By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
In a change of scheduling due to rain on Friday evening, qualifying for the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course was moved to Saturday morning. Alex Palou once again claimed pole in quest for four wins in-a-row on the 2.439-mile circuit.
Palou also swept both practice sessions on Friday, with the Spaniard looking for a clean sweep of the event, but it won’t be that easy.
“Honestly, it’s really hard. We were talking with Barry and Julian,” Palou said. “Now, it’s really hard to do what we’ve been doing. It doesn’t come easy, and we know that it could end tomorrow or today. I think everybody at CGR and the 10 car is executing really, really good. The car that I had today was a rocketship. Yeah, I think we can win obviously. I think we have a car. The issue, or the good thing or bad thing, whatever, same for everyone, is that we don’t have warmup, so we don’t really know are the tires going to last, is the car going to be okay on long stints or not? The good thing is everybody on the same page.”
Starting alongside Palou is Pato O’Ward, who qualifies a season-best second place. O’Ward, who is yet to finish on the podium in the 2026 IndyCar season, goes into Saturday’s race hungry to get to the steps, even with a Palou-sized obstacle in the way.
“How do we beat him? I don’t know,” O’Ward said. “I feel like everyone is on that same train the last 24 months, but yeah, I mean, for us really we got to extract the most out of what we’ve got. I’d love to start the month of May with a podium. I haven’t had one this year. I would love to, yeah, just get the ball rolling.”
Chevrolet claimed four-out-of-five spots in the top five, with Felix Rosenqvist being the only other Honda, starting third.
Christian Lundgaard and David Malukas, fourth and fifth respectively, both go into the race with optimism after struggling in practice.
“We’ve been struggling with pace this whole weekend and we put our heads down,” Malukas said. “Right before we went out, I was looking at so many videos and trying to figure out a strategy. We got the setup as close as we can be. We’re still lacking to some of these guys, but for us, that’s amazing.”
“I think we expected a little more,” Lundgaard said. “We were much better at the end of practice two yesterday, and I think it got our hopes high. The No.10 car is so fast and we have two cars up at the front, so hopefully we can put up a fight from there.”
SEE: Sonsio Grand Prix Starting Grid
Saturday evening’s race will look to be a three- stop race, as it has been the last four years. With race strategy being a cut-and-dry affair, Palou sees it as a good opportunity on a course where track position is key.
“I don’t think it’s bad, honestly. I think it’s actually — it could be a big debate of, like, is it better just to leave it open since the beginning or, like, two- and three-stopper, but then if there’s a yellow, everybody goes on a two-stopper, and that’s it,” Palou said. “The race is super boring. I think it’s better to have a race where there’s huge windows. Here’s there’s huge windows. I cannot tell you exactly a number, but I think it’s nine or ten laps. With nine, ten laps, you can offset yourself with half a stint basically. I think it’s going to be a good race.
“Who knows what’s going to be the best tire? Who knows if it’s going to be the alternates? If Pato and me that don’t have two sets, we’re going to struggle more or not? I think it’s going to be an interesting race. It’s a hard race normally physically and to overtake, but I think it’s doable.”