It’s looking more and more like Alex Palou could be unstoppable in his quest for the 2025 NTT INDYCAR title, potentially on his way to a fourth championship in five seasons.
Not only did he win at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL, after leading 81 of the 90 laps from the pole on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn, natural terrain track, but he had a 16-second lead over second-place finisher Christian Lundgaard, who was followed by Scott McLaughlin in third.
“It was an amazing weekend,” stated Palou, who won his first race at Barber in 2021, in his first season driving for Chip Ganassi Racing (his second in INDYCAR). “It was a perfect day. I had a ton of fun. Getting the pole was a huge milestone for us – to start up front and try to make profit of the good performance that we had this weekend. The car was super-fast. We were a bit worried because it could be a two-stop or three-stop strategy, depending on yellows, tire and fuel mileage. It’s the toughest track physically for the drivers, especially because we had no cautions. We had to run as fast as possible.”
Drivers enjoy the roller coaster layout at Barber, with its 80-foot elevation change that requires very high commitment for a fast lap. Added to the challenge was using the hybrid that gave drivers an extra 60 hp.
“I love studying how to extract the maximum performance from the hybrid,” continued Palou. “It’s just another tool that we have as drivers to re-gen in different areas or deploy in different areas, or just to change the balance. Maybe not gain on overall lap time but able to change the balance of the car. Last year we started really well with the hybrid, getting a pole at Mid-Ohio (track where first implemented), but we didn’t get any wins with the hybrid.”
The Spaniard has now led over 1,000 laps and collected 14 wins. His championship lead is 60 points over Lundgaard, who finished second in the race for Arrow McLaren.
“The progression we made since the Sebring test earlier this year has been moving forward and going in the right direction,” explained Lundgaard, having moved to Arrow McLaren after three seasons at Rahal Letterman Lanigan. “The team has been doing an awesome job. The pace in the car is there. It’s just about execution. We didn’t really execute in qualifying (started seventh) so we were frustrated and wanted to make up for it. I’ve been battling with the same balance issue all weekend. We changed the car for Warm-up this morning and it was just clearly better.”
Team Penske driver McLaughlin, who won the last two races at Barber, admitted he didn’t have enough for Palou and Lundgaard, in spite of his front row start.
“We didn’t quite have enough today,” he said. “We had a third-place car and finished third. The car lacked some grip. All we can do is execute. It’s a long season and we’ll keep working towards the championship. It’s way too early to be even worrying about points.”
Other than the first-lap accident at St. Petersburg, which saw six laps under the yellow flag, the next 339 laps have surprisingly been caution-free. Almost every driver was on a three-stop strategy and used the preferred red, alternate (softer) tire.
Toronto’s Devlin DeFrancesco was optimistic, having tested at Barber in March. He ranked seventh in Friday’s practice but qualified 27th, having been held up in traffic, to finish 24th. And, although rain was predicted during qualifying, causing teams to adjust to a softer set-up, it was dry for all segments.
“I’m very happy with the work the No. 30 EVTEC boys have put in and the results so far,” said DeFrancesco. “We improved where we needed to improve from the test. Our package is solid here because these kinds of tracks really suit our package. In Qualifying, we were at least three-tenths up but caught (David) Malukas in the last turn. We had a car capable of transferring to the next round. The problem is that we were just stuck (in the race); we were trapped. We had a top-12 car at least.”
Honda has now won all four of the 2025 races. Next up is the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 10th, followed by the Indianapolis 500 on May 25th.
