IndyCar News: Palou schools the field to win 2nd title in Portland

Spaniard Alex Palou dominated the Bitnile.com GP of Portland Sunday in Portland to win his 2nd NTT IndyCar title in three years.

With one race to go in the season, Palou has enough points that teammate Scott Dixon in 2nd cannot catch him.

It was Palou’s 5th win of the year – more than any other driver. It was Palou’s 9th IndyCar career win and 9th championship title for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Alex Palou and Chip Ganassi - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ Joe Skibinski — Alex Palou and Chip Ganassi – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ Joe Skibinski

Palou led 69 of 110 laps and eased to a 5-second win over Felix Rosenqvist despite a late caution that bunched the field.

“That’s what we wanted,” Palou said. “It was an amazing weekend overall. We had really fast cars. We knew we had to go for it, and we just raced how we’ve been doing all season. Super proud to be here in victory lane and super proud of the second championship.

“I never thought that I would be an INDYCAR champion, and to be a two-time INDYCAR champion feels amazing, like a dream.”

Scott Dixon came home third, but should have come home 2nd if not for IndyCars closed pit crap shoot rule.

Ganassi also clinched its first 1-2 finish in the driver point standings since 2009, as six-time series champion Scott Dixon secured second with his third-place finish in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren teammate Pato O’Ward was 4th, 19s behind.

Felix Rosenqvist - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ Joe Skibinski — Felix Rosenqvist – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ Joe Skibinski

Josef Newgarden rounded out the top-5 for Team Penske after crashing out in qualifying Saturday.

Running on Firestone primary tires at the start, Palou first took the lead on Lap 22 when NTT P1 Award winner Graham Rahal and fellow front-row starter Scott McLaughlin stopped for fuel and swapped their Firestone alternate tires for primary rubber. The CGR team decided on an “overcut” strategy for Palou and Dixon on primary tires, running long on the more durable rubber to build a gap on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course.

That strategy worked perfectly. Palou made his first stop on Lap 31, switching to Firestone alternate tires. Dixon stopped a lap later as the last driver to enter the pits for his first service, staying on primary tires.

Palou cycled to the front on Lap 34 when David Malukas pitted from the lead in the No. 18 HMD Trucking Honda fielded by Dale Coyne Racing with HMD.

From there, Palou and Dixon alternated the lead during pit cycles until Rosenqvist grabbed the top spot on Lap 81 when Palou made his final stop. But Palou took the lead for good on Lap 84 when Rosenqvist pitted a lap before the caution flew for the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet of rookie Agustin Canapino, who spun off track in Turn 12.

Alex Palou - BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland - By_ James Black — Alex Palou – BITNILE_com Grand Prix of Portland – By_ James Black

That caution period allowed Rosenqvist to get heat into his new, cold Firestone alternate tires at slow speed behind the Honda pace car, avoiding a probable attack by Dixon on warmer, grippier tires if the race was under green-flag conditions.

Palou eased away from Rosenqvist and Dixon on the restart on Lap 88. But Rosenqvist stayed within one second for the next five laps before Palou began his inexorable drive away from any threats and into victory lane as Rosenqvist’s alternate tires lost grip toward the end of the race.

“I was kind of lucky in the end, first off with the yellow that we just managed to do our stop before,” Rosenqvist said. “And then also at the end, we kind of had a buffer with lapped cars that gave us a little bit of a cushion to Scott at the end. It kind of worked out our way for the first time in a while, so I was enjoying the race a lot.”

Race Results

Pos	No	Name	Laps	Diff	Gap	Led	ST	Engine	Points	Team
1	10	Alex Palou	110	0.000s	0.000s	69	5	Honda	618	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	6	Felix Rosenqvist	110	5.4353	5.4353	3	11	Chevy	311	Arrow McLaren
3	9	Scott Dixon	110	8.0669	2.6316	15	4	Honda	527	Chip Ganassi Racing
4	5	Pato O’Ward	110	19.0572	10.9903	0	6	Chevy	461	Arrow McLaren
5	2	Josef Newgarden	110	21.0831	2.0259	0	12	Chevy	470	Team Penske
6	21	Rinus VeeKay	110	21.8799	0.7968	0	13	Chevy	265	Ed Carpenter Racing
7	8	Marcus Ericsson	110	30.5820	8.7021	0	10	Honda	423	Chip Ganassi Racing
8	18	David Malukas	110	32.6211	2.0391	2	23	Honda	255	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
9	3	Scott McLaughlin	110	33.0282	0.4071	0	2	Chevy	448	Team Penske
10	27	Kyle Kirkwood	110	33.7836	0.7554	0	16	Honda	347	Andretti Autosport
11	45	Christian Lundgaard	110	34.4757	0.6921	0	17	Honda	362	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
12	15	Graham Rahal	110	38.6995	4.2238	21	1	Honda	271	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
13	26	Colton Herta	110	39.7582	1.0587	0	3	Honda	348	Andretti Autosport w/Curb Agajanian
14	06	Helio Castroneves	110	40.3373	0.5791	0	21	Honda	200	Meyer Shank Racing
15	77	Callum Ilott	110	40.4769	0.1396	0	8	Chevy	236	Juncos Hollinger Racing
16	14	Santino Ferrucci	110	41.1279	0.6510	0	22	Chevy	201	AJ Foyt Enterprises
17	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	110	42.5578	1.4299	0	20	Honda	169	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
18	30	Juri Vips	109	1 LAPS	37.0964	0	18	Honda	12	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19	11	Marcus Armstrong	109	1 LAPS	2.1182	0	14	Honda	190	Chip Ganassi Racing
20	7	Alexander Rossi	109	1 LAPS	3.0216	0	9	Chevy	349	Arrow McLaren
21	20	Ryan Hunter Reay	109	1 LAPS	4.5760	0	25	Chevy	111	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	55	Benjamin Pedersen	109	1 LAPS	9.7550	0	26	Chevy	115	AJ Foyt Enterprises
23	51	Sting Ray Robb	109	1 LAPS	18.7679	0	24	Honda	129	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
24	60	Tom Blomqvist	109	1 LAPS	1.1263	0	27	Honda	11	Meyer Shank Racing
25	12	Will Power	108	2 LAPS	1 LAPS	0	7	Chevy	393	Team Penske
26	78	Agustin Canapino	82	Mechanical	1 LAPS	0	19	Chevy	164	Juncos Hollinger Racing
27	28	Romain Grosjean	31	Contact	30 LAPS	0	15	Honda	276	Andretti Autosport

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 110.758 mph
Time of Race: 01:57:01.9814
Margin of victory: 5.4353 seconds
Cautions: 2 for 6 laps
Lead changes: 9 among 5 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Rahal, Graham 1 – 21
Palou, Alex 22 – 30
Dixon, Scott 31
Malukas, David 32 – 33
Palou, Alex 34 – 47
Dixon, Scott 48 – 59
Palou, Alex 60 – 78
Dixon, Scott 79 – 80
Rosenqvist, Felix 81 – 83
Palou, Alex 84 – 110

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings:
Palou 618, Dixon 527, Newgarden 470, O’Ward 461, McLaughlin 448, Ericsson 423, Power 393, Lundgaard 362, Rossi 349, Herta 348, Kirkwood 347, Rosenqvist 311, Grosjean 276, Rahal 271, VeeKay 265, Malukas 255, Ilott 236, Ferrucci 201, Castroneves 200, Armstrong 190, DeFrancesco 169, Canapino 164, Jack Harvey 146, Conor Daly 134, Robb 129, Pedersen 115, Hunter-Reay 111, Simon Pagenaud 88, Takuma Sato 70, Ed Carpenter 46, Linus Lundqvist 35, Tony Kanaan 18, Marco Andretti 13, Vips 12, Blomqvist 11, RC Enerson 5, Katherine Legge 5