Three-time IndyCar champion and 2025 points leader Alex Palou ended his long wait for an oval victory by winning the biggest race of them all, the Indianapolis 500.
Palou was part of a majority of cars at the front of the race late on running on the conventional - but, as it turned out, slightly suboptimal - strategy, and cycled his way to the front of that queue during the final two stints, where the drivers on that strategy were required to fuel save.
Getting to the front of that pack took him into a net second behind 2022 winner Marcus Ericsson, who appeared to be in the pound seat after Ryan Hunter-Reay - a long-time leader on the alternative strategy - dropped out of contention when his car failed to start as he completed his final pitstop.
But while Ericsson - who ended up out of kilter by a lap on pitstops earlier in the race, which ultimately took him onto the alternative strategy - had a shorter, more optimal run to the finish in the final stint, he found himself in the draft of Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster and struggled to put those two a lap down as they were running a similar strategy to him.
Palou and David Malukas were therefore able to stay in touch with race leader Ericsson, and Palou pounced with 14 laps to go by diving for the inside line into Turn 1 - which forced Ericsson to back out of the throttle.
And that was ultimately the decisive moment as, while Palou was also unable to lap DeFrancesco or Foster in the close laps, the Ganassi driver kept Ericsson at bay - even while saving a slide through Turn 2 on the final lap.
His victory was ultimately secured as he exited the final corner, with McLaren driver Nolan Siegel crashing and bringing out the caution flag.
Palou becomes the first Spanish driver to win the Indy 500 and now has four wins from the first five races at the start of the 2025 season.
Ericsson may have felt frustrated to have left the door open for Palou into Turn 1 but this was still his third top-two finish in the race in the past four years, and was convincingly his best performance since switching from Ganassi to Andretti for 2024.
Malukas - who had been ahead of Palou at the start of the final stint - came home in third for AJ Foyt Racing, matching the result team-mate Santino Ferrucci achieved in the 2023 running of the race.
McLaren's Pato O'Ward was in contention throughout but made no great impression in the final stint and finished fourth, ahead of Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank), Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti) and Ferrucci.
There was no final twist in Penske's controversial week at the Indy 500, as Josef Newgarden - who had charged from 32nd on the grid, after he and Will Power were sent to the back for a violation of IndyCar's technical rules in qualifying, into the lead group - ultimately retired with a fuel pump issue.
Their unpenalised team-mate Scott McLaughlin didn't even make the start - crashing while warming his tyres on the parade laps.
from The Race https://ift.tt/b4m6CLI
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