By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
Just when it looked like the IndyCar series had its third different winner in Scott Dixon on Sunday, fate decided otherwise.
On a day where the temperature did not live the high 90s, Alex Palou would execute a late-race fuel saving strategy and bring the No.10 SOLO Cup Honda to victory lane for the sixth time this season, winning the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America. Palou would take the lead with two laps to go after teammate Scott Dixon went into the pits, running short on fuel.
Palou led six laps in the 55-lap race on Sunday en route to his third win at the Wisconsin race track. Road America was the site of Palou’s first IndyCar podium in 2020 during the second race of a doubleheader.
Palou also grew his points lead to 93 points to Kyle Kirkwood in second and 111 points, over two full races worth of points, to Pato O’Ward in third.
“It was tough. It was a crazy race,” Palou said “I don’t know about how it looked from the outside, but from inside, it just felt like there was a lot going on. Lots of yellows, obviously, that were shaking how we were looking. We were looking really bad at the beginning, then really good, then terrible, then really good. It was tough to be up there. But yeah, we just had to stay focused on battling against the people that were on our strategy.”
I didn’t agree with Barry’s strategy call. I got to be grumpy for a couple of laps, and then I saw it was working out, and I started saying thank you again. It was interesting, but for sure, we got the win because of the team that we had on both pit stops and strategy. They made it look really good, and HRC gave us the mileage we needed to gamble and to make it with that stop that we did.”
Honda would take seven of the spots in the top 10 all while continuing their winning streak, dating back to the 2024 season. Meyer Shank Racing continued their underrated season, with Felix Rosenqvist in second and Marcus Armstrong in fifth.
The team has just been on fire,” Rosenqvist said after his best finish of the season.”I really feel like they deserve this result. It’s been kind of an unlucky couple of races for us. We haven’t really been able to string it together. Really happy for Mike [Shank] and Jim [Myer] and everyone in the team fighting out there in the heat today. It’s a good one.”
Kyle Kirkwood flew the flag for Andretti Global on Sunday, earning a fourth place finish.
Chevrolet was represented by Santino Ferrucci, finishing third, earning his second podium in three races. Ferrucci’s teammate, David Malukas took the checkered in seventh, after spinning on Lap 1. Nolan Siegel earned a hard fought eighth place finish, with the No.6 crew putting together a five-stop strategy.
SEE: XPEL Grand Prix at Road America Results
Multiple strategies came into play from the drop of the green flag. On Lap 1, the caution flag flew for David Malukas getting stuck in sand in Turn 1. A group of drivers including Dixon, who ended the day in ninth, Armstrong, Kyffin Simpson, Conor Daly and Alexander Rossi.
After the Malukas caution, two early cautions gave drivers the opportunity to mix and match strategies, compared to having two, split strategies seen at most races.
Robert Shwartzman’s day would end on Lap 4 after spinning in Turn 12, nicknamed ‘Canada Corner’. From the Lap 4 caution, the three-stop strategy looked to be preferred. Simpson, O’Ward, Rossi and Daly would pit on Lap 5, making an extra stop.
The extra stop would only benefit Simpson as he ended the day in sixth, his second top 10 in three races.
The third caution was brought out on Lap 10 when Sting Ray Robb went off in Turn 5, slamming into the tire barriers. Robb walked away from the crash and was seen and released from medical care.
The fourth caution of the race came on Lap 22 when Daly would not make the left-hand corner of Turn 5, and end up in the sand. The AMR IndyCar Safety Team rescued the No.76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, but Daly would pull away too early, leaving the tow strap attached the attenuator of his car.
Josef Newgarden brought out the fifth and final yellow on Lap 30 after exiting Turn 14, wobbling on entry, clipping the outside curb and destroying the rear of the No.2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet.
Dixon would control a bulk of the race, leading 27 laps, over half of the race. By pitting on Lap 2, Dixon and the No.9 PNC Bank crew set themselves up to control the race. The only thing stopping the No.9 team was fuel mileage, a skill Dixon excels in.
Despite the call from their Chip Ganassi Racing teammates, Barry Wanser, the team manager at CGR was puzzled as to how the No.9 team was going to make the fuel number.
“We were equally concerned, and I even said to all of the engineers on the stand, his race engineer, [Blair] Julian, Brian Welling, our performance engineer, Blair Bean, who keeps track of the fuel, I’m like, are we missing something here, because Dixon is running numbers, lap times, he’s not going to be able to get it, based on the number we gave him,” Wanser said. “They double-checked everything, triple-checked, but we were pretty confident we were going to be fine.”
Dixon would make his second to last pit stop on Lap 38, two laps before Palou. Palou would push with clean air before pitting on Lap 40. Dixon came out ahead of Palou with an eight tenths-of-a-second lead.
Both drivers would conserve fuel in the final 15 laps, with Palou gaining on Dixon on Lap 143. Dixon would open up a six tenths-of-a-second gap as Palou started to conserve fuel on Lap 148.
On Lap 150, Palou was on Dixon’s gearbox as time ran out for the No.9 crew to be the third different winner in 2025.
“For us — he had pitted two laps before us and then the yellow came out,” Wanser said when asked about the confidence when the crew learned the No.9 could not make the fuel number.
We really needed a yellow because we gave him a big fuel number. We kind of needed a yellow to help us. We got that yellow, but it wasn’t enough for Scott and Rossi because they pitted two laps before us. So we were already looking at a big number two laps after them, so you could imagine they needed a much bigger number than we did, so even the short yellow didn’t help them.”
The field will challenge Alex Palou again in 13 days at Mid-Ohio SportsCar Course on July 4 weekend.