Palou’s Portland Perfection

Photo: Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

By Dennis Krause

The headline alliteration aside, Alex Palou’s tire management master class in Sunday’s Only Bulls Grand Prix of Portland was a perfect example of what the 29-year-old Barcelona, Spain driver has been doing to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES field since joining up with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 - make winning look easy.

In particular, it was his stint on the alternative, red side-walled Firestone tires in the middle portion of the race that put Palou’s No. 10 DHL Honda out of reach to pole-sitter and race runner-up Felix Rosenqvist’s No. 60 SiriusXM Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Honda.

“Yeah, I would say the race in general was incredible for us,” Palou said. “I think pretty much nobody expected those reds and soft tires to be that fast and to be that good, especially so many laps. That's why we went a bit let's say in that moment as well, also because (strategist) Barry (Wanser) and (race engineer) Julian (Robertson) said we're going to hit some traffic. It was a time to try and open the gap. It worked incredible.

“But that was like, man, those tires are the best. I wanted to have them more towards the end to avoid Felix or (Will) Power or whoever we were going to be fighting with.”

Even when Wanser came on the radio and said he wanted Palou to do an extra eight laps on the reds, the four-time series champ replied no problem.

“Yeah, I mean, there's times that that doesn't work,” Palou explained. “There's times that he goes on the radio and says eight more laps. I'm like, No way. That doesn't happen.

“In my mind, when I was driving, I thought that I had to do another 15. So when he said another eight, I was like, Oh, that's good. We're going to make it happen.

“I started pushing a bit more and tried to get everything out of the tire. Yeah, I was glad that it was that way. It doesn't usually happen where he goes on the radio and he gives me a better number than what I thought.”

While Palou made his sixth win of the season look easy, Wanser claimed it was anything but.

“Yeah, it's certainly not easy. We've talked about it before, winning in INDYCAR is difficult. You look at how close qualifying was. I mean, we had to do something different than Felix. We had to go longer than him.

“It takes a lot of performance by Alex and certainly the Honda engine to give us the fuel mileage to jump in one more and do the overcut. That helped us. We had a pretty smooth pit stop and got the jump there.

“It's not easy winning in INDYCAR,” Wanser maintained. “When you look at this track, normally with that much green flag running, you probably put all but seven or eight cars a lap down. I think there were 19 cars on the lead lap. Just goes to show how much performance there is here at this track and speed, even throughout the field.”

Palou now has 25 career race wins, and a mind boggling 51 podium finishes, in 111 starts in NTT INDYCAR SERIES competition, stats both of which he’s proud of.

“Yeah, very proud of both,” Palou stated. “I mean, it's incredible. I feel like you don't really realize when you're just going week in and week out. But when you look back and see those numbers, they're incredible.

“But I could not do it without the team, with everybody that is around me, giving me the chance every single weekend. The preparation we have before every weekend, having had the opportunity to test here couple weeks ago, just having always best strategies, it's incredible.

“But the end of the day we need to keep it up. We need to keep on winning and keep on fighting for championships and 500s.”

Speaking of championships, Palou moved closer to a record-tying fourth consecutive series title, and fifth overall, with Sunday’s win. He’s now a comfortable 110-points clear of second-place Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global, a nearly insurmountable gap of more than two races with five remaining.

“I mean, yeah, more comfortable than when we came here,” Palou admitted. “This was one of those weekends where we wanted to do good. I mean, we want to do good every single weekend. But we don't know what's going to happen at Markham. New track for everyone, new track for me. We don't know what's going to happen at DC.

“There's still a lot of points to play. It was important to maximize. If we had an opportunity to win, to win, instead of finishing second or anything like that. A win gives you a big, big amount of points. The same way that in the last two weekends we got a huge gap, someone else can do the exact same thing. So we need to keep on pushing.”

The next two races, at Markham, Ontario, Canada, and Washington, D.C. on back-to-back weekends are unknowns as they are both new to the schedule. According to Palou, it’s a challenge he’s excited about.

“Yeah, it's a challenge for the drivers, but also for the teams. We have no references. Obviously we have nowadays great tools with the simulator. At Honda, they do an incredible job for us. But it's never the same as knowing the track, knowing every bump, knowing how much you can push the car.

“It's the same for the team. The team, they can get ideas of how to set up the car, but it's never the same. It's going to be a big challenge for everyone in the paddock.

“I think this team has been excelling lately on whenever there's a big challenge like that or new challenge, so I'm excited.”

Last season was a magical one for Palou and the Ganassi team, winning eight races enroute to a third championship and likely never to be duplicated. Yet, here he is with six wins this season and on the cusp of a fourth straight title.

“Yeah, I mean, crazy. I don't know what to say. I really meant when I said that, that last year was very magical and it was very tough to repeat. Yeah, maybe we can even improve it. We'll try. We'll give our best.”

Improve it?

The INDYCAR paddock must be shaking their heads, wondering how Palou can improve upon perfection.

Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute.

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