Monaco, May 3 – Things looked really good for MIM driver Alex Palou in the first half of the 248-laps XPEL 375 at Texas Speedway. Starting 2nd behind team-mate Scott Dixon, the Chip Ganassi Racing duo had survived unscathed a massive car pile-up on Lap 1, pulling away at the restart from the rest of the field and building a comfortable margin of over 5 seconds to the third-running car. Palou had managed the best lap speed of the race in the process and was set for another podium finish-or better, when a yellow flag on lap 118 nullified their advantage. Coming back to the pits, Alex lost over a second to his competitors during refueling and tire change and came back on track P6. From then on, his race was marred by understeer but he managed to improve from a low 12th to seventh place at the end of the event. This is Palou’s third top-10 finish and he’s now running third in the series at 127 and looking forward to the next round on the Indianapolis road course in two weeks’ time.