Winners and Losers: Detroit Grand Prix
- Morgan Holiday
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Álex Palou took his third consecutive pole position and another strong win in Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix.
In the streets of Detroit, chaos is always a major factor and there were plenty of incidents and controversial talking points after the race. As usual, DIVEBOMB takes a look at the winners and losers of the IndyCar weekend in Michigan.
Winner - Graham Rahal
After going two full seasons without a podium finish, Rahal is back in business. The American driver took his third podium of the year this past weekend in Detroit, coming back from a 12th place qualifying spot and contact mid-race to secure third place.
Rahal was one of two Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) drivers to crack the top 12 in qualifying on Saturday. The pair of them, Louis Foster and Rahal, only managed 11th and 12th in the Fast 12, but set themselves up with a chance to improve in the chaos that always follows in the streets of Detroit.
Rahal was running well inside the top 10 before making a pitstop on Lap 38. He came out of the pits in the middle of the pack and one lap later was rear-ended by Kyffin Simpson and spun. He recovered with minimal damage but was now running in 24th. But he didn’t give up and continued to recover ground, surviving four more cautions to make his way through the field and end up third by the end of the race.
The last time Rahal scored three podiums in one season was back in 2020, and this season still isn’t even halfway done. For a driver that is nearing the tail-end of his career, these past few races have been an incredible set of results for Rahal and his team.
Winner - Louis Foster
Rahal isn’t the only RLL driver to have had a good weekend in Detroit (sorry Mick Schumacher). Foster qualified just in front of his veteran teammate Rahal, putting him 11th for the race start on Sunday.
Unlike Rahal, he managed to stay out of the Detroit chaos and ran a quiet but solid race to a seventh place finish, his second seventh place finish in May, equalling his best career IndyCar result.
Foster is in his second season of IndyCar and has shown flashes of brilliance (namely a pole position scored at Road America his rookie season), but a top 10 finish had eluded him until the Grand Prix of Indianapolis a few weeks ago.
One top 10 finish might be a fluke, but two is solid proof that Foster and RLL have a good thing going, and in tandem with Rahal’s three podiums so far this season, it seems like good things are in store for the team as they head into the rest of the season.
Loser - The hybrid
IndyCar’s hybrid engine came under fire on Sunday after a stray criticism from Scott Dixon sparked controversy.
Dixon, who qualified fourth on Saturday and was running in the top 10 for much of the race, pulled his car into the pits and retired on Lap 69 with an engine issue. After getting out his car, he called it a “another joyous hybrid failure” and remarked on the system failure he experienced.
“It happened early, like maybe Lap 4 or 5,” he said. “I think we were out, we couldn't deploy. And then it had problems regening, once it does it, then it just goes into failure mode.So it almost stopped under the caution. And then I think with the alarm that you get now if you drive it, you've got to buy the system. I don't think anybody wants to buy these.”
Dixon was one of the first casualties of IndyCar’s newest hybrid engine, suffering a failure and retiring from Mid-Ohio in 2024, the first race with the hybrid, so clearly he’s not the biggest fan. But he’s hardly the only driver to have had issues, and his comments this weekend only underscored the fact that not everyone loves the current setup.
Loser - Will Power
Power’s Andretti tenure has been fraught thus far, and at first it seemed like Detroit might be the end of the run of poor luck he’s been having this season.
Power qualified second, just behind the unbeatable Palou, and was in the fight for the race win on Sunday. But towards the end of the race he was fighting with his former Penske teammate Scott Mclaughlin and the pair made contact that forced Power to retire from the race.
It’s his second consecutive retirement, and the third so far this year. Power’s Arlington podium is his only top 10 result in his time so far with Andretti, and his choice words mouthed on the broadcast showed that, in true Power fashion, he’s more than willing to show his displeasure at the situation.
With his teammate Kyle Kirkwood fast enough to finish second in the Detroit race, and the third Andretti car of Marcus Ericsson also in the top 10, this devastating result for Power will leave him wondering what could have been.
Loser - David Malukas
It’s a second weekend in the loser column for Malukas, and while this weekend will certainly sting less than his near miss at an Indy 500 win, Detroit was the cherry on top of what has been a devastating month of May for the Team Penske driver.
Malukas crashed in the second group of qualifying, narrowly avoiding further injury to his wrists after a mistake led to a hard run-in with the wall. He was unable to continue after the damage to his car, and qualified last.
In the race, he started at the back and worked his way through the pack and was running fourth behind Schumacher on a restart on Lap 73. Malukas was working on an overtake when Schumacher missed a corner and hit the wall. Unable to avoid his car, Malukas was forced onto the escape road, bringing out the caution again and dropping both drivers to the back of the field.
Without much time left in the race, Malukas stayed towards the back and ended up with an 18th place finish, his worst result of the season so far.
