Palou's incredible IndyCar domination goes on as Indy 500 looms

Alex Palou extended his championship lead to almost 100 points after five races by winning the Indianapolis road course race, his fourth win of the the 2025 IndyCar season already.

The only race Palou hasn’t won this year, at Long Beach, he finished second. He heads to the upcoming Indy 500 - which he has yet to win - in extraordinary form.

This race at Indianapolis was a tricky strategical affair the likes of which you’d draw up as being Palou and his Chip Ganassi team’s bread and butter.

The race was a guaranteed three-stopper with the added intrigue of IndyCar mandating not one but two stints on each tyre, a hard and a soft, due to a combination of factors, including spicing up the racing.

On a fresh set of soft tyres to start the race, Graham Rahal made that count passing Palou on used softs around the outside of Turn 1 to lead most of the first three stints of the race, including after the second round of stops where Rahal and Palou pitted nose-to-tail in a battle of the pit crews.

Rahal had looked vulnerable stuck behind lapped traffic in the second stint but after pitting to start the third, Colton Herta passed Palou to unlap himself - putting a car between the leaders briefly to allow Rahal breathing room.

But once Herta was through, Palou chipped away at the gap and on lap 58 of 85 he made his move, first attacking unsuccessfully at Turn 1 and being rebuffed by Rahal’s excellent defending. But then Rahal gave Palou the inside line into Turn 7 at the end of the back straight which handed Palou the position.

In one lap, he built a lead of 2.5 seconds! On lap 66 just before he pitted the gap was over 10 seconds and a fist-bump inducing stop from his crew put Palou back out with 8.5s of margin.

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His closest challenger was now Pato O’Ward, who started eighth but made passes on track and had excellent pitstops, jumping McLaughlin in the last round of stops to take second and try to attack Palou on an equal set of fresh soft tyres.

The gap was quickly up to 9.5s as he set the fastest lap of the race but shortly after a caution for the stopped AJ Foyt-run car of David Malukas with 15 laps to go erased the gap.

But a brilliant first lap after the restart gave Palou some breathing room and he continued to stretch his gap adding the fastest lap shortly after.

"You guys make me look so good," he said on the radio, having just completed what broadcaster Fox reckons is statistically the best start to an IndyCar season since 1964, and having won a race on this track for three years in a row now.

It’s the second time this season O’Ward has finished second to Palou after Thermal in March, but given O’Ward has a strong McLaren team-mate in Christian Lundgaard to deal with this year, beating him is a good day. Lundgaard crossed the white line exiting his second stop and finished 16th, having been Palou’s closest points rival before the race.

Will Power took the final spot on the podium, having jumped his Penske team-mate McLaughlin who finished fourth ahead of Scott Dixon.

Dixon started 16th but a complicated three stopper with tricky choices over tyres also plays to Dixon’s strengths just like his team-mate Palou, and he also benefitted.

Rahal - whose pace fell away after being passed by Palou and then had a slow final pitstop - ended up sixth holding off Meyer Shank’s Marcus Armstrong in the closing stages.

Kyle Kirkwood was eighth for Andretti from 21st on the grid, pulling off a big undercut on the first stop that vaulted him to the fringes of the top 10 already. The Long Beach winner is now Palou’s closest contender, 97 points back, with Lundgaard one point further back.

Rinus VeeKay took consecutive top 10s for Dale Coyne in ninth, with Felix Rosenqvist recovering from a mid-race spin to take 10th on the penultimate lap.

He unseated rookie Louis Foster who nevertheless scored his best result of his rookie campaign so far, after qualifying an incredible third.

Devlin DeFrancesco started fifth but was up to third early and genuinely looked faster than Palou at one point, but had a stall in his second-to-last pitstop and he finished 17th.