Palou Wins Pole for Historic Freedom 250

Photo: Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

By Dennis Krause

In what may be the most anticipated NTT INDYCAR SERIES race of the season outside of the Indianapolis 500, Alex Palou will start from the pole in Sunday’s historic Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C.

The driver of the No. 10 OpenAI Chip Ganassi Racing Honda blazed the field for his seventh NTT P1 Pole Award of the season, a personal best, and the 19th of his career. Palou’s time of 56.8993 seconds in single-car Firestone Fast Six qualifying over the seven-turn, 1.7-mile temporary circuit that winds around the National Mall and other landmarks and monuments was nearly a half-second faster than Kyle Kirkwood’s No. 27 Sam’s Club Andretti Global Honda.

“It's awesome, super fun,” said Palou. “I love these Fast Six like one lap. Didn't really work for us Arlington. Long Beach we were close, but I think we got third. Detroit I think we got it with the same format.

“Yeah, really liked it. It was incredible. My car, the Open AI car was super good. Really fast obviously. To get another pole, it feels great.”

While Palou made it look easy, he claims it was nerve-wracking.

“It's the best thing and the worst thing at the same time. There's a side of me that loves it. When I'm heading into the corner without knowing if there's going to be enough grip or not, it's like, Yeah. The other side of me is, This is not good, we should not be braking there.

“It's fun. It's great. It's fun when it works out.”

While the condensed, two-day format made for a long day for drivers and teams, Kirkwood said the circuit was a lot of fun.

“The circuit, if you look at it from an overhead shot, it looks like a bunch of 90-degree corners. I can tell you what, it's not that.

“Once we actually got some laps around here, there are some high-speed bits, like turn six and seven is crazy high speed for a street course. There's some really low-speed, like turn two, then some mid-speed corners with three, four, five and one.

“It's pretty enjoyable to drive. I think it's no doubt bumpy. Obviously they did the best that they could with grinding. Just the nature of being close to the water, just streets in general in a downtown area are never going to be super favorable for a car that's running a millimeter off the ground. A lot of fun, a lot of character.”

At 147 laps, Sunday’s Freedom 250 is set to be the second longest street race in series history and sure to test drivers’ fitness, according to Kirkwood.

“Managing arm deg. That's going to be my thing,” Kirkwood said, smiling.

“Quite honestly, it's going to be interesting to see how the race pans out, right? I think we had a very caution-filled event last weekend [at Markham, Ontario, Canada]. I feel like people might be thinking it might be caution filled again, they will be a little bit more timid, which will make it all green. I feel like we flip-flop like that all the time. Or I could be completely wrong and it will be completely caution filled. Only time will tell.

“It is going to be physical, though. This place is very quick. The corners, the grip we had when we first got here, there's not been a lot of evolution. It's physical. Steering is heavy. Huge brake zones. Brake temps are very high. It's a tough place.”

In addition to being physical, Palou thinks Sunday’s race will be chaotic.

“It's a street course. It's new. It's 250 miles. There's huge bumps. Huge, huge. It's going to be tough. It's going to be chaos. People seem to love it. It seems like the more chaos we have, people just love it, as last weekend.

“We're going to bring some more chaos. Hopefully I'm not involved. Hopefully I can make it a bit boring.

“I honestly love it,” Palou continued. “How the corners are shaped, it allows you to attack a lot. It has a lot of grip. I didn't expect this tarmac to have so much grip. That's why it's so physical for us. The big bumps, just how grippy it is.

“I really like this place a bit more than Detroit. I think the race is going to be, like there's no passing opportunities in my opinion. There's turn two, turn five. It's so wide. If you attack someone, they want to defend, you have the exit of turn five that you're going to be able to make it. Turn six is impossible.

“There's two to three passing opportunities, so it will be fun.”

With four races remaining this season, Palou leads Kirkwood in the standings by a whopping 133 points entering the Freedom 250 - a gap of more than two races. While Sunday’s race is historic just for what it is, it’s possible that Palou could make more history by winning a record-tying fourth consecutive series title. But that’s not necessarily what’s on his mind. With the benefit of his lead in the championship, Palou has his eye on claiming the trophy that will go to the winner of a one-time historic event.

“I think the best thing is that we have this huge opportunity with the status of the championship to just focus on the race and try and make history,” Palou admitted. “Like, it's going to be the first ever, last ever, Freedom 250. It's going to be awesome. The trophy looks incredible. We want to win that.

“I think obviously I feel like if we can do one, probably it's going to maybe take care of the other one. Never know. But yeah, I'm really thinking about the race more than the championship. Obviously, getting both at the same time would be incredible.”

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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