Ganassi driver controls race from pole as Lundgaard and Rahal complete podium.
With Alex Palou leading 79 of the 90 laps Sunday at the Children’s of Alabama IndyCar Grand Prix, it was pretty much a given early on that the Chip Ganassi Racing phenom would become the first two-time winner of 2026, scoring back-to-back victories from the pole position at Barber Motorsports Park.
So the only real drama in the fourth NTT IndyCar Series race of the season was who would share the podium with him.Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal waged a strong battle for second, and the runner-up finish was a consolation prize after a substandard 17.8-second pit stop cost him a chance to win. Lundgaard overtook Rahal with three laps to go to repeat his second-place finish from last spring’s visit here to the outskirts of Birmingham.Lundgaard, who led 10 laps, said he thought he had a car strong enough to catch Palou, had the unfortunate pit stop occurred with about 22 laps remaining: “The pace we had and the way we were catching him, I think so. There was a bobble on the pit stop. I don’t know if it was my fault or the car went down too fast. But I wanted to go out there and re-pass Graham, just to make up for that and put a statement to ‘We got it.’ It’s unfortunate—the guys have done an amazing job, and I don’t think that’s’ ever really happened. So one in almost 100 starts, I think it’s OK. I think we had a chance to make a difference today, but I don’t think we can be unhappy from 10th to second.” Rahal, seeking his first victory since June 4, 2017, was content with his third-place effort. “All weekend, I felt like this was coming. Got too loose on the reds . Trying to fend off Christian was quite hard, and in the end he just got me. We’re pretty pleased with this,” he said of his 69th career top-five finish.In this series, finishing better than Palou seems to have become the performance yardstick, ever since Palou methodically captured the first of his four IndyCar crowns in 2021. But more weekends than not, the sensational Spaniard has displayed little vulnerability. However, Java House Grand Prix of Arlington winner Kyle Kirkwood has a two-point edge in the standings on second-ranked Palou as the series heads west for the April 19 Long Beach Grand Prix.Kirkwood, of Andretti Global, has finished in the top five in all four races this season. He said coming in fifth—just where he started the day—was an improvement because “my next-best finish was eighth or ninth around this place.” He said he simply is “keeping it consistent.” The season still has 14 events to play out, but if Palou’s reign is to end, someone from the top 10 in points will need to go on a tear at Long Beach, the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the marquee Indianapolis 500 by the end of May to pressure Palou. Despite everyone’s comfort with the status quo, Palou still is showing signs of surging.And he wants to protect his racing secrets. When Julian Robertson, lead engineer on the No. 10 DHL Honda, fielded a question about how the results were special, Palou interrupted and playfully said, “Don’t say too much. You need to kind of talk but not say exactly. He always says the truth. I mean, I don’t lie. I’m not lying when I talk to you guys. But I hide couple of stuff here and there. I don’t want Julian to now tell you the springs we run, where do we struggle too much or not.”Robertson did share that they “didn’t have the right tires in the middle because for most of the weekend we thought it was going to be a red race. It certainly was last year. They were holding up quite well whenever we ran them. This morning with the warm-up, like, tanked. We kind of switched strategy somewhat, which meant in the middle of the race we had to put a set of used blacks on. Got pretty sketchy. We had a whole bunch of reds ready to go. Once we saw how the race was panning out, we switched to Plan B. Turned out good in the end, but sketchy in the middle. Probably a few other teams in the same situation.”Robertson said of Palou, “Obviously, Alex is super-good at driving. The whole team is well-oiled, acts pretty efficiently. As long as we can keep it running smooth, we try and execute as best as we can. That’s the key. Tends to stay pretty calm and execute as needed. We just had to knuckle down and get it done.”They knuckled down, and Palou delivered a knuckle sandwich to his closest competitors, gapping Lundgaard by 13.476 seconds and Rahal by 14.506. But Palou said he didn’t feel like he had whipped anyone. “No. I mean, maybe a little bit. It would have been a very close battle, and maybe would have been a race that Lundgaard could have won. If you look at the result and you don’t follow the race, the timings, maybe then you look like you were so much faster than everybody else. That was not the truth. We had an amazing car. We had an amazing race. But it was not easy. It was tough,” he said after winning at this venue for the third time in six starts.Palou’s lone challenge in the caution-free 90-lapper came as he merged back into traffic after his final pit stop. “That was tough. That was very, very tough. Everybody was fighting like if it was the last lap of the Indy 500,” he said. “I was like, ‘Please guys.’ I was crying inside. ‘Let me by. I just need to fight with Lundgaard.’But even when it appeared effortless, the race was a grind, Palou said: “It was a very tough race. You guys cannot really see it from outside, but we struggled quite a lot. We had to run a used set of primaries in our third stint, which we never, ever do that. We did that during Practice 2. We just did that because we thought it was going to be a red race . Yeah, Lundgaard was getting very close. Rahal was getting very close. I think we got lucky there with the pit exchange that lost some pace or some time.“I'm glad the 13th pole didn't affect the result. That was on my mind,” he said, smiling at the superstition. “Apart of that, everything was great” on the hilly 2.3-mile permanent road course with its 17 turns.Eight different teams were represented among the top 10 finishers.Lundgaard eyes boost in qualifying performanceFor race runner-up Christian Lundgaard, of Arrow McLaren, the key to improved performance will be better starting positions.“I was very frustrated. It’s fair to be frustrated,” he said after a second-straight second-place showing at Barber Motorsports Park that left him 35 points off Kyle Kirkwood’s pace in the standings. He was on track to give Palou a run for the trophy when an ugly pit stop with 22 laps to go knocked out his chance.“It’s a tough position to be in, because it’s like one of those unlucky yellows that hurt your entire race progress, right? We had done so good up until then. Again, we finished P2. We shouldn’t be that frustrated. But when you are up against a car that’s been the most competitive and best car in IndyCar for the past many years, to have a chance to beat him fair and square, that hurts. It’s the position that we’ve tried to be in the past three years. I think we got there today. Really, just to miss out on it for something like that is unfortunate. I think there’s a lot of learnings to take from it.”He said qualifying better is a key goal. His best qualifying spot so far this campaign is from 10th place this weekend, but he has lingered around 18th, 17th, and 12th in the starting lineup. “There’s so many things. Just not getting it right really for many different reasons. It’s just frustrating. We put in so much work. I think the team’s done a phenomenal job in the off-season, producing such great race cars. To not get there in qualifying when it really counts .“I think this weekend was a big surprise for us. We were competitive here last year. Just not really getting it in qualifying is frustrating. We’re not transferring in the Firestone Fast Six when I think we should have,” Lundgaard said. You look at the results, we're right there. Finished third in St. Pete, finished seventh in Arlington, even though we got spun on the first lap. We have the race pace. We just need to start further up.”
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