MADISON, Ill. — As Alex Palou went down pit road in the late stages of Sunday’s (June 7) Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, his chances of scoring his fifth NTT IndyCar Series victory of the 2026 season dried up along with his fuel tank.
Entering pit road on lap 203, the engine in Palou’s No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda sputtered as his fuel collector ran dry. With no fuel left for the engine, Palou could only crawl helplessly down pit road at the 1.25-mile oval with 11 other cars pitting at the same time.
“It’s not good, like, very high frustration,” Palou said. “You go from like, you’re going to be P1 to like, suddenly being two laps down, but it is what it is, man. We risked it, we thought we were going to be good. We’re not, so we’ll try again.”
Palou’s strategist Barry Wanser was on the timing stand and could only watch as his driver limped down pit road while other cars avoided striking Palou.
“We have telemetry for knowing what’s in the [fuel] collector,” Wanser said. “We felt we had enough to make it to the box. It was definitely a risky call, but if we had come in like Scott [Dixon] did, we would take an emergency service, and who knows what would happen after that, you know. So we rolled the dice; we thought we were going to make it. We didn’t.”
After Palou’s car stopped in its pit box at the far end of pit road, the team had to get all of the air out of the fuel line and the fuel injectors in the engine. That process took long enough to drop Palou two laps behind the leaders.
Before running out of fuel, the 2025 Indianapolis 500 winner was leading the race after his teammate Dixon had to pit for emergency service under the same caution period. Dixon was leading the race under green and was seconds away from hitting pit road when Race Control threw the caution for light rain, closing the pits. Despite his best efforts to fuel save under caution, the six-time IndyCar champion had to take emergency service, which temporarily promoted Palou to the race lead.
Palou fell back to 19th place by the time his engine fired up. With 40 laps to go, Palou moved around Alexander Rossi to get 18th place and inherited his finishing position of 17th when Caio Collet retired with an apparent engine failure after running near the front of the field for much of the race.
Palou finished two laps down to race winner Josef Newgarden. Despite the setbacks, though, there were no long faces for the No. 10 crew.
“We’re a pretty happy group right now still,” Wanser said. “You know, we’re disappointed with the result, but we know we went for the win and that’s what we do. It just wasn’t our day.”
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
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