Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in the No.10 The American Legion Honda went a long way to winning his second NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship at Road America on Sunday. Starting the race from third place on the grid, he chipped away at Colton Herta’s lead, and with ten laps remaining, he made his move and scored his third win of the 2023 season and, in doing so, heads to Mid-Ohio next time out with an incredible 74 point lead in the championship.
Josef Newgarden in the No.2 PPG Chevrolet came home in second place while Pato O’Ward, who started the race from second place, came home in third while Scott Dixon in the No.9 PNC Bank Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing did what he does best and turned a tough qualifying where he started the race from 23rd place to a cool, calm and collected drive to finish the race in fourth place making up 19 positions.
Colton Herta in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda started the race from pole position and looked for a comfortable victory until his final stint, which saw his tires fall off. As a result, he fell down the order to finish the race in fifth place, just ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson while Christian Lundgaard had a fantastic race coming home in seventh place, meaning that the changes that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing made in personnel between Detroit and here are paying off.
Scott McLaughlin came home in eighth place in the No.3 Sonsio Team Penske Chevrolet while Kyle Kirkwood recovered from an early race incident to finish in ninth place while Alexander Rossi, who led the way in warm-up, rounded out the top ten.
Graham Rahal had a great race as he came home in 11th place for RLL just ahead of Rinus VeeKay and while Will Power went off strategy early on and suffered a fueling issue and dropped down the order but recovered to finish the race in 13th just ahead of the Meyer Shank Racing duo of Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves.
Despite a great qualifying effort by Santino Ferrucci and AJ Foyt Racing, he came home in 16th place while in his road course return, Ryan Hunter Reay who had not competed on a road course in a year and a half came from 27th on the grid to finish the race in 17th place just ahead of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott and Agustin Canapino.
Benjamin Pedersen’s promising qualifying came to nothing unfortunately for the Danish American as he came home in 21st place just behind Felix Rosenqvist.
Sting Ray Robb was 22nd despite an off track incident while Devlin DeFransceco was 23rd just ahead of Marcus Armstrong and Romain Grosjean who has a race to forget in 25th place just ahead of Jack Harvey while David Malukas rounded out the order. Next up for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES is the Honda Indy 200 and the Mid-Ohio Sportscar course.