St.Petersburg (USA), October 24/25 – Monaco Increase Management driver Alex Palou wrapped up his first ever IndyCar season as second-best rookie after finishing 13th in a very eventful final round of the series on the road track of St.Petersburg, Florida.

After a promising 3rd place in practice, a yellow flag during his final qualifying attempt meant that he could not improve from 16th on the starting grid. He also lost a few spots at the start from making a mistake with the fuel saving settings, then his Dayle Coyne Racing with Team Goh effort decided to gamble on the pit-stop strategy. In a race marred by several incidents, Palou began to move up the field as other cars pitted and on lap 75 of the 100-lap event he had moved up to second and briefly came to lead the race on lap 80!

The final restart from a caution period, though, had Palou pit for a final quick refueling and he rejoined the track in P13 and took the chequered flag in that position.

“We didn’t have a good start because of my mistake” Alex shared “and since it is difficult to overtake here, we gambled a bit with our strategy, which did not work out at the end of the day, but was the right thing to do. Another yellow flag would have put us in the top five with our Guaranteed Rate Honda, but we did the best we could. Looking back at the season, there were some good moments and some that were not so good. Overall, it was a tough season, with the limited time to learn the tracks and understand the car. But it was a great learning experience that will hopefully help for the future”.