Palou wins again to tie championship lead at Barber

Álex Palou added to his list of IndyCar victories with a fairly routine victory in the Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park. Battles and pitstop drama further back left the Spaniard to win and tie up the standings as joint leader.

Polesitter Palou led the field to green, quickly gapping David Malukas, who held off the challenge of Graham Rahal who made a strong start behind. Further back, McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard made moves up the field  after a less than ideal qualifying saw him with work to do.

Compelling overtaking action was few and far between, with the top three maintaining position through the early pit stops, before Rahal then made an opportune move to jump past Malukas, before Lundgaard managed the same through pit stops, while Palou continued longer in front, going over a quarter of the race on his first tyre set.

Romain Grosjean maintained his strong start to the season for Dale Coyne Racing, running strongly in the top 10 once again - including impressive in and out laps to retain position ahead of Scott Dixon, and just behind old nemesis Marcus Ericsson before overtaking the Swede on track.

A rare piece of action saw Rinus VeeKay spun by Alexander Rossi on lap 37 but the Dutchman was able to continue, and one lap later, Louis Foster tapped Lundgaard as the Dane lapped him but no further drama followed.

The front runners began the second pit sequence around lap 43, Malukas the furthest forward to jump, although he was 12 seconds off leader Palou at the time. With the pit sequence complete for most, Lundgaard had jumped Rahal into P2.

Palou encountered traffic after his next stop, hindering his previously somewhat insurmountable lead, bringing Lundgaard into his pit stop window before the Dane’s own pit stop went haywire, with an issue attaching the rear right tyre seeing him drop behind Rahal once again on new tyresz

Rahal continued on behind Palou by 12 seconds, but Lundgaard and Malukas running third and fourth and with more push to pass available than veteran Rahal, struggled to hold off  Lundgaard - the Dane passing him with just four laps to go. It was a case of pushing to the very end for Rahal as he mastered his car placement and use of push to pass to hold off the fast charging Malukas for a stunning podium.

📸Lundgaard dives past Rahal.

Palou guided his car home to a fairly routine victory, tying up the scores at the top of the championship and adding to his long list of road course victories in IndyCar.

📸Image credits: IndyCar on FOX, NTT IndyCar Series.