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Alex Palou Charges to Front Late, Wins Back-to-Back Races at Thermal

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Alex Palou, on fresh Firestone tires, took the lead late to win The Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix on Sunday, March 23.

Palou earned his 13th NTT IndyCar Series win of his career, winning his second race at Thermal, the first being last year’s $1 million exhibition race. He becomes the first driver to win back-to-back races to start the season since 2020, when Scott Dixon won at Texas Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

“What an amazing weekend,” Palou told FOX. “We had a really fast car since practice. They executed very well, everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing. The [No.] 10 car executed perfectly. We knew it was aggressive to start with the used reds, and we knew we were that we were looking towards the end of the race with that [No.] 10 car.”

Pato O’Ward led the most laps of the race at 51 laps from the pole but put on the slower black primary tires. Palou milked an 11-second lead down the stretch and passed O’Ward with 11 laps to go, pulling away to a 10.1854-second lead at the checkered flag.

“We took a gamble and didn’t work out for us,” O’Ward said “We had used our new reds at the start because we didn’t really quite know how good they were going to be on deg profile. The blacks really took a turn in the negative towards the end of the race, and that was it. We never stood a fighting chance.”

O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren teammate Christian Lundgaard finished third after starting alongside O’Ward. He was passed by Palou on those sticker sets of red-walled Firestones after a quadruple crossover between the two drivers. Both Lundgaard and O’Ward leave Thermal tied for third in points.

“We just didn’t have it there,” Lundgaard said. “We gave it a shot. We came up short, but having two cars on the podium is as well of a day that we could’ve wished coming into Thermal. It’s just tough seeing [Palou] beat us all every single event. We got a find a way to stop him.”

Colton Herta finished fourth for Andretti Global, and Felix Rosenqvist completed the top five.

Will Power made the second most passes of the day moving up 15 positions to take sixth. Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood, Alexander Rossi and Dixon rounded out the top 10.

Graham Rahal, who finished 11th, moved up 16 positions on the day and was the biggest mover of the race.

Before the start, Scott McLaughlin and Devlin DeFrancesco got into each other before crossing the start line. DeFrancesco received an avoidable contact penalty for the contact.

McLaughlin’s day went from bad to worse as his hybrid system overheated, keeping the Aussie on pit road for an elongated period, sending him six laps down. He ended his day early with six laps to go.

On pit road after the race, McLaughlin and DeFrancesco got into a verbal altercation arguing about the incident.

“We’re supposed to be side-by-side, you fucking moron,” DeFrancesco said. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to be side-by-side in turn 15. You closed the f***ing door. I’ll show you the video.”

“You drove into me,” McLaughlin said multiple times. “You got the drive-through [penalty] for a reason there. Show me the video.”

Another driver with difficulties on the day was Marcus Armstrong. He ran off the track on the opening lap and ran wide into the dirt and spun.

One driver who had a terrible weekend was Robert Shwartzman. The Russian driver of the No. 83 Prema Chevrolet wasn’t able to practice due to his car catching fire. He qualified 27th but moved up to 15th before problems on his first pit stop with the left rear tire relegated him outside the top 20. He finished the race 22nd.

There were no cautions during the duration of the race.

The Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix Results

IndyCar’s next stop on the calendar is the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, April 13 at 4:30 p.m. ET. Broadcasting will be provided by FOX.

Wyatt Watson has followed NASCAR closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretchas a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt writes breaking NASCAR news and contributes to columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monster. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media and serves as an at-track reporter, collecting exclusive content for Frontstretch.

Wyatt Watson can be found on X @WyattGametime