An underdog strategy, multiple late cautions that stacked the field and running the final stint on the worst combination of tire available did not matter to defending NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou.
He clearly had the best car Sunday (June 23) and won the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
“Yea, it was a chaotic race man,” Palou said. “I didn’t do a real good job on those restarts at the beginning, lost what we’d been working so hard in qualifying to get that first position. But [the team] did a tremendous job.”
While a string of cautions popped up in the second half of the race, it was a yellow on lap 36 that put things in Palou’s hands. His team made the call to leave him out, which at the time didn’t appear to be the advantageous call as other cars would get fresher tires. But since 13 cars stayed out, previous leaders Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi were mired in traffic, and Palou put the hammer down.
By the time he made his second stop on lap 55, he had created a lead of over 20 seconds. Later, his competition was forced into fuel-save mode while he was free to push it through his remaining two stints. The pace was in his car all day, and the strategy worked into his favor by lap 64 when he got around Herta for the lead.
“Strategy was a bit risky for the position we were in,” Palou said. “But we knew we had the pace and we just had to execute. So, was fun, too much intensity at the end with restarts but overall an amazing win for the No. 10 DHL car.”
That intensity was a run of cautions over the last 20 laps that continually packed up the field behind Palou. The first restart with 17 circuits remaining, Palou faced off against Josef Newgarden, who fortuitously was able to complete his last stop right before the yellow was thrown for a spin involving Marcus Armstrong. Palou faced little pressure from the Indy 500 winner when the green returned.
But, four laps later, Jack Harvey‘s expired engine stranded him on track, which put field under yellow once more. This time, it was Palou’s closest challenger all day in Herta who was behind him. A slight mistep on the restart gave Herta a breath of hope, but it lasted for just a moment and Palou pulled away. One final yellow was unable to effect the outcome, and Herta, who had to balance fuel saving versus fighting for the win, settled for his second runner-up of the year.
“It’s a good result, a good result,” Herta said. “We chose a strategy, we did a really good job with what we chose. I’m happy, the Gainbridge Honda was super fast all day whether we were fuel saving or not, we had a lot of pace.
“Sucks not to win here, I really want to win at this place, and it hurts not to win here, but have to be happy with second place for sure.”
Rossi had his best result of the season, leading after the first round of pit stops and grabbing his second third place effort since joining Arrow McLaren last year.
“Before the yellow we were quite good out front,” Rossi said. “When you move to a fuel save race it always a little bit difficult. Nonetheless it was an amazing job by the team and obviously our best result of the year and we’ll take the positives from that.”
Palou’s win reignites his championship bid, thrusting him back over Will Power and Scott Dixon into the title lead. The win was his fourth straight podium at Laguna Seca and 11th of his IndyCar career.
Rounding out the top five was Romain Grosjean, who earned his team Juncos Hollinger Racing their best career finish in fourth, and Kyle Kirkwood, who led early when he got around Palou at the start of the race.
Collected in the aforementioned cautions were Luca Ghiotto, Marcus Armstrong, Kyffin Simpson and Graham Rahal.
2024 IndyCar Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey Results
The IndyCar Series takes a week off before heading to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Honda Indy 200 and the debut of the new hybrid engine package.
About the author
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and the occasional Inside Indycar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. His full-time job is with the Department of Veterans Affairs History Office and is a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. After graduating from Purdue University with a Creative Writing degree, he was commissioned in the Army and served a 15-month deployment as a tank platoon leader with the 3d ACR in Mosul, Iraq. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.