The day after Spain’s coronation in the World Cup final, Álex Palou extended the celebration by offering a new success to his country during the IndyCar event held on the Nashville super speedway.
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The Chip Ganassi Racing driver secured his fifth victory of the season, further confirming his status as championship leader.
The four-time IndyCar champion, however, had to resist the pressure from Team Penske drivers until the very end: Josef Newgarden finished second ahead of David Malukas, while Scott McLaughlin took fourth place.
Strategic Success
As often on the Nashville oval, strategy and caution periods played a decisive role. The first time on lap 123 of 225, when Palou pitted just before the collision between his teammate Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi (ECR), causing a yellow flag that put him back at the front. A second caution, 45 laps from the finish, then allowed him to start the final stint in the lead, a position he never relinquished.
The performance of the day also goes to David Malukas. Starting last on the grid, the Penske driver came very close to securing the first victory of his career. Taking advantage of a caution caused on lap 20 by Caio Collet’s (Foyt) accident, he chose to stay on track while his rivals made their first stop, thus taking the lead of the race thanks to a perfectly executed staggered strategy.
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His gamble almost went awry when the caution caused by the collision between Dixon and Rossi occurred shortly after his own stop. Falling back into the pack, Malukas made a spectacular restart, climbing from 14th to eighth place, before a final yellow flag definitively put him back in contention for the podium. Second at the finish, he also regains this position in the championship that Palou dominates with 457 points to Malukas’s 374 and Kyle Kirkwood’s (Andretti) 370, who was only tenth in Nashville despite having taken pole position.
Schumacher better than Grosjean
Among the satisfactions, Mick Schumacher achieved his best IndyCar result with a solid eighth place. Leader of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing throughout the weekend, the German delivered an error-free race and secured his first top 10, notably after battling with Pato O’Ward (McLaren) and Marcus Ericsson (Andretti) in the final laps.
On the other hand, Romain Grosjean had a more complicated race. Poorly qualified, the Frenchman from Dale Coyne Racing could not do better than fourteenth on the Tennessee oval at the end of a race in the anonymity of the pack. The championship will continue in August with no less than six consecutive rounds starting with the Portland (Oregon) event on August 9.
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