Palou, Malukas Top INDYCAR Qualifying at Road America
Photo: Chris Jones/Penske Entertainment
By Dennis Krause
Alex Palou picked up right where he left off last year at Elkhart Lake’s Road America, collecting yet another trophy and winning the pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s XPEL Grand Prix.
Palou, who won last year’s race at the picturesque 4.014 mile, 14 turn road course, turned a lap of 1 minute, 43.6615 in his No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to earn his fifth consecutive NTT P1 Award of the season.
The four-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion and three-time Road America winner insisted it wasn’t a matter of rinse and repeat and that he was genuinely surprised by winning the pole, his first at Road America, sixth of the season and 18th of his illustrious career..
“Yeah, it was so tough,” Palou said. “Q1 I felt great. Q2 I struggled a ton. Yesterday I felt great, but this morning I struggled, as well.
“I knew it was going to be very tough to piece it together. My lap, it felt good. There's always room to improve. You never know if there's going to be someone that just pieces together even better than you.
“Yeah, it's always surprising. It's always so fun and so tough to get it right. I think everything is so tight that, yeah, still surprises.”
It was Palou’s fifth consecutive pole in the series. The last driver to do so was Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Zanardi who won four straight poles at the end of the 1996 season and then two more to start 1997.
David Malukas was second fastest in the Firestone Fast Six qualifying session in his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet with a lap of 1-minute, 43.9542.
“It feels good,” said Malukas of his second front row start of the season. “P2, right there. Going from practice yesterday to today, we flipped this car upside down overnight. It was not in the window yesterday. Coming into today, so much better. We got it right where we needed it to be.
“Qualifying, P1, P2, put some laps together. This track is so long, it is so hard to put a lap together. That is the main thing. You'll see the splits of other drivers in between sessions, it's so drastic. You have these long straightaways. Come out of turn three, long straightaway, you're thinking, thinking, by the time you get to the next corner.
“Q3, missed out a little bit.”
Malukas maintained that he wasn’t frustrated to be looking up at Palou again on the timing screen.
"Not really. For me, I know the mistakes I made in Q3. For me, I'm actually over the moon because here I am P2 on another road course, right? It feels really good.
“I feel like before this season, it was ovals only. I worked so hard the off-season, even in between the races, the amount of simulator, looking at video, data. I look at video till I just get sick of it, learning, gain what I can.
“Now I can say road courses, street courses, ovals, it feel good that I'm always there on all three.”
Photo: Paul Hurley/Penske Entertainment
Despite putting in another great qualifying performance, Malukas says he’s not stressed about going for his first career series win.
“No. I try to keep that contained. If the situation's there, then great, we can go and get that win. At the end of the day it's trying to get points, trying to have a good race. You don't want to make stupid mistakes or a stupid move to be like I need to get this win so bad.
“I know the time will come,” Malukas stated. “If this race is going to be the one, we'll go for it. If the situation doesn't arise, you have to keep the mind calm and collected, get what we can.”
Fastest in Friday’s practice session, the Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian duo of Marcus Armstrong and Felix Rosenqvist locked out the second row for Sunday’s 55-lap race with Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin making up row three.
A lack of consensus about which is the better tire for Sunday’s race, the primary black sidewall tire, or the alternate red sidewall tire, has kept drivers and teams guessing all weekend.
“Tomorrow is going to be tough,” Palou said. “It’s going to be a long, long race for everyone. I don’t really know what tire is best. It seems like everyone was unhappy with the alternates yesterday, and then suddenly today, they are so much faster. I think it’s going be very interesting in terms of strategy and stuff.
“Obviously, we’re starting from the best spot and hope we can keep it there.”
Should Palou go on to win Sunday’s race, he would become the first four-time INDYCAR winner at Road America, breaking a tie with Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi.
“It's very cool to hear that, especially those names,” Palou commented. “I think all the names are huge legends in the sport.
“But at the end of the day it doesn't really change much. Like, I feel it's super cool obviously. I would love to have that in our, let's say CV, when I retire.
“It's hard. It's hard to get. Hopefully we can get it. I'm sure if we get it, someone else in 10 years or five or six will get us, as well. It's cool.”
INDYCAR SERIES warm-up is at 10:05 (CDT) Sunday morning with the XPEL Grand Prix presented by AMR is scheduled to take the green flag at 1:27 pm (CDT).
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.