before he pulled into the pits as his No.28 crew investigated the issue. He would retire from the race shortly after.

Newgarden, who had built a 17 second lead up front due to his alternate strategy, made his second of three stops on Lap 38, as he went onto another new set of red tyres and came back out on track in 14th. However, Newgarden's strategy would become a lot more difficult when he heavily locked up his front left whilst overtaking Marcus Armstrong.

Christian Lundgaard was forced into an early stop on Lap 50 after suffering a slow puncture, which would leave him short on fuel and meaning the Dane would have to make another pit stop.

The caution was brought out on Lap 57 after a piece of debris was stuck on the racing line on the exit of the fountain and stacked the field up ahead of the critical final pitstop.

The entire field pitted on Lap 59 under caution in the pitstop phase that would ultimately decide the race. Palou took over the lead ahead of Rosenqvist, Dixon, Kirkwood, O'Ward and Power, with Malukas the big loser as he dropped down to eighth. Power would turn out to be another big loser as he was penalised for hitting Caio Collet's left-rear tyre changer when exiting his pit box, dropping him to the back of the field.

There was no catching Palou from that point, who steadily built his gap over Rosenqvist and took his third win of 2026, adding to his successes at St. Petersburg and Barber. Rosenqvist claimed a second podium finish at MSR as he finished second at the flag with Dixon in third, who claimed his first podium of 2026 despite some late-race pressure from Kirkwood.

Kirkwood continued his streak of claiming a top five finish at every race in 2026 by finishing fourth, ahead of O'Ward who claimed his fourth top five finish in five races. McLaughlin finished sixth ahead of Penske teammate Malukas ahead of Graham Rahal, Rossi and Kyffin Simpson.