LEEDS, Ala. — IndyCar doesn’t have a yellow flag problem; it has an Alex Palou problem.
He’s just too good.
And heading to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Month of May, Palou has left the rest of the IndyCar competitors seeing red with envy.
Palou started on the pole and never looked back. He was in front for 81 laps of the 90-lap race, relinquishing the lead briefly during his pit stops.
The three-time and back-to-back NTT IndyCar Series Champion scored his 14th career IndyCar win in Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park.
Palou defeated Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard by 16.260 seconds. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was third, 23.5 seconds behind in the No. 3 Chevrolet.
Rinus VeeKay of Dale Coyne racing was fourth in the No. 18 Honda and Team Penske’s Will Power was fifth in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, 33.073 seconds behind the race winner.
It was his third win in the first four races this season and he takes a 60-point lead in the championship standings into next Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
The Month of May culminates with the 109th Indianapolis 500 on May 25, a race that Palou has never won.
The only near-incident of the race came on Lap 57 when rookie Louie Foster’s Honda went off track. He was able to get through the grass and return to the race track, but pulled out in front of two cars.
Luckily for all, there was no incident, but one of the two cars was Palou’s No. 10 HRC Honda. IndyCar did not wave the yellow flag and high-speed racing continued through to the checkered flag.
The only yellow flag of the season was Laps 1-6 in the season opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 2 because of a three-car incident in Turn 3 of the street course.
Since that time, it has been green flag racing for the season.
For Palou, his latest victory came on the same race course where he got this first IndyCar win to start the season in 2021.
“It was the perfect day, I would say the perfect weekend,” Palou said. “Super proud of everybody that has been working on the 10 car at Chip Ganassi Racing. It was a perfect car, super-fast and a lot of fun.
“I loved it. An amazing day.
“We’ve always been really good here. Every single lap feels amazing here in an Indy car.”
The second-place finish was Lundgaard’s third podium finish in the first four races this season.
“It’s awesome, it’s everything we could have hoped for and much better,” Lundgaard said. “In Thermal, we had the pace and the 10 car still beat us. At Long Beach, the crew did an awesome job in strategy, and we did that here today.
“We made a key change overnight and that is the reason we are here today.”
McLaughlin’s third-place finish kept him from winning his third race in a row at Barber, but he has some hope that eventually, the rest of IndyCar can catch up to the top driver in the series.
“The car was fast, but we didn’t have enough today,” McLaughlin said. “We had the third-best car today and that was it.
“When a guy is on top of his game, you do the best you can. He is executing but we are executing as well. We have to concentrate on being there and if we are there, we will have a battle as well.”
Scott Dixon started 27th and passed 14 cars to finish 13th, the biggest mover of the race.
