Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in the No.10 The American Legion Honda scored the team’s third podium finish in two races. The Spaniard finished third in the PPG375 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday. Palou started the race from seventh place on the grid and avoided the mayhem to score his first podium finish of the season. Speaking following the race, he said:
“We finished P3 and it feels like a win today. The No. 10 The American Legion car was really fast and I felt very comfortable all weekend, but especially today. It was allowing me to overtake when I wanted and be super racey. It was a shame at the end because we were super close to the win. I can’t wait for the next one and we’ll be ready trying to get our first win of the season in Long Beach.”
Scott Dixon in the No.9 PNC Bank Honda started the race from second place on the grid and fell back earlier on to save fuel and manage his tires and managed to avoid Romain Grosjean’s late race crash to finish the event in fifth place and in doing so has surpassed INDYCAR legend Mario Andretti’s top-five record with 198 career top-five finishes and speaking following the race, the Iceman who is in third place in the championship commented saying:
“Definitely an interesting day. We got a weird set of tires and had loads of understeer and lost some positions. Towards the end there the race we got tons of cautions and we pitted off sequence from some of the others. We simply needed more laps. The car had good speed, a lot of the Ganassi cars did. Unfortunately, we ended up fifth. Not a bad points save but ultimately we’re here to win.”
Marcus Ericsson in the No.8 Huski Chocolate Honda went into the race leading the championship and recovered from a disappointing qualifying session which saw him start the race from 16th to finish the event in eighth place and speaking following the race he commented saying:
“P8 in the end here in Texas which was probably the best we could have got out of that today. For some reason we were struggling for some speed in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda this weekend. It was a bit of a tougher race than we wanted but still happy with the P8. On a bad day to finish P8 that’s how you win a championship. We’ll take that and go to Long Beach and try and fight back there.”
It was a disappointing end to his first race as a Chip Ganassi Racing driver for two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato in the No.11 Niterra Honda as he started the race from P6 and retired from the race on lap 46 and speaking following the race he commented saying:
“The No. 12 got thrown a bit to the outside, and then someone else had jumped up inside of him, and then I was caught up just a bit too high. So, that was it and I got into the wall. I really feel sorry for the crew, as the No. 11 Niterra Honda team did a fantastic job in preparations.”