By David Morgan, Associate Editor
LEBANON, Tenn. – Colton Herta may have won the battle, but Alex Palou won the war.
In a frantic season finale on the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway oval, Colton Herta put on a fearless drive the closing laps, streaking past Pato O’Ward with five laps remaining to pull away for his second win of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season and first career win on an oval.
As the laps wound down, it became a battle of those who could make it to the end on fuel and those who couldn’t. Lap after lap, the leaders that were running short on fuel peeled off track, cycling O’Ward to the lead with five laps to go, but Herta was right in his tire tracks just waiting for his chance to strike.
The two leaders ran up on the slower car of Sting Ray Robb, forcing them to split him, with Herta coming out the other side with the lead. From there he was able to open a gap of 1.801 seconds to streak across the line and claim the win.
“It was a good race for us today. The car was fantastic. I was able to do a lot with it. I think that’s kind of what put us over the edge to win,” Herta said.
“It’s about time. I think there’s been multiple times where I thought we could have won or should have won, and numerous of things would have happened to stop us from doing that.
“Luckily today we got it all all right. We needed a little bit of help. I think that was in the form of a little bit of traffic to catch back up to Pato. I think it was, from my perspective, a really exciting race for it to close out like that right in the last few laps, have me battle Pato, then Josef close to battling Pato.
O’Ward explained that he had to fight a battle on two fronts in the closing laps, trying to fend off Herta in traffic while also struggling with the handle on his car fading each lap that passed.
“I wish I could have done it a little bit harder on him. Sting Ray facilitated that. A bit of a stinger to lose it that way. I would have liked to have at least fight him for a little bit more.
No, it was a pretty hectic race for our 5 car, to be honest. I had no idea where I was the whole race till the end. Guys are starting to pit and you are leading. That’s great. I just tried to continue pushing.
Oh, my God, those reds at the end, I couldn’t see straight with so much vibrations. Could barely talk to the team with just how much was going on in the car. Yeah, pretty gnarly in the end.”
Josef Newgarden would finish the day in third, followed by polesitter Kyle Kirkwood, Scott McLaughlin, Santino Ferrucci, Marcus Armstrong, Linus Lundqvist, David Malukas, and Conor Daly rounding out the top-10 finishers.
Palou A Champion Once Again
Finishing just outside the top-10 in 11th was Alex Palou, who clinched his third IndyCar championship in the past four years, cementing his status as a legend of open when racing.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda came into the day locked in a battle for the title with Will Power, but holding enough of a lead to only have to finish ninth or better to walk away with the Astor Cup.
Starting from 24th place, Palou started chewing his way through the field in the opening laps as Power started dropping back from his fourth-place starting position.
However, just 12 laps into the race, Power’s hopes at putting up a fight against Palou went up in smoke when he had to peel off onto pit road to handle a problem with his seatbelts, which had come loose during the first dozen laps.
By the time the No. 12 team got his belts resecured, Power was five laps down to the leaders at running at the tail end of the field. He would end the day in 24th place, some eight laps down.
From there, Palou just needed to finish out all the laps and the championship was his. He did just that, keeping his nose clean the rest of the way home.
“I love this sport. I love to have the opportunity to be in a position to win races and championships,” said Palou. “I’m not setting a goal of trying to win four or five or anything like that. I think it’s surreal to have won three INDYCAR championships. Never thought in my best dreams that I would be in this position.
“Yeah, I take one race at a time, one lap at a time. For me every lap that I’m doing is the most important of my life. I do the same for every race. Hopefully we can keep on winning races and championships.”
Team owner Chip Ganassi explained that from the first time he showed up to race for the team in 2021, he knew he had something special and continues to write his own storybook ending.
“To have a guy like Alex on your team, I was saying to somebody yesterday, I mean, three championships in four years, I mean, I don’t know how many guys have three championships, not that many. He’s in pretty rarefied air right now, as they say. His name has to be among and certainly in the conversation of the great drivers. He’s certainly in the conversation of the greatest,” Ganassi said.
Palou’s championship puts him in the company of some of the sport’s most well known names as drivers with at least three titles, including A.J. Foyt, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Sebastien Bourdais, Louis Meyer, Ted Horn, Jimmy Bryan, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Bobby Rahal, and Sam Hornish Jr.
“Pretty elite crowd,” Ganassi added.
Herta would advance up to second place in the final season standings off the back of his Nashville win, with Scott McLaughlin keeping hold of his third-place finish in the points, with Power falling to fourth in the final points tally.
Ever the wise veteran, Power shrugged off his misfortunes afterwards, explaining that it was seemingly just a freak incident that caused the belts to come loose and take him out of the title fight.
“I was just driving down the frontstretch there and I just felt a pop, like on the lap belt, and I’m like man, that’s weird,” Power said. “And I felt kind of loose in the car in the seat so I came out of Turn 2 and I was feeling around and I felt the end of the belt where it goes in and I’m like man, my belt just came off, we’re going to have to pit.
“Then it took five laps. We learned because it happened again a second time at the end of the race and we learned how to do it quickly. But that’s a very abnormal thing. Yeah, I don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to send it back to the manufacturer. It was a very strange failure.
“I do wonder if I hit the wall, if it was going to break and I was going to have a real bad situation. I’ve never had that before. You have engine failures. You have gearbox failures. I had a belt failure.
“Disappointing, but big congrats to Alex. A tough guy to beat. Ganassi obviously does a fantastic job. It’s been fun racing those guys this year. We dropped back to fourth because of this day, but man, if you don’t win, it doesn’t matter.
“Happy with the season. The whole team won about half the races, so we did well. But I want to win that championship. We’ll come back fighting next year.”
Despite having every reason to be disappointed with the way the season ended for him, Power played the gentlemanly card and paid a visit to Palou during his championship celebration to express his congratulations and explain what happened to his day.
“He was explaining me what happened,” Palou said of the visit from Power. “I was like, Man, it’s crazy that that happened. Normally it never happens. Same as what happened to me and the battery two weeks ago.
“Obviously, it was very dangerous what happened to him. You don’t want to see that. I’m glad that nothing happened and he was still able to finish the race.”
Palou added that Power’s situation was just the way things go in racing. Sometimes it’s your day and sometimes it’s not.
Sunday was Palou’s day.
“I was not going to cry. I was not celebrating. That’s how it goes,” Palou said. “I think he was not crying when I couldn’t start at Milwaukee. He was crying of happiness (laughter). No, he was happy, but he was not celebrating that I couldn’t run.
“When it’s not your day, it is what it is. You cannot do anything. Same goes for when it’s your day. Like me, it was my day. It was not meant to be for him, it was meant to be for me. That’s what happened.”
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