Alex Palou has revealed he felt like “Lightning McQueen” after completing 28 on-track passes for his first short-oval win at the Farm to Finish 275.
Alex Palou continued his dominate season, claiming victory for the seventh time this season. After his win at the Farm to Finish 275 at Iowa Speedway, the Spaniard has won at all four circuit types in IndyCar: road courses, street courses, superspeedways, and short-ovals. Palou joked during the Post-Race Press Conference saying, “I’m an IndyCar driver now finally.”
Palou continued, “Honestly, it’s tough. It’s tough. That’s why it’s so fun to race in IndyCar with these teams, with these different tracks. It’s different challenges that you have. You go to a street course and you need different techniques than on a road course, and then you go to an oval and you have superspeedways, and then you come here and it’s completely different to IMS.”
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was happy to turn his pole position into a win at the Farm to Finish 275 saying, “It’s been super fun“.
“It’s super fun, keeps you awake, keeps you having to push every single weekend, and honestly, I was already super happy yesterday with our first pole here. But to be able to get our first win here and fighting on track, it’s been a good day. It’s been super fun.”
Passing to the max
Alex Palou passed cars for position 28 times during the Farm to Finish 275. The Reigning Champion compared himself to the protagonist of the Cars franchise, Lighting McQueen.
“Nice. Yeah, I think that’s my max. I was passing so many cars I felt like I was Lightning McQueen or something. It’s the first time that I’m not getting overtaken every single lap on a short oval. It was fun. It was very fun.”
“There was a lot of traffic, which it was good. It was fun getting to see different people struggling in different areas, then you would get to another car and he would be running the line that you liked, and then you would struggle for five, ten laps. But it was fun.“
Battling with Josef Newgarden
Palou found himself in “hard racing” against the Iowa Speedway experienced, Josef Newgarden. Newgarden took the lead from Palou on Lap 64. Later, Newgarden took the lead again from Palou with 35 laps to go. However, after a slow pit stop for Newgarden ended his battle with the CGR driver during the Farm to Finish 275.
Palou commented on the battles, saying, “Yeah, it was hard. It was hard racing. I think we got small contact heading into 1 when he passed me. It wasn’t bad. It was good enough to be in the marbles. But yeah, you had to fight hard. I think he knew that, without that, that I would have been able to be side by side in Turn 1 and kind of hold the position. But it was tough.”
“Then in strategy, sometimes it goes like that. Honestly, we knew that we’re not going to gain much by pitting early, especially the first pit stop. He kind of had a super big lead into us, and I did not expect him to pit that lap. It worked for us, and it worked for us as well on the last one.”
