Oilpressure

What started out as what looked like was going to be a Palou parade, turned out to be a pretty interesting race. It was disheartening to see some decent drivers taken out at the start, but Alex Palou made it through unscathed. After the cleanup of the melee that involved Caio Collet, Pato O’Ward, Scott Dixon, Mick Schumacher and Felix Rosenqvist (who I think started it); David Malukas found himself in second-place behind Palolu.

From that point, the next twenty-two laps was spent watching Palou stretch his lead lap after lap. The only drama was watching Kyle Kirkwood move to the front, as he finally passed David Malukas. But Kirkwood had nothing for Palou. It was becoming obvious that Palou was well on his way to winning his fourth Sonsio Grand Prix in a row.

But a funny thing started happening. One by one, we watched cars pit – including most of the leaders. I leaned over to Susan and told her that if Palou doesn’t pit soon and a caution comes out, he’s in trouble. Like clockwork, that’s exactly what happened.

Once Palou pitted when the pits opened, he re-entered the race in eighteenth-place. I was thinking this was the equalizer the series needed, especially headed into the Indianapolis 500. I was certain we would be looking at a new points leader when we left the track this evening. It didn’t happen.

Palou is so good and never panics, and he still had about sixty laps to make up for his misfortune. He didn’t hang around in eighteenth very long. Every time I looked at the scoring pylon, he had moved up four positions. At one time, I think I saw Palou in fourth, and he finished fifth. It was Christian Lundgaard

Another Top-Five finish for Palou not only kept him in the points lead; but a ninth place finish for Kyle Kirkwood, who was second in points going in, meant that on a day when Palou had to scrap and claw for a fifth-place finish – he actually increased his points lead by ten points. David Malukas is third in points, and Christian Lundgaard is fourth. You know you’re living right when you have your second worst race of the season and you increase your points lead by ten.

In the end, it was Christian Lundgaard winning his second career IndyCar race, while David Malukas settled for another second. Don’t feel too bad for Malukas. He’s now finished second in his last two races at this track – going both directions. He has a lot of momentum headed into 500 practice.

This was one of the more enjoyable of the IMS Grand Prix that I’ve been to. For the first time ever, Susan and I sat in the same spot in the Tower Terrace from flag to flag. Sitting in the same spot and focusing on the race in front of you makes it much easier to keep up with what’s going on.

Congratulations to Christian Lundgaard on earning his second career victory. I will close with some of the photos that Susan took this weekend. In keeping with posting every day in May, I’ll have a short post on Sunday, then a more expanded look at this race when I have my usual Random Thoughts post on Monday.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 9, 2026 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Indianapolis 500. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.