Palou remains INDYCAR-Perfect with victory at Thermal Club
Alex Palou Palou earned his 13th career INDYCAR victory in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda on Sunday at The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix. Photo courtesy of the NTT IndyCar Series.
By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio
Team-owner Chip Ganassi believes his latest ace – three-time/reigning NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou – is only beginning to scratch the surface of his race craft.
Who’s to argue, following Palou’s calculated performance during Sunday’s The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix deep in the California desert. Palou again made the impossible happen, completing a late-race dash from a nine-second deficit to pass pole-sitter Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren.
Palou earned his 13th career INDYCAR victory in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, beating O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to the finish by 10.1854-seconds. Christian Lundgaard finished third in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevy, as the team captured two-of-three podium positions for the first time since May 2023.
That result, however, served as little more than a consolation prize after O’Ward and Lundgaard collaborated Saturday to give Arrow McLaren its first 1-2 start in INDYCAR competition since rejoining the series in 2020.
On race day, it all came down to Palou. Again.
“What an amazing weekend,” said Palou, who led 13 laps of the 65-lap/199.36-mile event. “We had a really fast car since practice, and everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing on the No. 10 car executed perfectly. We knew it was aggressive to start with the used reds (Firestone’s alternate compound tires), and we knew that we were looking toward the end of the race with that No. 10 car, and we did it.”
A 27-year-old native of Spain, recall that Palou won The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge non-point, exhibition race in 2024 from pole position. Two races into the 17-event 2025 schedule, Palou leads second-place O’Ward by 39 points in the championship standings.
“It’s tough seeing this guy beat us all every single event,” said Lundgaard, a 23-year-old native of Denmark. “We’ve got to find a way to stop him. We just didn’t have it. We gave it a shot and came up short, but having two cars on the podium is as well of a day we could’ve wished for coming into Thermal.”
Colton Herta finished fourth in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda fielded by Andretti Global, while Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden completed the top-five in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda of Meyer Shank Racing.
“It was a good day for the Gainbridge Honda,” said Herta, who scored the 36th top-five of his career. “Our car was fast, but we needed a little bit more to get to that podium. It’s frustrating to not get that win, but overall, I’m happy with how we ran the race.”
FOX Sport’s live broadcast from Thermal’s affluent “oasis in the desert” resort was abruptly interrupted on Lap 28 by an electrical glitch, forcing the network to switch to coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
FOX released this statement: “Our INDYCAR production truck has an electrical issue. We are working to get it fixed as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we have NASCAR bonus coverage on FOX and FS1 until the INDYCAR truck is back online.”
Following a stretch of Cup coverage and a lengthy series of commercials and FOX network program promotions, action at Thermal resumed on Lap 40 with O’Ward, Lundgaard and Palou running 1-2-3.
Palou, who started third behind the aforementioned Arrow McLaren teammates, rallied with 15 laps remaining in the first caution-free series event since October 2020. Palou and his team opted for the grippy, faster Firestone Firehawk red/alternate tires during his last pit stop at the end of Lap 49. O’Ward made his final stop at the end of Lap 50, taking Firestone’s harder, black/primary compound rubber.
Palou passed O’Ward for good on Lap 56, diving under his chief rival entering Turn 7 on the abrasive 3.067-mile/17-turn natural terrain road-course. Superior tire grip subsequently allowed Palou to steadily pull away from the field. His lead ballooned to three seconds on Lap 58 and to six seconds by Lap 61.
The winning move was set up by Ganassi strategist Barry Wanser to take alternate tires during Palou’s last stop. That decision immediately helped Palou pass Lundgaard for second on Lap 50 – one lap after Palou’s final stop – following a spirited battle covering multiple corners.
Palou then set sight on O’Ward, reeling him in with astonishing pace. Palou pulled to within 4.9-seconds by Lap 52 and 1.3-seconds on Lap 53 as O’Ward coped with slower traffic and less tire grip.
“We took a gamble and it didn’t work out for us,” said O’Ward, a 25-year-old native of Mexico with family ties to San Antonio, Texas. “We had used our new reds in the start because we didn’t really quite know what the deg was going to be like, the deg profile. The blacks really kind of took a turn in the negative towards the end of the race and that was it. We didn’t really stand a fighting chance.
“The weekends like this is where every point does count. Every win does count for so much more and we just missed it by that, you definitely feel like you’ve left some points on the table where if we would’ve gone tomorrow, we maybe would’ve done something different. But, yeah, happy with the points day and we’re going to keep pushing. It’s a long, long, long season ahead and the ovals are a different beast as well. We need to be strong everywhere.”
NTT P1 Award winner O’Ward clearly controlled most of the race. “Thanks for all of the fans hanging in there with us,” said O’Ward, who led 51 of the first 55 laps, surrendering P1 only during pit stop cycles. “Thanks to you guys for tuning-in and hopefully it was somewhat of an entertainment.”
Waller, Texas-based A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci started and finished 14th .
“It was honestly a really good race on our red tire runs,” said Ferrucci, a resident of Dallas and driver of the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet. “It was a bit of a bummer to lose the hybrid due to heat soak. But I don’t think we were the only one struggling with something like that. Just our prime tire run, we didn’t account for the balance being as badly shifted as it was, and we kind of missed the strategy just a little bit, but overall, it wasn’t a terrible day. Could have been worse.”
Case in point, Foyt teammate David Malukas’ 18th place result. “It was a tough race,” said Malukas, who qualified 12th. “We knew it was going to be tough going into it and it was almost a little bit of a curse, making it to Q2 and using up our reds because to everybody’s (surprise), I guess – we didn’t expect it – but the reds ended up being the better tire by quite a big margin.
“We only had one new red set when everybody else had two, and everybody kind of filtered out from there on. So made it to P8 on the new reds, and from there, it was just survival, holding on. We came out with a P18 in the end. Definitely a weekend to forget.”
Palou, meanwhile, became the first INDYCAR driver to win the season’s first two races since CGR superstar Scott Dixon of New Zealand began 2020 with three consecutive victories en route to his sixth series championship. Palou’s titles have come in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
Palou and strategist Wanser are already operating at near-peak efficiency. In the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida, on March 2, Palou and Wanser made a quick shift to Firestone’s alternate tires early during the street race. Palou laid down flawless in-and-out laps during his last pit stop en route to the victory. At Thermal, it was rinse-and-repeat.
Next up is the landmark 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach street race on Sunday, April 13 (4:30 p.m. EDT, FOX, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). A Spanish-language telecast will be available on FOX Deportes.
“Long Beach is what’s coming up and hopefully we can have a repeat weekend, maybe even go one better,” O’Ward said. “We have fought for the championship every single year, and that’s where I expect to be.”
Race Results: Click here.
FOX SPORTS’ 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES BROADCAST COVERAGE SCHEDULE
Sunday, March 2 _ Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)
Sunday, March 23 _The Thermal Club, Thermal, Calif. (Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing)
Sunday, April 13 _ Streets of Long Beach, Calif. (FOX, 4:30 p.m.)
Sunday, May 4 _ Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Ala. (FOX, 1:30 p.m.)
Saturday, May 10 _ Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road-Course (FOX, 4:30 p.m.)
Sunday, May 25 _ Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval (FOX, 10 a.m.)
Sunday, June 1 _ Streets of Detroit (FOX, 12:30 p.m.)
Sunday, June 15 _ World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill. (FOX, 3 p.m.)
Sunday, June 22 _ Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wis. (FOX, 3:30 p.m.)
Sunday, July 6 _ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington (FOX, 2 p.m.)
Saturday, July 12 _ Iowa Speedway, Newton, Race 1 (FOX, 5 p.m.)
Sunday, July 13 _ Iowa Speedway, Newton, Race 2 (FOX, 2 p.m.)
Sunday, July 20 _ Streets of Toronto, Canada (FOX, 2 p.m.)
Sunday, July 27 _ WeatherTech Raceway, Laguna Seca, Monterey, Calif. (FOX, 3 p.m.)
Sunday, Aug. 10 _ Portland (Ore.) International Raceway (FOX, 3 p.m.)
Sunday, Aug. 24 _ The Milwaukee Mile, West Allis, Wis. (FOX, 2 p.m.)
Sunday, Aug. 31 _ Nashville Superspeedway, Lebanon, Tenn. (2:30 p.m.)
NOTE _ All times Eastern. Dates and times subject to change.
