4 Takeaways From Alex Palou’s Win At Detroit Grand Prix Slugfest

Detroit — Alex Palou did it again. But he did it in a little different way. Palou, who typically masters pitting later than the rest of the field and then burying them with fresher tires and already having a lead, pitted earlier than the other leaders and used that strategy to his advantage Sunday in winning the Detroit Grand Prix. After Palou pitted, a caution came out, putting his top challengers outside the top five. Kyle Kirkwood, the defending race winner, rallied to second. But he had nothing for Palou, who won for the fourth time in eight races this season, including his third on a street course. “Last year or the past couple years, we were not that strong on street courses,” Palou said in his post-race news conference. “And this year we’ve been able to win at three street courses. It just feels incredible.” Here are my takeaways: 1. McLaughlin And Power Upset Over Tangle Scott McLaughlin and Will Power tangled in the race, which resulted in Power having too much damage to continue and ruining McLaughlin’s day. Power was in no mood to talk, as he delivered an expletive toward the FOX cameras after he got out of his car. McLaughlin was frustrated as well. “We were side-by-side at [Turn] 3 and I got, like, a little sideways — which made me press him to the wall a lot more aggressively than I wanted,” McLaughlin told me and other reporters after the race. “I don’t know whether he’s pissed off because of that. I’m not sure. But then after that, he got me. And I was pretty happy with it. “I was like, ‘Still good, good result, right now he’s faster than me on restarts, I’ll let him have it.’ And then … I was just going to go the outside, and he just kept turning in and just basically gave me no option. Just turned into the side of me and drove me into the right-side fence and another fence.” McLaughlin and Power were teammates for several years at Team Penske. “I have so much respect for Will Power,” McLaughlin said. “He’s been my teammate for so many years and helped me so much. And we’ll talk about it. “I regard him as a guy with a lot of respect. But today I just felt like he gave me no option, and I really didn’t want to see that happen for either of us.” 2. Kirkwood Questions Yellows After the Indy Grand Prix, where INDYCAR officials were criticized for Alexander Rossi sitting on the frontstretch without the caution being thrown in hopes of finishing a green-flag pit cycle before issuing a full-course caution, INDYCAR began a new policy not to let green-flag pit cycles influence a full-course caution. That philosophy appeared to bite Kirkwood, who still had to make his final pit stop when the caution came out and Palou had already pitted. And then another yellow came out when Kirkwood was challenging Palou, a caution he felt was a quick trigger. “This is what happens when you guys rip into them, to be honest,” Kirkwood said in his post-race news conference. “It was disappointing to see. Two yellows out caught me out fighting for the lead where we almost … went to make a pass on him. “Yellow comes out right when I have a run on him. I was pretty disappointed with it. But I understand their position. You guys all called for yellows, so they’re going to throw yellows.” 3. Palou’s Strategy Works When things are going well, it’s hard to have things not go your way. Just ask Palou, who pitted at the optimal time. If he was on the other strategy, though, he was still likely in a better position already, having used his two sets of soft tires. He pulled away from Kirkwood at the end with Kirkwood on the soft tires and Palou on the hard tires, which are more consistent even though they are slightly slower at the start of a run. No matter the strategy, Palou was just happy to come back after losing a few spots in the opening stint after starting from the pole. “It didn’t really feel like we were leading that much,” Palou said. “I know that we were leading, but man, it was a lot of work.” 4. Rough Racing The race featured contact between several drivers and Santino Ferrucci, Alexander Rossi and Kyffin Simpson were among those who had penalties for avoidable contact. Is that just the nature of the tight Detroit circuit? Or are drivers feeling the pressure? “The cars are too strong, frankly,” said Graham Rahal, who finished third, in his post-race news conference. “Now the cars are very durable. You can hit things quite hard, and they don’t really break that much. “Then the second thing is people know here that you just have to be a bulldog. The thing is the guys that keep doing it. And I’m not going to name names but some of them have a lot of experience. And it hasn’t worked out for them once. So I’m not really sure why they keep making the moves of desperation that they do.” 4 ½: What’s Next The INDYCAR drivers head to World Wide Technology Raceway (commonly known by its previous name, Gateway) for a race on the 1.25-mile asphalt oval across the river from St. Louis. The race is the second of four on small ovals this year, with one already at Phoenix and then a doubleheader at The Milwaukee Mile later this year.