Alex Palou holds off field to win caution-filled Detroit Grand Prix
David Goricki
Detroit — The NTT IndyCar drivers went into Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on the streets of downtown Detroit with the attitude of "expect the unexpected," with the new 1.7-mile, nine-turn course in play after racing on Belle Isle since 1992.
Most of the drivers felt the track was too bumpy, too short and too tight with cars going more than 180 mph down Jefferson Avenue into a low-speed Turn 3 hairpin corner, along with other low-speed corners, resulting in chaos or lots of drama.
They proved to be correct with Alex Palou surviving the chaos to win the caution-filled, thrilling race with lots of passing … or attempted passing, especially in the final laps.
It was definitely a street fight with Palou — the 2021 series champion and points leader — first winning the pole, then going on to lead 74 of the 100 laps in his No. 10 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing, needing to work hard to lead the pack during several restarts during the last half of the race.
Palou went on to win by 1.18 seconds over Will Power in his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet, with Felix Rosenqvist also finishing on the podium. Scott Dixon, Palou’s teammate, was fourth, followed by Alexander Rossi, Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren teammate who battled Rosenqvist during the final 10 laps.
Palou was actually overtaken by Power just after the midway point of the race after a restart with 45 laps left. Palou had trouble with his gears, allowing Power to get past him before correcting the issue and taking the lead back soon after.
It was a wild finish with great racing during the final 20 laps with multiple caution periods also in play due to accidents.
With a restart with 10 laps left, Power went to the outside of Palou heading into Turn 3, then swung to the inside where he was set to attempt a pass when tapped from behind by Dixon and Rossi went past Rosenqvist, Power and Dixon for second while Palou stayed in front the rest of the way.
“Super proud of what we did,” Palou said. “We had a really fast car. We were really good on the first stint. I think we did the right strategy with just pushing. I think we had a gap that gave us the opportunity to fight with Will. At the end it was too busy for me. I wanted to be more calm at the end of the race, but honestly it was a great day for us. It was a fun race, better than I expected. Detroit did a great job, and the fans were amazing.”
And, on the restarts, especially one with Power getting past him: “We had an issue that probably was my fault, couldn’t really upshift. We got it back, though.”
Power talked of his late pass attempt on Palou on the restart when he made contact with Dixon.
“The contact (with Dixon), I didn’t even know he was there, feel bad if it effected his race,” Power said. “I was on the outside, was going to cut back and get Palou in the next corner and then obviously I felt the contact. It was a great day. I couldn’t get Palou. He was too good today.”
Palou pushed his points lead to 51 over Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Ericsson and 70 points ahead of Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske, who finished 10th.
Rossi and Rosenqvist will talk later concerning their racing against each other, making contact while heading into a turn.
“We’ll discuss it internally,” Rossi said.
Said Rosenqvist: “I was on the inside, and he squeezed me quite a lot, so I had to run into him or I was going to clip the left wall. I think I was quite a bit ahead. He played it hard on entry and I played it hard in exit. We’ll discuss it.”
Things were interesting from the first turn when cars bunched up, resulting in Callum Ilott’s No. 77 Chevrolet climbing atop Kyle Kirkwood’s No. 27 Honda, causing damage to both cars and causing the first of the seven caution periods.
Kirkwood came back from the back of the field to finish sixth.
“We had a really fast race car, knew that all weekend long, so we kind of used that to our advantage,” Kirkwood said. “We had some really close racing there. I got hit from behind, so we cycled back from 27th which was super unfortunate, but that’s part of IndyCar. We stuck with our gut, did the same strategy that we planned on doing and it cycled us in front of a lot of cars. We were able to pass a lot of cars because of our pace and we had great pit stops, so everything kind of played in our favor there.”
John Watson, the grand marshal of the Grand Prix who won the first Formula One race on the streets of Detroit when the circuit ran around the Renaissance Center back in 1982, said prior to the race that back then “my colleagues turned up and the first thing they said was you can’t overtake, where are you going to pass,” and Watson showed them how by winning the race after starting 17th.
Well, multiple drivers showed they would have opportunities to pass early on with Romain Grosjean overtaking Scott McLaughlin for second place after the restart on lap 7 with Dixon also getting around Power with Palou holding on to the lead and then building it to more than six seconds 15 laps into the race.
Grosjean lost valuable seconds just before his first pit stop when he went into the runoff while fighting to stay ahead of McLaughlin. Grosjean ended up crashing into the wall on Lap 81 due to his own mistake.
Pato O’Ward, who was one of the fastest cars all weekend and running in the top 10, had trouble in the pits on Lap 35. He lost a lap, then tried to make it up and crashed into the wall eight laps later, ending his day and causing yet another caution.
Things got bizarre when after Sting Ray Robb crashed — bringing out another yellow flag — veteran driver Graham Rahal hit the wall while under caution and Petersen rammed into his car.
Still, Palou stayed out of trouble and ended up celebrating in Victory Lane with the fans and Roger Penske and his group, including race chairman Bud Denker and general manager Michael Montri thrilled as well with the race returning to the streets of downtown Detroit for the first time in 32 years.
Denker pointed out there were 189 passes during the race, including 142 for position, resulting in exciting racing for the fans who were allowed to see half of the course for free.
david.goricki@detroitnews.com