NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship leader Alex Palou in the No.10 The American Legion Chip Ganassi Racing Honda says that the team is happy to finish on the podium.
The Spaniard came from 12th on the grid to finish the race in third place and in doing so scored his seventh podium finish of the season and maintains a 80 point lead in the championship with just five races remaining this season and speaking following the action he commented saying:
Honestly, we’re very happy to finish on the podium here today. We were struggling a lot the first couple of runs, and some issues with the balance of the car. But we made changes that improved the car, had a good strategy and great pit stops. All that, plus a good restart at the end, got us to the podium. So super proud for everyone on the team. There’s still a lot for us to improve here, but we gained a lot of confidence this weekend.”
The Spaniard went on to say:
“I’m very happy to drive our American Legion Honda to the podium. It was a really busy day, even making five pit stops. We didn’t really have the pace at the beginning, but the team put me in a position to finish third after starting fifth on the restart with four laps to go. This was a great crowd here in Iowa, and I’m happy for The American Legion to be here on the podium in Iowa.”
Scott Dixon in the No.9 PNC Bank Honda leaves Iowa frustrated after falling to third in the championship and is now 120 points behind his teammate and championship leader Alex Palou following the Iceman’s second sixth place in a row. Dixon started today’s race from 9th and ran as high as second put fell back to sixth.
Speaking following the race, Dixon said:
“Honestly, the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda was very good. We may have gone a bit too long on our stints and got undercut. It was a frustrating day, as we had moved up to third, were then challenging for second and then ended up sixth. This is definitely a fun track. It’s obviously more fun when things go right, but that’s not always possible.”
Marcus Ericsson in the No.8 Huski Iced Spritz Honda started the race from tenth place and came home in ninth place and speaking following the action he said:
“It was a bit of an up and down day. I had a really good start to the race and for most of the day we were running in the top five. But things just didn’t fall our way in the second half of the race. It’s a bit disappointing and frustrating, but that’s short oval racing sometimes. I love racing on short ovals, constantly battling and overtaking, but there’s so much with strategy, how the yellows fall, how the tire degradation gets and overall so many decisions that you have to make as a driver. Overall, though, it’s been a good weekend for us in the No. 8 car.”
Takuma Sato in the No.11 Deloitte Honda ended the race in 25th place after hitting the wall. The Japanese driver went to pit-road for repairs and came out on track finishing the event 13 laps down on Josef Newgarden.
“It was a really tough day for our Deloitte 11-car team. We had such a successful practice this morning. Everything was hooked up and the balance felt much more connected. But unfortunately, things flipped on us during the race. We caught some understeer and things just seemed off. But a big congratulations to Alex for achieving the podium finish. Chip Ganassi Racing had a very strong day today and I feel sorry that we couldn’t deliver the result that we wanted. We learned a lot, so hopefully we can transfer all the information to our last oval in St. Louis.”
Next up is the Music City Grand Prix of Nashville where Scott Dixon is the defending race winner and Alex Palou took a third place finish.