It's all Alex Palou in dominant IndyCar Laguna Seca race win
On a weekend where Pato O'Ward hoped to apply pressure and gain championship ground, frontrunner Alex Palou snatched the pole and marched off to a comfortable win to draw close to his fourth NTT IndyCar Series title.
Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing
Palou was the class of the field Sunday, leading 84 of 95 laps. California's own Nolan Siegel held the top spot for 11 laps on an alternate strategy early on, but Palou surged past him on lap 37 and never looked back, becoming the first IndyCar competitor with an eight-win season since 2007.
With the win and O'Ward finishing fourth, Palou extended his championship advantage to 121 points with just three races remaining.
'What an amazing job by everybody at CGR, Honda, DHL, for giving us everything we needed to be as fast as we were,' Palou said. 'It's been an awesome weekend, awesome year overall. But today was something else.
'Super fun to be here. (It's) one of my favorite tracks, for sure. I couldn't be happier right now.'Christian Lundgaard followed in second, pitting earlier than his rivals and using the undercut to rise up from seventh over the first three stints. The Dane had pace, but couldn't take advantage of two late cautions to make moves on Palou, taking the checkered flag 3.7965 seconds behind his No. 10 Honda.
Colton Herta, Andretti Global
Colton Herta wrapped up the podium in third, with O'Ward fourth and Scott Dixon parlaying another off-sequence, fuel-saving strategy to fifth from 19th. Callum Ilott, Will Power, Marcus Armstrong, Christian Rasmussen and Scott McLaughlin wrapped up the top 10.
Sunday's race brought early drama, with one caution-free incident on lap 1 and another that did bring out the yellow when Kyffin Simpson and Felix Rosenqvist crashed into the tire barrier at the end of turn 6.
Another caution flew just 10 laps later when Jacob Abel crashed alone with brake issues in turn 2.
That set the stage for an attrition-filled race, but it didn't ultimately come to fruition. A caution flew when Rinus VeeKay was trapped in the turn 3 runoff after a misjudged lunge from Kyle Kirkwood, but the race proceeded to go green through the rest of the pit sequence. Two late cautions added late intrigue, but there were minimal shifts over the final laps. Only Marcus Ericsson, Abel and Simpson failed to reach the checkered flag.
The IndyCar field will return to action for the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland on Aug. 10. It will be the final road course race of the 2025 season.
To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.
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