By David Morgan, Associate Editor
WASHINGTON – Alex Palou will leave Washington, D.C. still in command of the NTT IndyCar Series points standings, but gave his championship rivals a bit of hope after turning in his worst finish since March.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda may have started on pole, but just 36 laps in, the trouble started for the man in pursuit of his fifth championship in the last six years.
As he exited his pit stall, Palou struck a tire in the pit box of Mick Schumacher, in turn drawing a drive-through penalty from Race Control, which he would have to serve under green, dropping him out of the running for the race lead.
Later on in the race, more trouble befell Palou when a pit road miscue cost him extra time as his crew had to resecure the left-front tire on his machine before he was able to rejoin the race.
But it was an incident on Lap 122 that really put the nail in the coffin for his day when he made contact with the wall and spun in Turn 5 with heavy damage to his front wing. Palou was able to limp his way around to pit road, where his crew was able to get the wing replaced and get him back on track.
However, the damage had been done and he just had to slog through the remaining laps to complete the race, winding up 20th on the final rundown – his worst finish since a 24th place finish at Phoenix in the second race of the season.
https://twitter.com/IndyCar/status/2091611056174993448
As a result, Palou gave up 42 points to race winner Kyle Kirkwood, with the gap between them now sitting at 91 with three races remaining in 2026.
“We could have done a lot differently. I mean, it hurts, man. It hurts,” said Palou. “It was one of those races that I really want to do very good. I wanted to get that win, so it kind of hurts a lot that we just had this bad of a day, but it’s okay. Things happen.
“I’m at least kind of happy that everything happened at the same day instead of spreading out throughout different races. But yeah, we have some issues in pit lane, one my fault, one out of my control, something on the track that then I kind of bumped a little bit of the wall and 20 laps after, the rear tow link broke, that’s why we spun.
“So yeah, not a good day, but it’s all right.”
After his win, Kirkwood acknowledged that it’s still Palou’s championship to lose, but if they keep up with days like Sunday and the bad luck for Palou continues, they could get back in the fight.
“I mean, we’re doing what we talked about, right? I’m just going to go out there and try and win every single race and see where it goes from there. It’s starting to pan out,” said Kirkwood.
“I can’t control what Palou does. Maybe in very small circumstances you can. In the sense of where he finished today or where he was going to finish today, there is no controlling that because you’re in the lead. We just had a very fortunate day in the points championship.”
v5y2k7