But we have seen this race before. Palou is almost coasting at the start, just keeping touch and then he puts himself in position behind the leaders as the first round of pit stops is about to begin. Suddenly, Palou moves from third to first after the pit cycle and that is it. Done and dusted. This is a common race we see from Álex Palou.
Credit to the pit crew because they nail every pit stop. One bobble, one issue connecting the fuel nozzle, and Palou is not inheriting the lead after the first pit stop today. If that happens, Palou is finishing third, but everyone on the #10 team is on their game at every race, and the team now has three consecutive victories, four total on the season.
On top of Palou's success, every one of his championship rivals stumbled today. Marcus Ericsson had an opening lap accident with Felix Rosenqvist. Josef Newgarden was struggling to break 12th today. Patricio O'Ward had to start at the back and rolled the dice on a three-stop strategy. Palou winning never would help any of those guys, but they all helped Palou having nightmares of their own.
It is over. We should start talking about Palou's legacy in IndyCar. He isn't going to be around much longer. Someone in Formula One will bite. McLaren, Red Bull. There is always an international driver that stomps IndyCar that grabs their attention. Palou is the latest one. Let's get through the next few races and then we will talk, but appreciate what Palou is doing. He might not be here much longer.
2. Scott Dixon must be feeling old. Dixon drove a superb race. He had better tire life on the alternate tire than almost everyone in the field. He made up time and didn't lose grip. Not long ago, this is a race Dixon steals. Instead, his younger teammate Palou ran away with this one. Everybody has a day when they realize they are no longer on top. Dixon would never admit it, but this must be the race that has him wondering what else he must do to be the top Ganassi driver let alone with a race.
This was only good enough for second, and it wasn't a close second. Dixon still has it, but races haven't been this tough for Dixon to win in quite sometime and he hasn't lost to a teammate like this since the days of Dario Franchitti.
If you go for the king, you better not miss? Palou hasn't. Dixon must know it.
3. I don't know how Will Power finished third. This is the fourth or fifth race this season I could say that. He drove smart. The team had a good strategy. Power didn't make any mistakes. Power ended up third. Ok. That's it. That's the review. Did Power do anything special? Nope. Still good enough for third. Sounds about right.
4. Christian Lundgaard is having one of the best seasons in IndyCar. Lundgaard spent the entire race in the top five, and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing saw a surge this weekend, but for a team that has otherwise been in the middle of the field, Lundgaard is consistently in the top ten and mixing it up with Penske drivers, Ganassi drivers, McLaren drivers and Andretti drivers.
Lundgaard is putting these cars three or four positions further up the order in every race. If Palou does leave, Chip Ganassi should call Christian Lundgaard. If he is doing this for RLLR, he is ready to be a race winner in IndyCar. Things would only get easier for the Dane. And RLLR should do all it can to keep him, because things will only become more difficult if Lundgaard were to leave now.
5. Take everything I wrote for Power and it applies for Scott McLaughlin finishing fifth. All I can add is the primary-alternate-primary strategy was the correct choice today. Palou, Dixon, Power and McLaughlin all used that strategy and they all finished in the top five.
Which only makes Christian Lundgaard look better because he started fifth and finished fourth on the alternate-primary-primary strategy while the top three all finished outside the top five.
6. Who had David Malukas gaining six positions and finishing ahead of two RLLR drivers, all three McLaren drivers and all four Andretti drivers? Malukas does well at Mid-Ohio. The team has a good history here. Things clicked this weekend, and the team needed it. The problem is Dale Coyne Racing has been buried in the field most other weekends. The last six races were so dreadful that there is no reason to believe this mean the ship has been righted. Nope. Let's see what this group can do at Toronto.
7. If you offered Graham Rahal seventh at the start of the weekend, he wouldn't have hesitated to take it. However, Rahal started second today and lost time on each pit stop. He wrestled the car on the alternate tire at the end of the first stint and Rahal was always going to be leaped in the pit order by Palou, but the team couldn't get the fuel nozzle connected the first time. It wasn't a massive time loss, but enough.
Then on the final stop the left rear tire wasn't secured and the team had to lift the car a second time on the jack to get the tire secure. It cost Rahal a top five finish. As a driver, Rahal didn't put a wheel wrong. It is brutal throwing a pit crew under the bus, but Rahal probably should have been fourth ahead of Lundgaard or fifth directly behind him. This should have been a double top five day for RLLR.
8. Patricio O'Ward had one choice and that was to adopt a three-stop strategy. It worked. It was likely not going to win O'Ward the race, but if O'Ward does a two-stopper, he might finish inside the top fifteen. A three-stopper got him eighth. I may look it up later, but there is no doubt in my mind O'Ward ran more laps in the 68-second bracket in this race than anyone else in the field. More than the other 26 drivers combined? Maybe that too. That is worth investigating.
We have seen a handful of drives like this at Mid-Ohio before. Simon Pagenaud and Sébastien Bourdais come to mind. Add O'Ward to that list.
9. Marcus Armstrong finished ninth. This is where Armstrong lives and he is a rookie. If Álex Palou wasn't his teammate, I could see Armstrong sneaking out a victory in a surprise race later this season, but that's not going to happen. However, we have to think the podium is within reach for Armstrong.
10. Alexander Rossi went from 13th to tenth in this race, but it could have been better and I question the strategy having Rossi stretch the fuel tank for 30 laps in the final stint. I don't think Brian Barnhart is a good strategist. It feels like Rossi constantly gets put on a bad strategy, and this goes beyond Barnhart. This has trailed Rossi really since 2018. This should have been an eighth-place finish today. He ended up behind his teammate on a three-stopper. No silver linings from this one.
11. I am not sure what Colton Herta is shooting at anymore, because all of his toes are gone. I am not sure he has feet left. Herta lost out on the tire strategy. That happens. He should have put the car on the podium, though. A speeding penalty entering for the final stop cost him that. The limiter didn't click when he hit. That is a tough break, but my goodness, this is another good result thrown away.
Andretti Autosport had two cars start in the top three today and neither finished in the top ten. None of the four cars finished in the top ten! This is a four-car team, one that has won multiple championships and Indianapolis 500s and it cannot put one car in the top ten? Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing couldn't put four cars in the top 33 qualifiers for the Indianapolis 500 and it had two cars in the top seven today.
This is the second time this season Andretti Autosport has failed to get a top ten finisher and in both cases it had multiple cars start in the top three. At St. Petersburg, it had three cars start in the top five and none finish in the top ten. This is the sixth race in nine the team didn't have a top five finisher. And the team has won four pole positions! What is going on at Andretti Autosport?
12. Twelfth was the best Josef Newgarden was going to do today and that is stunning to see. Newgarden tried something different from this teammates. He started on the alternate tire. That didn't work. We will talk about Mid-Ohio in a moment, but with this shorter distance of 80 laps, three pit stops is almost never going to win you the race, but if you are starting 15th, why not try it? It will likely get some you something better than 12th.
Historically, Mid-Ohio is one caution, maybe two. Today, the only caution was early.
O'Ward started 25th. Three pit stops made sense for him. But why not do it from 15th? The tire degradation wasn't that great to think someone could make up 14 spots on their own, especially in a two-stop race. Palou is running away with this championship. If you are Newgarden starting 15th, there must be a point where everyone says, "fuck it" and the team swings for the fences.
13. Andretti Autosport two-fer here. Romain Grosjean did not do much today and was 13th. Devlin DeFrancesco made up ground and ended up 14th. DeFrancesco has been impressive this season. He isn't quite fighting for top ten finishes, but he is spending more time in the top fifteen. He isn't great but he has made progress.
14. Let's run through some drivers here. Rinus VeeKay is maxing out Ed Carpenter Racing's capabilities finishing 15th. The honeymoon is over for Junco Hollinger Racing. Callum Ilott in 16th feels like the limit and that sucks because they showed good speed at points last year, and Ilott isn't finding it anywhere at the moment.
15. Kyle Kirkwood had the early spin after running side-by-side with Álex Palou into turn four. Kirkwood came in early after that spin and I thought he was switching to a three-stopper. No! That team did two stops. Why do two stops when stopping that early? Put Kirkwood on a strategy where he can go all out. Kirkwood only lost six spots after that spin. It only dropped him to ninth, but he stopped only a few laps after O'Ward's first stop. Two stops was a foolish decision. Kirkwood wasn't going to make up any extra ground running slower to make it on two stops.
Too many of these teams are handcuffed to analysis. At some point, just tell a driver to go 100%. No saving. No worries. Just go and live with the result. I don't think Kirkwood would have finished worse than 17th today on a three-stop strategy.
16. Another race where all three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing made the second round of qualifying, two cars ended up in the top ten at the checkered flag and Jack Harvey was outside the top fifteen. It was 18th today. It is difficult to see how Harvey continues for a third season with this team. It already shook up its engineers. One driver wouldn't be a drastic decision. It is hard to see how results would get worse.
17. It was Ryan Hunter-Reay, Conor Daly in a late substitution role for Simon Pagenaud and Hélio Castroneves taking 19th, 20th and 21st. Hunter-Reay is driving for a lost team. Meyer Shank Racing is no better than ECR, and Daly stepped in and got a 20th out of it, at least beating his teammate for the day. Talk about capturing a storyline in three consecutive finishing positions.
18. Sting Ray Robb was 22nd, which is as good as it gets. Agustín Canapino didn't do anything wrong but he is still learning and he was 23rd. I don't think Santino Ferrucci was mentioned once on the television broadcast, but the radio broadcast mentioned he may have had an off course moment. Either way, Ferrucci was 24th, and somehow the best A.J. Foyt Racing finisher.
19. Felix Rosenqvist was 25th after being caught in an opening lap accident with Marcus Ericsson and Rosenqvist spent the entire race one lap down. Despite never being on the lead lap, outside of a handful of corners, Rosenqvist ended ahead of Benjamin Pedersen, who never had a spin or possibly never put a wheel off the racetrack, but is just as slow as they come.
It has been a while since a back-marker has drawn this much vocal criticism after a race from his fellow drivers.
Pedersen shouldn't be in IndyCar. I know we like to praise the Road to Indy system but a driver who was fourth and fifth in his two Indy Lights seasons isn't good enough for IndyCar. Indy Lights isn't some hotbed of young talent, and it definitely wasn't that in 2022.
IndyCar isn't going to do anything. To be fair, Pedersen has driven well in a few races, but boy does he have some blunders. See St. Petersburg.
20. As for Rosenqvist, can he catch a break at Mid-Ohio? He has shown promising speed only for someone to take him out or an engine to fail him for four years now. The Swedish-on-Swedish violence made it worse. Marcus Ericsson hasn't made a mistake in a long time, possibly not since his rookie season in IndyCar. It wasn't even a major mistake. He had some oversteer in turn seven and climbed over Rosenqvist. Oversteer happens.
It also likely ended the IndyCar championship, but that is just how 2023 is going to play out.
21. I mentioned it the last two years and I will mention it again, this race should be 90 laps. One, it is the "Honda 200" and this was only 180 miles. A 90-lap race is 202.5 miles. Heck, 89 laps is 200.25 miles. What are we doing here? Two, Mid-Ohio was a blast when it was almost even between two or three stops. Go watch the 2019 race if you need a reminder. Those ten laps make a massive difference.
22. We must talk about the Simon Pagenaud accident. Pagenaud lost his brakes entering turn four during the Saturday morning practice. Pagenaud's car spun across the track and barrel rolled six and a half times before landing upside down in the runoff area. Pagenaud walked away and was fine but was not cleared to drive today.
When Green Savoree Promotions took over the track over a decade ago it said it would make a number of renovations and even hinted at moving the paddock area to modernize it and create a new pit lane as well. None of that has happened. The other thing that hasn't happened during that time is significant safety improvements to the track.
That is a fluky accident, but part of the reason why Pagenaud rolled is because turn four is on a banked hill. The edge of the circuit is at the top and all the runoff area is downhill on the other side. It is a phenomenal corner and section of the circuit because of the undulations, but we cannot ignore that played into Pagenaud's accident.
I know it isn't practical for GSP to fill in that part of the Earth and create a flat transition to the runoff, but when they show a flashback to Michael Andretti's accident there 25 years ago and it is nearly identical to what Pagenaud experience, you have to ask if there is anything the track could do to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Fluky accidents will always happen. Fast cars do crazy things when something break, but if you look closer at that Andretti accident, you notice a lot of other things haven't change since 1998. Many things have come a long way in 25 years, safety being a notable one, and it just feels like Mid-Ohio still hasn't entered the 21st century.
23. Now we get a holiday and a weekend off before Toronto. Does Álex Palou extend his lead to more than 130 points? We will find out in two weeks.
