At one point it looked like Alex Palou was going to ride into the sunset to victory in the Grand Prix of Arlington, but then the sun set on his chances courtesy of Kyle Kirkwood’s furious pace.
Palou, the reigning and four-time IndyCar Series champion, took command of those on the preferred three-stop strategy after his initial pit stop on Lap 16 of 70. At one point, he built an advantage of over 7s over pole-sitter Marcus Ericsson and led 16 laps, but that changed when Kirkwood got around his Andretti Global teammate and began to chip away the gap to Palou’s #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
The complexity of the race took shape when Palou caught the #26 Andretti Global Honda of Will Power, who was the race leader running on a two-stop strategy, with roughly 27 laps to go. Once Power dove to pit lane on Lap 46, Palou and Kirkwood pitted three laps later and managed to best him with the overcut. It then became a head-to-head battle, with Kirkwood thrashing the quickest laps of the race to that point.
With 16 laps to go, Kirkwood’s #27 Honda was on Spaniard’s rear wing, and had a look down the long 0.950-mile backstretch going into Turn 10 before lunging for the lead with a late dive in Turn 14.
Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing, Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian, Will Power, Andretti Global
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Lumen via Getty Images
“I defended in Turn 10,” said Palou, who started second. “They (Kirkwood) were a little bit more trimmed than us. We knew that. They were catching us a lot on the straights. That was a decision we took. That’s the best we knew.
“Then out of turn 12, I went on the OT (overtake button), on the hybrid as well. He was very close. I didn’t know if I had to defend or not. He just lunged. It was a clean pass.”
Kirkwood established a gap of over 2s on Palou before the caution came out with four laps left, setting up a one-lap restart. In the end, though, he didn’t have enough pace to match Kirkwood before another caution ended the race and was left settling for second.
During the post-race press conference, Motorsport.com asked Palou if he ever felt in control of the race considering the advantage he held at one point.
“No, because I was fighting with Will on the other strategy,” Palou said. “It was getting tough. Like, normally when you have someone on a two-stopper and you’re on a three-stopper, you catch him easily. He was matching the pace that I had. He obviously just had less fuel and had to pit a little bit earlier.
“Yeah, I thought at first I needed to fight with the #26. I saw that Kirkwood was just closing on us. I said, ‘All right, maybe on clean air we’ll be able to match him or pull a gap.’ He was getting half a second closer, 6/10ths closer.
“I thought it was going to take him a little bit longer to get through us. I think also they were very trimmed, all the Andrettis. We were not. It was just making it a huge difference for them on the straights. It’s a decision we took. I was better on all the corners, but I couldn’t really use it as much as what they were gaining on me.
“Yeah, I never felt safe this race. Never.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
